Winners & Losers at Korea/Japan 2002
Winners
Brazil
Brazil - World Champions. Worthy winners without a doubt. Almost written
off before the start, Brazil produced the most attacking and enjoyable football
and when necessary the defensive resolve to remain unbeaten throughout the
tournament: winning all seven of their matches, scoring 18 times and conceding
only 4. The 3Rs, Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho scored 15 goals between
them, with Ronaldo top scorer in the competition with 8.Every one of Brazil's outfield players looked capable of scoring, the team possessed defenders who could bring the ball out of defence and create goal-scoring opportunities and talented individuals who could change the course of any game. Brazil's 5-3 defeat of Costa Rica was surely the highlight of attacking football at the tournament.
Oliver Kahn
The German keeper picked up the Yev Yashin award for best goalkeeper and also made off with the best player of the 2002 World Cup award, the adidas Golden Ball, the first goalkeeper to do so. Kahn performed superbly throughout the tournament making a succession of crucial saves to ensure Germany progressed to its sixth World Cup final. Ironically it was his one blunder in the final when he spilled a Rivaldo shot and allowed Ronaldo to score on the rebound that ensured Germany is still searching for its first World Cup win as a united nation.South Korea
On the pitch Korea reached the semi-finals, the best performance by an Asian team ever, and its fast, skillful, all-action play attracted many admirers as the team humbled European giants, Portugal, Italy and Spain.Off the pitch Korea seems to have won out over its co-hosts, Japan, by creating the appropriate festive atmosphere in the eyes of most observers. Millions of people clad in red gathered in the streets to follow the national team's progress on huge open-air screens and remained to party throughout the night even after Korea lost its last two games, to Germany in the semis and to Turkey in the Third/Fourth Place Play-off.
The economy too seems to have received a boost with foreign direct investment up in June compared with the same month last year.
Be The Reds T-shirts were a hit both in Korea and overseas.
Guus Hiddink
Guus Hiddink would probably be elected South Korean President if the election were held today. Instead he'll have to settle for a statue, streets and stadiums named in his honor, a free villa and first-class flights on Korean Air. Not bad for a man who was beginning to come under fire in the local press as Korea suffered a number of defeats in its warm-up games and the manager was seen in the company of a woman-not-his-wife. The media wanted feel-good, confidence-boosting victories over lesser opponents, whereas Hiddink's master plan was to test the team in competitive games. Hiddink is thought to be on his way back to PSV Eindhoven but will remain as a consultant to the national team. No self-respecting Dutchman would want to waste those free flights.Chung Mong-Joon
Riding the same wave of populist fervor as Hiddink, KFA chairman Chung Mong-Joon may well stand for Korean President and be elected later in the year. Chung's dogged determination was responsible for Korea successfully gate-crashing Japan's bid, he stood up to FIFA pressure over dog-meat and even challenged FIFA supremo Blatter by supporting his challenger, Issa Hayatou, at the FIFA presidential elections in May. All of these actions in support of the underdog won him massive domestic popular support and respect.
David
Beckham
Despite failing to reproduce his best form of the qualifiers, clearly not
match fit and still wary of his injured foot, David Beckham went down a
treat in Japan. Beckham's looks and pop-star persona, not to mention his
clean-cut image was immensely popular with young people who imitated his
Mohawk hairstyle, flocked to buy the Japanese translation of his autobiography,
'My World' and scrabbled to get their hands on Beckham personalized England
shirts.Women's magazines ran color spreads of Beckham's life, including photos of his mansion and his various fashion incarnations and Beckham's sober, family man image makes him the ideal husband for over 80% of readers in a recent poll by a leading Japanese woman's fashion magazine.
Japan - Korea Relations
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Inter-Korean relations remain mired in Cold-War hatred despite the North Koreans broadcasting some of the South's matches. The North Koreans did not send a delegation to the opening ceremony in Seoul and a recent naval clash between the two countries left 4 South Korean sailors dead.
Australia
Although Australia did not play a match in the World Cup after their loss to Uruguay in a play-off, the news that Oceania will be given a guaranteed spot at the 2006 World Cup in Germany virtually ensures the Socceroos their first Finals' appearance since 1974.Street Vendors
Braving the high cost of living, the intrepid few street sellers that took the risk and made the journey over to Japan did brisk business in replica shirts and team badges. The Japanese police turned a blind eye and the Japanese mafia (yakuza) and their mainly Israeli henchmen, who usually extract 'protection money' from anyone selling directly to the public were not to be seen, given the large police presence. However, some more static food stalls suffered from the police policy of shutting off access roads around stadiums, which left their stalls, isolated from a thirsty and hungry public after matches.'Jesus Loves Me' T-shirts
Almost the entire Brazilian team sported 'Jesus Loves Me' T-shirts after their victory over Germany in the World Cup final and many of the players gathered in a 'prayer huddle' after the game to give thanks to the guy upstairs.Losers
The Ticket Application Process
Photograph copyright ©2002 Kjeld Duits
In
short, a complete mess from beginning to end. Half-empty stadiums in Korea
for some group games because of the relatively high price of tickets compared
to the standard of living, empty seats in stadiums in Japan despite a massive
demand for tickets. Fans unable to enter stadiums due to the late arrival
of tickets they had paid for months in advance. An overly complicated procedure
made almost impossible in its latter stages by Internet server crashes and
jammed phone lines. The Tokugawa era bureaucrats at JAWOC demanding pages
of documentation to change the names on tickets and then abandoning the
procedure altogether as unworkable.Who is to blame? FIFA, the Organizing Committees - JAWOC and KOWOC, Byrom Consultants or all of them? All parties must accept their share of responsibility for the debacle. Firstly FIFA for setting the same price for tickets in Korea as in Japan when relative costs are much lower in Korea. FIFA at fault again for allocating a greater percentage of tickets for its own officials and sponsors than ever before, which resulted in many of these tickets appearing on the black market at inflated prices or not being taken up at all: a scandal that has to be fully investigated to ensure genuine fans have the chance to provide the necessary 'full-house festive atmosphere' so beloved of sponsors in the first place.
FIFA and the Organizing Committees were also at fault for their initial insistence on printing purchasers' names on tickets (except for FIFA officials and official sponsors, of course) in a witless attempt to prevent scalping and hooliganism. The procedure collapsed in the face of free market forces (tickets for top entertainment and sporting events will always change hands for profit and why not?) and the common sense advice of Japanese academics who warned JAWOC that it would take over nine hours to confirm the ID of every spectator entering the stadium.
Byrom Consultants ticketing application process was technologically not up to the task of processing millions of online applications and should have been handled through local partners, which is what finally occurred in Korea when Internet specialists Interpark took over domestic sales. The only winners in this sorry state of affairs were the scalpers themselves who ironically benefited from the collapse of an ill-fated system that was ironically designed to cut them out.
Italy & Spain
The two Mediterranean countries will not be top of most South Koreans' holiday destinations this summer after the sour grapes and conspiracy theories following their shock defeats to the co-hosts. The perception of Spain and Italy as 'bad-losers' became global and was compounded by Serie A's Perugia's sacking of Ahn Jung Hwan after he scored the winner against Italy and the later U-turn as the financial repercussions of the move became clear.The Match Officials
FIFA's policy of appointing match officials from all its member federations lead to a number of high pressure games being controlled by inexperienced referees and assistant referees, who were plainly out of their depth officiating in front of huge partisan crowds. Spain may be poor losers but they do have a point, with two seemingly 'good' goals over-ruled by the Egyptian referee and his Trinidadian linesman. The Jamaican referee who cancelled out Marc Wilmot's 'goal' against Brazil in the round of 16 later acknowledged he had got it wrong.In future FIFA is to consider appointing referees on the basis of experience rather than nationality. Praise though for Pierluigi Collina, the Italian super-ref who had an excellent tournament and was awarded the final for his efforts.
The JFA
The Japanese Football Association's reputation as control-freaks and cowards was further enhanced in the wake of Japan's defeat to Turkey in the Round of 16. Various commentators in the media even went as far as to suggest that the coach, Philippe Troussier, engineered Japan's exit by substituting Alex dos Santos and Junichi Inamoto at half-time to ensure Japan lost and thus gain revenge for his shabby treatment at the hands of the bureaucrats at the JFA.The announcement that Zico, a man with no record of success as a top-flight manager, as the coach to replace Troussier also smacks of a safety first approach. The JFA feel that they can control the former Brazilian midfielder - who has worked in Japan since 1993 first as a player and then general manager at Kashima Antlers, rather than follow Korea's lead and take the risk of appointing a high-profile and successful big name coach, who might have ideas of his own.