It's only a game.

Events over the coming week or so will decide the last of the teams going to the World Cup. Some fans have nothing to worry about as their nations already know their fate. Teams already there include: Australia, Korea (North & South), England, Spain, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, Ghana and of course, Chile. In total, 32 nations will compete during the month of June next year in South Africa.

My tip is current European Champions, Spain. They are constantly feted as the best team never to have won the tournament. They have two of the best young players in the world, Fabregas and Torres. Both play in the English Premier League for Arsenal and Liverpool respectively.

My team has yet to qualify. They have a chance but I won't tempt fate by making a prediction just yet.

Football is, without doubt, the greatest game in the world. There are other ball sports that hijack the name but there is only one. In the US, the word describes a sport played by steroid-pumped homosexuals in motorcycle helmets wearing mascara. (Is all that ass touching really necessary?). The Australian version is the antithesis of its American cousin. It is a sport played by raving lunatics. The origins of which are steeped in Australia's penal colony history. It is the bastard child of rugby and football. In both instances, neither sport is played at a professional level outside it their respective countries.


To avoid confusion, the Americans call football, sah-kir. The great irony of course is that, in the American and Australian sporting namesakes, the players spend more time using their hands than their feet to play. They, however, insist on calling it football. Go figure! There’s nothing mysterious about the popularity of football around the world nor the rules of the game. Even the infamous offside rule can be explained to the dimmest of blonde Gringas by using my own self-devised shoe shop analogy. (Or you could just look at the official version from FIFA.) Perhaps that’ll be the subject of another post.

Football is the great leveller. It’s the only sport in the world that crosses the boundaries of nation, race, religion and class. Anybody can play it anywhere. You don’t even need a ball. A crushed cola can was good enough for me and my buddies in the school playground way back when.

I love football. Like a wine connoisseur who refuses to drink just any ol' bottle of plonk, I'm quite fussy about the standard of football I watch. The standard of Chilean league football is pathetic. The same could be said of Argentina and Brazil. However, they have the excuse that Europe poaches all the decent players for their leagues. Chile do not have this excuse to fall back on. Any Chilean players in European squads are peripheral to the main team.

I watched with great interest the Chilean campaign which lead to qualification and suffered thereafter many sleepless nights with the victory celebrations.

So, how did Chile qualify? For the matches they won, all credit goes to their (Argentinian) coach, Bielsa. He is a man manager. He made those players think they were better than they were. Another factor in their qualification is the poor performances by Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru. There were only 10 teams in the South American qualifying group. The top four qualified automatically. That’s a huge 40% chance. Look at Europe. From 53 teams, only 13 are guaranteed a spot. A mere 25%.

Commentators see Chile's progression to South Africa as the dawning of a new day which will inspire a change of mood in the country and perhaps a change in attitude to playing sport.

Chileans are not passionate about football (league or national team) despite what you hear or see. They are just very enthusiastic. League games here are poorly attended and those that do attend, do so on a tribal basis rather than watching the game. I’ve attended a classico. Full marks (7/7) to the fans for singing, shouting, unfurling banners and banging drums. What happens on the pitch is so dull that the entertainment on the terraces is far more interesting.

Chile must be the only South American country where you don’t see hoards of kids on the street or in the parks playing football. Chileans are bone-idle lazy. They have no interest in actively participating in sport. People blame the government for not providing facilities or promoting it enough. They blame the government for everything actually. What they need to do is get off their maraquetta asses and kick a ball with their kids.

Good luck to Chile in South Africa. They won’t get further than the group stages (ie after the obligatory three games they’ll be on the plane home) It won’t be a reflection of a new Chile. It won’t change anything. For 10 days the country will come to a standstill. After that, the Chileans will go back to their non-productive 45 hour weeks and hypochondriac habits.