Thursday, Jun 17 2010 3AM 7°C 6AM 11°C 5-Day Forecast WORLD CUP 2010: Six reasons why this tournament has had the dullest start in living memory
By Matt Barlow in Rustenburg
Last updated at 12:29 AM on 17th June 2010
It only comes round every four years and the excitement about the World Cup reaches fever pitch. But not this time! It's been an unbelievably dull start to a tournament with so few goals, let alone ones to stick in the memory.
The superstars like Wayne Rooney, Kaka and Andres Iniesta have so far failed to turn on the magic. Blame the ball, the pitch , the defensive tactics - Sportsmail gives an assessment of where it's all gone wrong.
Slow start: Rooney failed to capture the imagination against the United States
CONDITIONS
The first winter World Cup for 32 years has thrown up new tests. At the end of long domestic seasons, players have found themselves breathless from the altitude. Unprompted, Wayne Rooney raised the idea of a winter break again yesterday. Only Germany and perhaps Chile have played with a decent tempo.
England will be pleased to escape the altitude and head for Cape Town to play Algeria tomorrow but other pitfalls lurk on the coast, where the weather has been cold and wet and the pitches have caused a stir.
'It looked beautiful but was actually very slippery and very hard to control the ball,' said Marcelo Lippi after Italy's 1-1 draw with Paraguay in Cape Town, a game played in a deluge. Roy Hodgson has noted an absence of defence-splitting passes, saying the newly laid pitches are 'making the ball very lively and bounce very high'.
ATMOSPHERE
Blocks of empty seats never help, and then there's the vuvuzelas. Prominent South African sports writer Jon Qwelane once described the horns as the 'instrument from hell'. There certainly hasn't been a visual spectacular like the ticker tape showers of Argentina '78 or the Mexican waves of '86.
The 'instrument from hell': vuvuzelas have attracted a lot of attention this World Cup
BALLS
Sven Goran Erik sson took the ball debate to a new level yesterday, demanding a summit meeting on the subject. All World Cups start with keepers grumbling about the unpredictability of a new ball but the adidas Jabulani controversy shows no sign of abating.
'You'll notice a drop in the quality of headed goals or goals from crosses,' said Matthew Upson. 'It's so hard to read.' Free-kick experts have yet to make an impact and the sight of Andres Iniesta launching passes wildly into touch will encourage those players wondering why their powers had suddenly vanished.
The dodgy ball has not resulted in a flood of goals - only 25 from the first 16 games, considerably down on 39 at the same stage four years ago. Thirteen of the 32 teams failed to score.
TENSION
No one wants to lose their first game. Clint Dempsey said England seemed under pressure against the United States and the Italians confessed to feeling the heat as they defend their title. Not that starting slowly is in itself a bad thing. Italy drew their first three games in 1982 and still won the World Cup. It took until the final game of the first round of group games for a shock to energise the competition.
Had Switzerland beaten Spain on the opening day, it might have different. In 1990, Cameroon beat Argentina on the opening day and, in 2002, France lost to Senegal. Here, in the first World Cup held on African soil, the African teams have looked just as inhibited as anyone else. Of five African teams, only Ghana won, thanks to a penalty against 10-man Serbia.
TACTICS
Fear invokes cautious tactical plans in the early stages. 'In the first round teams play more not to lose than to win,' said Arsene Wenger. 'The games are quite locked tactically with very few chances and very few have had a go. 'The pressure of the World Cup is so intense nobody wants to lose that first game. It harms the style a little bit. But it is a tournament that lasts one month. A slow start and being qualified is better than to start at 100 miles per hour.'
Even the traditional flair merchants have tightened up. African teams are no longer perceived as instinctive, expressive footballers blighted by disorganisation and very few teams get thrashed like El Salvador, who lost 10-1 to Hungary in 1982. Four of the five African teams are coached by Europeans, with Eriksson instilling a Scandinavian pragmatism in the Ivory Coast.'I was impressed with the Ivory Coast's discipline against Portugal,' said Rooney.
Brazil's natural flamboyance is stifled beneath the safety-first policy of Dunga, a coach educated in Italy, who probably boasts the best defensive unit in the competition.
FAMILIARITY
It has bred competition rather than contempt. The World Cup brings fewer surprises in the internet age. Modern broadcasting and communication means teams are studied in minute detail and plots hatched to stop the dangermen.
Rooney, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were all subdued in their opening fixtures and, for the armchair audience, Didier Drogba's awesome power and the mercurial talents of Kaka, no longer command the same novelty value.
The chance to see Johan Cruyff in '74 or Maradona in '86 was a rare thrill but with televised European football and heavy traffic of South American players to Europe, the stars are made in the Champions League, not the World Cup.
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