The Greatest Show on Earth Returns (Part II)

 

Welcome back, as promised, this is the second part of the introduction to the tournament, I feel that I must go into slightly more detail about the format of the tournament and the side issues that have arisen.

As previously mentioned, there are 16, yes, sixteen, more teams taking part. This of course means that there are many more games to be played, 104 to be precise up from 64 which has been the number played since 1998 and therefore the length of the tournament has increased from 29 to 39 days.

To be honest, this is a terrible idea, for many reasons, even the keenest football fan will lose some interest and may find it hard to get too excited in the first place. I mean who is not excited about the thought of the clash between Uzbekistan and the Democratic republic of Congo? footballing giants both.

Player health is also going to be affected, the chances for injury will be higher and the amount of rest the players will receive before the start of their domestic seasons will be greatly reduced, especially for those teams who advance far into the tournament.

However, none of the above is of the remotest interest to the evil empire, that is FIFA. They claim they want to spread the game and give more opportunities to the minnows of world football to have a chance at playing at the world cup, the supposed pinnacle of a footballer’s career.  I would beg to differ and just put it down to greed on behalf of the bean counters at FIFA.

After all, FIFA HQ is in Switzerland, a country synonymous with banks and dirty money.  Unfortunately, this greed has spread across all aspects of the tournament, from ticket prices to the cost of transport to the games, hotel rooms, the list is endless.

I am worried that we will have a lot of empty seats at many games, as proper fans simply will not be able to afford to attend, and the atmosphere may suffer.

I will conclude with a few small rule changes that are to be implemented at this world cup. Football is known as the beautiful game, we fans want to be entertained, whilst those who play want to win when they get on the grass.

There has been for years a certain distaste at some of the dark arts, so to speak, that take place during a game, feigning injury, time wasting, trying to get other players punished unjustly.

The evil empire has decided enough is enough and has been proactive in trying to stop this type of behaviour, and here credit must be given to FIFA. The aim is to speed the game up, so you have five seconds to take a throw in, a player being substituted will have ten seconds to leave the field, and if they take longer, then their replacement will have to wait a minute before coming on.

A player who receives treatment for a possible injury will have to go off for a minute before continuing to play. There are others, but these ones stand out for me. 

Before we end the intro, here are two more little clips from the last two finals played in the USA (1994) and Mexico (1986) to get you in the mood for what is to come.

 

Tomorrow, I will start the group previews, so adios until then.