Don't even get me started about Qatar 2022. The whole world can see that it just won't work whether it's held in the summer or the winter, why can't FIFA? Well, I guess that's kinda obvious really.
Russia was an odd choice for the world cup, but at least they actually have a footballing pedigree. Vladimir Beschastnyk, Lev Yashin, Oleg Salenko, Andrei Arshavin and Alexei Smertin - there, I just named 5 Russian players past or present off the top of my head in about 5 seconds. Without hitting wikipedia, I literally can't think of a single Qatari player.
England certainly didn't help, but the only games I remember being particularly exciting and memorable in South Africa were USA-Slovenia, Brazil-Netherlands and Germany-Uruguay. Compare that to the 2006 world cup alone when you had great, great matches like Germany-Italy, France-Italy, England-Sweden, Germany-Costa Rica, Netherlands-Portugal, USA-Italy and so many more genuinely memorable games. I was so looking forward to South Africa, as it turned out it was probably the biggest sporting letdown of my life.
|