Nakamura Must Play Regularly To Get in Japan Side

Shunsuke Nakamura, recently of Celtic and now at Espanyol, has been told by Japan head coach Takeshi Okada that he must feature regularly for the Spanish side in order to be considered for the World Cup finals in South Africa 2010.

While I'm all in favour of giving players an incentive to perform at their best, is Okada really trying to convince us that he will leave out the man who is by far Japan's most creative player if he doesn't start, say, 30 matches for Espanyol next season.

Who is Okada trying to kid. I'll bet a pound to a penny that if Nakamura features mainly as a substitute, come the end of the season, Okada will be praising him for how fresh he will be for the World Cup.

African Qualifying Round Up

Regular readers of this blog will know that I always enjoy the African qualifying groups a great deal. This is mainly because of the big teams ability to mess things up (see Cameroon this time around and Nigeria last time out), because of the frequent accusations of collusion and cheating; and, of course, the general air of chaos that surrounds football in Africa.

So, here's a quick round up of where things stand in qualifying for South Africa 2010.

Tunisia (Group 2) and Ghana (Group 4) both look in strong positions to qualify. Ghana, on nine points and 5 clear of Mali are pretty much already there, judging by the fixtures they still have to come.

African Cup of Nations Champions Egypt, who got off to an appalling start in qualifying turned things around last week by beating Rwanda 3-0 in their Group 3 clash.

The return match with Zambia, who currently top the group, will probably decide who wins that group.

Nigeria, who are two points behind Tunisia in Group 2, should be very careful. Mainly because they have to beat the Tunisians in September, but also because football legend Pele has tipped them to reach the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup.

Other predictions from the great man including Columbia to win the '94 World Cup Finals, China to qualify from their 2002 World Cup Group (they were bottom with 0 points and 0 goals); Argentina and France to be finalists in 2002 (neither qualified for even the second round). The list goes on and on!

Score More, Concede Less...It's Easy This Management Stuff

Let's be honest, we're all armchair managers. It all seems so clear when you're sitting in the stands or watching on TV just exactly what the manager needs to do to win a game. Why the managers themselves can't see what you can see is, of course, one of the enduring mysteries of football.

That's why I particularly enjoyed this piece in the South Africa Times giving the South Africa national coach some expert advice on how to get Bafana Bafana winning football matches.

Former South Africa manager Carlos Alberto Parreira has suggested that they might like to try scoring more goals, while adding "The focus should be on not allowing avoidable goals".

So, score more goals and concede less goals. Brilliant. Quite why current Bafana boss Joel Santana hasn't hit on this revolutionary new tactic for himself is unclear.

The World Cup Will Cause World Peace

Sometimes; well, often really, I want to weep. Not, as you might think, because of all the suffering that goes on in the world or because I've stubbed my toe getting out of bed. Not even because I've been listening to Johnny Cash singing 'Hurt' - although that does get me every time.

No, I mainly want to weep when people who should know better make outrageous claims for their products. I'm not taken in by this whole 'brand values' thing generally, but when someone says "next year’s World Cup will unite South Africa to eliminate the remains of apartheid and contribute to world peace", as Danny Jordaan, head of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee, did, really the only logical response is to cry. A lot.

There's No News...So Let's Make Something Up..Part 1 of Several 100

It's been a quiet week in football in general, apart from the USA's sterling performance against Brazil in the Confederations Cup Final.

So, bored journalists do what they are best at and that is : make something up.

Take this headline in the Daily Mail from a couple of days ago:

'We fear England could ruin our World Cup chances, reveals Brazilian superstar Kaka'

Wow, you think. Kaka must have really taken leave of his senses to consider England a threat to Brazil at the 2010 World Cup Finals.

Well, um, no. He hasn't. Nowhere in the quotes given by Mr Kaka does he say anything even remotely like 'we fear England'.

What he does say are the usual platitudes like "I think England is playing very good (sic) under Capello" and "the most important national teams at the moment are Spain, Argentina, Italy, France and England."


Still, why let the truth stand in the way of a good story. Expect much, much more of this kind of thing before the World Cup actually starts. And much, much more when it's actually happening.

I'm Going Into The Hotel Business

Would it be possible, do you think, to build twenty or so hotels in nine months? How long does building a hotel actually take, because if I could do it, then I would.

I figure that if I can get 20 hotels open in nine months, that will leave me three months to market them to the hundreds of thousands of football fans that will be coming to the 2010 World Cup.

Y'see, right now there's a slight problem. Durban, one of the host cities for the finals, doesn't even have enough hotel space to accommodate rugby fans for the first test of the British and Irish Lions tour. So, it's damn sure not going to have enough space to accommodate all those football fans in a year's time.

So, it's time to get into the hotel business.

Security, What Security

OK, so Barack Obama is going to attend the opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup Finals. Nice of Sepp Blatter to announce this way, way in advance, so that security - already a contentious issue for these finals - can be compromised still further.

And it gives any potential terrorist plenty of time to put a plan in place. Good thinking, Mr Blatter. I for one am in awe of your great generosity of spirit.

Oops...I Spoke To Soon

Well, after an impressive performance against Brazil and an even more impressive performance against Italy, Egypt somehow contrived to get knocked out of the Confederations Cup by being soundly beaten by USA.

Worst still, some of the team were apparently robbed after celebrating that 1-0 win over Italy. Robbed, you say? By who?

Well, if South Africa paper Sunday World is to be believed, they were robbed by 5 hookers some of the team had decided to pick up.

In a story, rather unimaginatively titled 'Prostitutes 5, Players 0' (surely they could have come up with something better than that? ', an unnamed police officer is quoted as saying:

“We have confirmed that some of the players brought prostitutes, whom they picked up on Oxford Road [in Rosebank], to their hotel rooms and we have strong suspicions that they were cleaned out by those ladies of the night.”

Oops. Egyptian FA officials are, equally unsurprisingly, denying everything and demanding that everyone and their wife apologise.

The Great Vuvuzelas Controversy

Anyone watching the Confederations Cup over the last week or so can't fail to have heard the continuing, defeaning drone coming from hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic horns known as Vuvuzelas.

These are, apparently, extremely popular among South African football fans. However, such is the incessant din produced by this horns, that players (well Xabi Alonso anyway) have complained it knocks their concentration while broadcasters have asked FIFA to ban them.

Right now, Sepp Blatter has refused to countenance such a move and so that's that.

To those people complaining about the noise of the Vuvuzela I say this : Don't worry, regular South African football fans can't afford to attend the 2010 World Cup so it's not going to be a problem.