Monday, July 13, 1998 http://www.HWCI.com/wc98 Issue # 39.5.3 "Reflection, Part I..." 1998 HWCI WORLD CUP TOURNAMENT POOL =================================== FRANCE CELEBRATION CONTINUES AS BRAZIL REGROUPS FOR 2002 Suker wins Golden Boot with six goals while Europe dominates Cup EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt)- While France celebrates their World Cup championship into Tuesday's national holiday (Bastille Day), Brazil goes home with a poor World Cup where the real Brazil only showed up in spurts at a time. In fact, Brazil lost twice, finished third in points (behind France and Croatia), allowed the most goals in the tourney (10), needed an own goal to beat Scotland, lost to Norway, held off a gutsy Denmark team, were outplayed by Holland, and concluded the tourney by getting schooled by France. France won their semifinal and final matches while down a man for the last 16+ minutes of each match. Interestingly, both of these teams did not have to qualify for the World Cup (France automatically qualified as host, Brazil as the defending champion). Davor Suker wins the prestigous Golden Boot/Shoe by scoring six goals, one more than Italy's Christian Verri and Argentina's Gabriel Batistuta. France's Fabien Barthez had five shutouts and allowed just two goals (one via PK) in 684 minutes (not including any extra time- about 35 minutes worth) for an amazing 0.26 Goals Against Average (GAA- goals per 90 minutes) of World Cup play. 171 goals were scored in the 64 matches (2.67 average). France, Croatia (save Bilic's acting performance), England and Holland provided guts, glory, and entertaining and heroic soccer while Spain, USA, Germany, Argentina, and Italy produced either boring or disappointing soccer and performed below expectations. There were great saves and great goals, own goals and penalty kicks, and warranted and unwarranted yellow and red cards. There were real dives (Argentina's Ortega) and real collisions (Ronaldo and goalkeeper Barthez in particular... ouch!), late goals (Austria with three- though it didn't help) and game-tying goals (Mexico and Germany led the way), and bad hair days (what was with Romania?) and no hair days (loved the Barthez and Ronaldo look). I enjoyed this year's World Cup more than any other (mainly because of the HWCI pool) and it's just too bad I couldn't watch most of the games. I hope to be there in 2002 as I've always wanted to visit Japan. We watched new teams rise (France, Croatia, and Nigeria) and old teams fall (Germany, Italy, and Argentina). We saw future stars glimmer (Owen, Denilson, Verri, and Henry) and old stars fade (Matthaus, Dunga, Van der Elst, and Dooley). It was truly a magical World Cup. In looking at the final standing, nine of the top 11 teams came from Europe with the two non-European teams coming from South America. So should Europe (UEFA) get more than their current 14 team slots of the 32 teams in the World Cup? Africa (CAF) wants more than five (to as many as nine teams), despite only Nigeria advancing to the Round of 16. Should Oceania (OFC) (Australia, New Zealand, etc.) get an automatic spot? None qualified this year and the Oceania winner must play a playoff (this year Australia lost to Iran) to qualify. Mexico is CONCACAF's only bright spot, and its three spots pretty much assure Mexico, USA, and pick-your-Caribbean-nation will qualify for years to come. Four of five South American teams, led by Brazil and Argentina made it to the Round of 16 so should their allotment (CONNEBOL) increase? With South Korea AND Japan automatically qualifying as hosts of the 2002 World Cup and France qualifying as the defending champions, that leaves just 29 spots up for grabs. If Asia (a combined 1-9-2 with none making the Round of 16) retains their four spots (three plus a playoff vs. Oceania champion), that means six Asian teams (AFC) in WC2002, definitely weakening the tourney. -------------- FINAL STANDING -------------- Rnk GRP TEAM W-L-T PTS GF/A GD ------------------------------------------- 1 C France 6-0-1 19 15/2 +13 2 A Brazil 4-2-1 13 14/10 +4 3 H Croatia 5-2-0 15 11/5 +6 4 E Holland 3-1-3 12 13/7 +6 ------------------------------------------ 5 B Italy 3-0-2 11 7/3 +4 6 H Argentina 3-1-1 10 10/4 +6 7 F Germany 3-1-1 10 8/6 +2 8 C Denmark 2-2-1 7 9/7 +2 ------------------------------------------ 9 G England 2-1-1 7 7/4 +3 10 F Yugoslavia 2-1-1 7 5/4 +1 11 G Romania 2-1-1 7 4/3 +1 12 D Nigeria 2-2-0 6 6/9 -3 13 E Mexico 1-1-2 5 8/7 +1 14 D Paraguay 1-1-2 5 3/2 +1 15 A Norway 1-1-2 5 5/5 0 16 B Chile 0-1-3 3 5/8 -2 ------------------------------------------ 17 D Spain 1-1-1 4 8/4 +4 18 A Morocco 1-1-1 4 5/5 0 19 E Belgium 0-0-3 3 3/3 0 20 G Colombia 1-2-0 3 1/3 -2 21 F Iran 1-2-0 3 1/4 -3 22 H Jamaica 1-2-0 3 3/9 -6 23 B Austria 0-1-2 2 3/4 -1 24 C South Africa 0-1-2 2 3/6 -3 25 B Cameroon 0-1-2 2 2/5 -3 26 G Tunisia 0-2-1 1 1/4 -3 27 A Scotland 0-2-1 1 2/6 -4 28 C Saudi Arabia 0-2-1 1 2/7 -5 29 D Bulgaria 0-2-1 1 1/7 -6 30 E South Korea 0-2-1 1 2/9 -7 31 H Japan 0-3-0 0 1/4 -3 32 F USA 0-3-0 0 1/5 -4 Congrats to France... Scott HW -----------------------------------------\\ || /\ || // ___ Scott M Tamashiro, HWCI Engineering \\||//\\||// /o-o\\ \ \ ` WC98 Pool Administrator \ / \ / (o-o-o)) ) > > > Email: scott@hwci.com || || \`o'// / / , Updates: http://www.HWCI.com/wc98 || || WORLD CUP ---------------------------------------------------- POOL 1998