...those are words I have been waiting to say for 4 years. I am very very excited and planned to share with you what I think makes the World Cup so special. You see, my belief is that while the quality of soccer is better in the Champions League, the World Cup remains the best tournament in the world for reasons other than soccer. I'm not sure how much strength this opinion holds, to I decided to get some additional insight from the four most knowledgable soccer fans that I know, here after known as my soccer gurus. I asekd them two questions: First, who would win a match between Chelsea and Brazil and second, where is the better soccer played - Champions League or World Cup?
Comments from three of the guru's came in and they were quality. I began planning how I would use their comments to strengthen my argument and write an eloquent post. I think it was going to be good. But then I got some comments from the last guru, Mike, that went well beyond anything I could have asked for. So instead of me stumbling over words trying to explain this all, I am going to let you read his comments instead...
Question 1: Chelsea/Man Utd/Barca V Brazil
I’m not sure about this, the problem is that it is very hard to gauge the form of international teams considering they play so few games a year. Also club form tends to be streaky, if you had asked me the same question the weekend when Chelsea were rubbish against Bolton I would say no way, but the weekend that they hammered 7 past Stoke, a different animal entirely. I guess the answer is, whoever played better on the day. Brazil are a world class team, Chelsea too (as is Man Utd, Barca, Inter) with world class players.
Question 2: Better soccer played
This is a more interesting question for me. It’s not a new debate and several managers of top European teams would contend that the Champions League is the pinnacle of professional football, where the top players play each other every year for the richest prize in football. From a fan’s perspective there are 2 ways of looking at this:
1. The Champions League has the best players in the world who play the highest standard of professional football. Some world class players (like Ryan Giggs, Liam Brady, Ian Rush, George Best, Alfredo di Stefano, Mark Hughes, Hasan Salihamidzic, Fredi Kanoute) have never had the chance to play on the great stage as they played for countries which struggled to qualify or would never have a chance of qualifying. Professional clubs sign the best players available to them and the UEFA Champions League is the pinnacle of professional football at the moment, so obviously the best players and therefore the best football is played in that competition every year. Also the standard of players at the World Cup varies wildly (especially in the first round), could one name the New Zealand team’s stars? Or North Korea, Saudia Arabia, Algeria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Honduras, Chile and some other nations? There will always be the debate as to whether the best teams are all at the World Cup finals given how tough some confederations are to qualify from (Europe and Africa are good examples). The best teams are in the Champions League season after season.
2. The World Cup has the history and passion of no other football tournament on this planet. It is the biggest sporting event on the planet. There is a long history of the Football World Cup, it is only held every 4 years and takes up to 2 years to qualify for, it has the single biggest television audience for any sporting event on the planet. The number of people watching the final of the World Cup outnumbers the Super Bowl by a ratio of 9:1. The honor of representing your nation in the World Cup is incomparable to professional club teams, for example when Inter won the Champions League, there were 10s of thousands of people celebrating in Milan, when Italy won the World Cup in ’06, there were 10s of millions celebrating around the entire country. I remember Ireland participating in the World Cup for the first time in 1990 (where we made it to the quarter finals to narrowly lose to host country Italy), I can still remember vividly the penalty shoot-out against Romania in the second round, where it went to sudden death kicks, Daniel Timofte stood up for Romania against Packie Bonner (Celtic keeper), Bonner made an incredible save which left David O’Leary with the potentially game winning kick. George Hamilton, the RTE commentator (Irish TV) called the game; “This kick can decide it all…. A nation holds its breath……. YES! We’re there!!!!!”. An entire country went completely nuts over a single kick of a leather ball, you don’t get that level of camaraderie with club teams where everybody is united in the same joy and exaltation. It doesn’t matter where you are from, you are all behind your country making an impact on the biggest sporting stage the world knows about. I still get the hair standing on the back of my neck remembering that day (and the day when Ireland beat Italy in USA ’94), the people dancing in the streets, cars driving by blaring with flags everywhere. Club competition is great, but nothing beats the thrill of your nation exceeding.
So there you have it, purists for the game might talk about the standards of play, the excellence of teams on a consistent basis, the number of world class players not always seen at the World Cup, the money involved etc as reason why the Champions League is the top footballing competition. The passionate fans of the game will talk of the history of the finals, the national fervor of support, the size and scale of the competition, the stars that it produces and the fact that they are playing for their people, not a paycheck (although in recent years money is an issue). I guess a good way of figuring out what side of the fence you sit on is to take your favorite club side who you sweat for every year, and weigh up whether you would give up them winning a championship for 4 years over your country winning a world cup final (or even just appearing at the tournament!). I know Ireland always comes first for me, to hear “Amhrann na bhfiann” played before a game and seeing all the green and orange tricolors around a stadium will always be more important than the Red Devils, despite how much I love them!
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