Like many people who went to elementary school in the 1980s, I grew up hearing wonderful stories about what the world would be like in the year 2000. According to the fictions spread by several of my teachers, we are faced with one of two future outcomes: the Soviet Union (remember them?) would unleash thermonuclear war, or we’d all be riding around in jetpacks and flying cars, wearing oddly matched jumpsuits and eating nothing but big pills and colored liquids. Of course, none of those things happened, and while my car is very grounded, the intervening years have brought a number of changes to society that probably no one would have anticipated in 1984.
The point, I suppose, is that the forecasting business is, at best, a game of dice, and at worst, an opportunity for people to write things that later events will mock. Football is not immune to stupid predictions, as anyone who has followed Pelé’s occasional comments in the press knows. So, wanting to look to the future of football, but not wanting to expose myself to the ridicule of being proven otherwise, I will look to the year 2062 and tell you what the world of football will look like in 54 years. I’ll be 85 by then, which means I’ll either be dead, senile, or so happy I finally got my flying car that I won’t care that I wrote something 54 years ago that makes me look silly. If I’m lucky, I would have seen my 19th World Cup. So what did 2062 Brian Fobi have seen?
1. England have yet to win another World Cup. At the end of the 2062 World Cup, England fans will look forward to the 2066 Cup, knowing that fate will certainly be on their side as they contemplate the centenary of their last victory. England are the consummate quarter-finalists, and you can look back on a hundred years of Ronaldinho goals, Beckham red cards, Rooney red cards and Brookyln Beckham red cards and think they’re wrong, but the truth is they’re not that good. . .
2. China will continue to be the next big thing. According to everything you read in the news, in 40 years the Chinese will own, manage, manufacture, manage and dominate everything. FIFA expects great things from China, and certainly between then and now China will host at least one World Cup, but probably two. Chinese women will continue to do well, but unless a lot changes, I don’t see China putting together the kind of league and national youth system needed to produce 11 world-class players. Also, beware of the China bubble. China could continue to grow at 10% for the next 50 years, or we could find that a managed state and economy cannot bear the burden of its first major economic downturn. That discussion is best played out elsewhere on another day, but suffice it to say that I’m still not convinced of China’s perpetually bright future, and that goes doubly so for soccer.
3. CONMEBOL and CONCACAF will merge. Merging these two regions just makes sense. And, as a kid of the 1980s, seeing these parts merge brings back memories of Devastator coming together to work on Megatron’s best to lead the Autobots… sorry. Getting back to my point, a merger of the North American and South American confederations makes sense and will improve the overall quality of the game. First, it would give the United States and Canada more consistent and significant exposure to top competition. Secondly, it would make the regional championship (Copa de las Américas? Copa de las Américas? Copa de las Américas?). Third, the sheer size of the confederation would require dividing nations into groups, which would mean fewer games to qualify South American teams.
4. The nations of the Caribbean will jointly organize the best World Cup of all time. Building on their co-hosting of the Cricket World Cup, 10 Caribbean nations will treat soccer fans to the funniest, sunniest and most festive World Cup on record. Moving between World Cup venues by cruise ship or plane, thousands of fans will gather to watch football by day, then drink and party by night. The final in Port of Spain will take place to a soundtrack of steel drums, and everyone, even the defeated fans, will walk away happy.
5. The United States will win a World Cup. I don’t say when, but in the next 56 years it will happen. If you’re a skeptic (ahem, consummate hater of the United States, Luis “Snacks” Well, I’m talking to you), you’re too pessimistic. Think about it: if my prediction is true, the team captain’s grandmother could be in preschool right now. The United States has built a world-class youth system, has great corporate backing, has the best sports science in the world and, dagum, we’re Americans and we don’t lose. This is the sports equivalent of the Apollo lunar mission. Hell or high water we’ll make it.
6. Britain will finally get its act together and field a joint team. I know, this seems unlikely, especially with Scotland getting more independence and all, but let’s be honest. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have to fight just to qualify for the World Cup, let alone win it. And, since England is not itself a sovereign nation, it makes no more sense for them to be members of FIFA than for, say, Minnesota to join FIFA. Frustrated by the continued failures, and perhaps even a bit grounded by their experience with the Olympics where the IOC didn’t allow England to send their own team, they will get their act together and kit out a British team.
7. Africa… wow, who knows? This is the hardest. I have no doubt that Africa will continue to produce top-tier talent, and I hope that in 50 years most of the best players in the world will come from Africa. However, the real question is whether Africa can start developing leagues that can compete at the highest level and whether their football associations will stop interfering and destroying their national teams. Over the past decade, we have seen the football associations of Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal and the Ivory Coast rightfully accused of theft, massive player mismanagement, threats of violence, political coercion and utter and utter incompetence on a scale never seen before. in soccer history To make matters worse, African nations have failed to develop their own coaches, do not adequately prepare youngsters, and offer the most substandard and dilapidated facilities to train and play.
That being said, the continent continues to produce fantastic players, and the march that began with Weah and Milla from Liberia and Cameroon respectively continues with true gems like Drogba, Eto’o, Adebayor, Essien and a host of other stars. In the end, the fortunes of African football will rise or fall depending on the continent’s ability or inability to right its economies, produce wealth, create infrastructure and purge its governments, and therefore its football associations, of the kleptocratic, bureaucratic kind. nepotistic and capricious who has crushed the best minds and talents on the continent. If the continent can turn around, there are at least ten nations that have the potential to become true world soccer powers (Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia come to mind). and Togo). ). If not, then we will see what we have seen in the last 25 years: stars rise, and every World Cup one or two African nations will impress, but the rest will fail.
8. The three best leagues in the world will be 1) the Brazilian league, 2) the MLS and 3) the French Ligue 1. Brazil is becoming more self-assured as a nation, and as its economy grows, it will produce the kind of wealth broad and deep capable of supporting the teams that develop and retain the best players in the world. When Santos, Flamengo and Gremio have the bankroll to prevent players like Kaká, Ronaldinho or Robinho from leaving, the Brazilian teams will improve quickly and exponentially. As for MLS, soccer is growing steadily and safely in the United States, and within twenty years or so, the league will be among the best in the world. The United States has a real advantage because, as the world’s cultural center, it will always have a cachet and convening power that other nations cannot match. In other words, once MLS becomes a financially and competitively viable option with the European leagues, the marketing potential and glitz of the United States will allow MLS to outperform its European rivals. . Twenty years may seem too soon, but the league recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and anyone present at the league’s inauspicious early days can attest to the shape and pace of its growth. As for France, it’s just a hunch, nothing more. The league has long underperformed, and it seems that a nation with the wealth and soccer pedigree of France should have a better league. Also, be careful with the J-League.
9. Australia will rue the day they moved to Asia. The idea was that by moving to Asia, Australia would have an easier path to qualification. In the past, the winner of Oceania would have to face a home-and-away playoff against a South American team, and until this last World Cup, Australia could be counted on to lose that. As Japan, South Korea, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and China continue to improve, it will be the case that Australia will face an increasingly difficult road to qualifying and miss out on some World Cups which they could have done had they decided instead. face teams like Uruguay or Venezuela.
10. Someone will downplay FIFA. In recent years, Sepp Blatter has become increasingly sanctimonious and exaggerated in the way he analyzes football’s role in the world, its ability to transcend national borders and, most worryingly, that the game (or , more specifically, the game administrators: FIFA) is not subject to any national law. There have been other sports institutions that have tried to make the same unconvincing argument, and in the United States, at least, they have generally lost. FIFA must be bound by national laws, and to say otherwise is complete nonsense, and if it were true, it would give FIFA a status that no other institution in the world possesses. Sure, this would cause administrative headaches for FIFA, but to claim that FIFA can do whatever it wants without, for example, worrying about local labor laws, is undemocratic and completely unjustified. Furthermore, FIFA will have to learn a hard lesson in its attempt to fight the flow of history and enforce caps for foreign players employed and fielded in club teams. Globalization is a reality and FIFA will learn these lessons over time.
So by the time I’m on my deathbed, football will look a little different. In most respects, these changes will be positive. Now that I’ve offered my take on what the next six decades hold, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on what you think will happen in the world of soccer.