Kaufmann's blog

Sixty-two games have been played at the 2010 World Cup, which has been marvelously hosted by South Africa.  Only two games remain; one tomorrow for third place, and then Sunday’s much awaited World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands.  In a couple of days, we will have a brand new world soccer champion.  But its international governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), will still be stuck in the past.  FIFA has monopoly control over international soccer, and as this tournament has shown, faces enormous challenges: subpar corporate governance, leadership and transparency. These challenges partly undermine the development objectives of member countries.

In its own World Soccer Federation portal, FIFA.com, boasts: ’since 1993, the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking has become a regular part of international sports and an important indicator to find where teams stand in world’s football’s pecking order…’

Well, not quite, as it turns out, if judging by the results from an analysis of the Group competition stage that has just concluded in the football World Cup currently taking place in beautiful South Africa.

A total of 32 teams qualified for the World Cup.  They were divided into 8 groups of 4 countries each, competed against each other, playing 3 games each, for a maximum of 9 points.  The top 2 teams in each group are now advancing to the next stage of 16.  Eight games will take place over the next 4 days, starting on Saturday with Uruguay playing South Korea, and then later in the day Ghana plays against the US.  And on Sunday Germany plays England in the earlier match, and so on until this coming Tuesday.  The winner in each one of these 8 games advances to the Cup’s quarter finals, and so on.