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Tim Vickery

Well Struck: Jack Warner’s Noose, Thomas Hobbes’ Favorite Side & the Real Group of Death

If the sports section had stories as good as these, I’d start reading it again…or at least the three column inches currently engulfed by Wilbon and Boswell:

World Cup College: England’s tension between neo-realism and Hobbes’ mechanism

Zonal Marking’s 23-man all-World Cup-side

Soccer Spieler dares look back to name the real Group of Death

Tim Vickery’s advice to Brazil: Hire Leonardo and start attacking

Isn’t it time to take down the World Cup flags?

Said & Done wraps the World Cup: Jack Warner’s noose, how many teachers executive hospitality costs in South Africa would have employed, and the best FIFA expenses ever claimed

Watford Academy: Jockeys + ballet + school = the envy of Europe

Sleep well, Minus the Shooting and World Cup College — you will be missed

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Brazil 2014: Let Them Eat Bolo

If Brazil 2014 is already in trouble — and it’s already “amazingly” behind schedule — it’s because Brazil’s old “semi-feudal” cadre is in charge. Tim Vickery at The Independent adds that crumbling stadia, inadequate travel infrastructure, and wildly varying weather could spell catastrophe; Pitch Invasion’s Tom Dunmore casts a wary eye at Ricardo Teixeria, the new World Cup’s reflexively corrupt overlord.

Why You Should Be Rooting for Uruguay, Parts 4-7

That goal line handball and stabbing-the-last-hope-of-Africa-in-the-aorta unpleasantness aside, here are a number of reasons to pull for Uruguay: They have a long history of playing with joy (Eduardo Kaplan/The Wall Street Journal); they have a long history of playing with garra, or grit (Jonathan Wilson/Sports Illustrated); they have a long history of making the most of what they have (Tim Vickery/Sports Illustrated); and…they have this long, great history and enough with the Dutch, already (John Doyle/Globe and Mail).

The Prevailing Westerlies

South American sides are imposing themselves on the World Cup so far, says Tim Vickery for the BBC — mostly because of superior dribblers who are not “stale [European] academy products” without spark, but who come from the spontaneous genius of the street. Call it a hemispheric triumph, adds the Globe and Mail‘s John Doyle — and the death of the era of European dominance, of Zidane and Figo.

Reads of the Day: Your Daily World Cup Orgy of Fearmongering

If all goes well in South Africa…well, there’s a phrase few dare write these days. Tim Vickery says the World Cup should be solidifying the South African youth soccer system…but it could also be the trigger for national insolvency, as the Athens Olympics were for Greece. The LRB’s R.W. Johnson reports there isn’t enough electricity or VIP seating to go around. Health reporter Donald McNeil warns that, if you go, worry about tick bites, measles, diarrhea, AIDS, flu, gang rape, sunstroke and (of course) your hearing. And Jim at Match Pricks says: Won’t this just be the best month ever?

World Cup Forecast: A 90% Chance of Diving

In the knockout stages of the World Cup, the point is not to lose — and those games (especially in the cold of a South African winter) could look like last week’s parked bus at the Camp Nou. Like Mourinho’s well-drilled squads, teams will above all protect themselves against counterattack. Look for stalemates, tight refereeing, and lots of diving. (Tim Vickery/FIFA World Cup Blog)

Weird Brazil, Weirder Argentina

Brasileirao doesn’t play when anyone else does, sends its best players to the Copa Libertadores as the season starts, and is ruined by the state tournaments that come before, which tend to get its coaches fired, says Tim Vickery in Sports Illustrated. Still, Brazil has at least figured out a fair relegation system — unlike Argentina, which protects the big clubs with a Byzantine system worthy of a Dan Brown novel…which still might not save River Plate, says Tim Vickery for the BBC.

Bumper Stickers

The theft of 135,000 World Cup stickers last week in Brazil just shows the enduring appeal of these low-fi collectibles. While today’s Panini version lacks the educational bios of the past, they can still teach kids about the world. “The world is dividing into two increasingly hostile camps — those who collect World Cup stickers and those who don’t.” (Tim Vickery/FIFA World Cup Blog)

The Cheated Destiny of Salvador Cabanas

Salvador Cabanas, the superb Paraguayan striker shot in the head in Mexico City three months ago, is on his way to a remarkable recovery — he’s playing kickabouts in hospital and wants to play in the World Cup. That he can’t possibly make it is a tragedy: At 29, he will be on the downslope in four years, and South Africa was to be the one chance at glory in his late-blooming career. (Tim Vickery/FIFA World Cup Blog)

There’s No ‘iPod’ in ‘Team’

Will Hull City be relegated because its players listen to music instead of bonding, as Iain Dowie suggests? Will Dunga win the World Cup for Brazil by forcing his players to share hotel rooms? “It is, of course, the complaint of a member of one generation about the desocialising effect of technology on the next” — but with Robinho becoming a paragon of team commitment for his national side, maybe it’s time to ask your team to take off the headphones and talk to each other. (Tim Vickery/BBC)

A Chilean Earthquake

The 1960 earthquake in Chile killed thousands — and, far less importantly, endangered the 1962 World Cup in that country. But Chile rallied to host the Cup and even finished third, their best placement yet. Could a similarly inspired performance be in the cards this year? As the old South American saying goes, “of all the unimportant things in life, football is the most important.” (Tim Vickery/FIFA World Cup Blog)

Read of the Day: Movement Football

While Argentina has a rich history of Italians playing for the nation (and vice versa) and Bolivia’s team has benefitted from repatriated players, Paraguay has struggled to adapt to how Paraguayans born abroad fit into its squad. If you don’t spark Guarani, the country’s original language, you’re often deemed not good enough, regardless of talent. (Tim Vickery/BBC; also read his blog for FIFA World Cup, which goes in depth into Paraguay.)

The Underworld Aristocracy of Brazilian Footballers

The links between some Brazilian soccer stars and drug dealers are being increasingly exposed by a Big Brother culture of celebrity scrutiny that rivals England’s. The dealers and the players have formed “a kind of alternative aristocracy” — the regimented players seeing in the dealers a freedom they crave, the dealers seeing in society’s affection for the players a dynamic they can only approximate through fear. (Tim Vickery/Sports Illustrated)