Game on for the Soccer World Cup

By EWAN McDONALD

Two really good reasons to watch the World Cup:

1. Australia can't win it.

2. Australia's not even in it.

Time for closure. From next weekend we can forget about John O'Neill and Vernon Pugh and their little backyard kickaround. Even the Olympics pale beside soccer's World Cup.

It's the big one, the full noise, the whole 110 yards, the one that's so big it's called the World Cup without a "golf" or a "snooker" or a "rugby" in front of it.

The Ministry for Estimating Such Things reckons that one in four people around the globe will be watching the teams from 32 countries as they try to put a ball into a goal — variously known as "the old onion-bag" or "the back of the net" (but never the top or the sides) — more often than the guys at the other end of the paddock (variously known as the pitch, the park, or the footy field).

Say what you like about football (variously known as soccer, calcio or the beautiful game) but it has managed to achieve a couple of things thought impossible in other sporting codes.

For one, these finals will be co-hosted by two nations, Japan and South Korea, and if anyone ever thought New Zealand and Australia were so close and yet so far apart, try getting those buddies to agree on anything.

Two, there's none of that malarkey about clean stadiums. These babies are about making big bucks, which means the sport's
governing body, Fifa, can play Pepsi against Coke, Heineken against Budweiser, or Nike against adidas against Reebok against Lotto.

Also being the president of Fifa means you get to be called "Your Excellency" in 205 member nations around the world, and you can laugh when your own secretary-general asks what happened to money totalling the gross national product of several reasonable-sized nations, as is happening at the moment.

Since we don't contribute too many of the estimated 200 million soccer players around the world, here's an idiot's guide to this year's tournament.

The big fromages are France, the cupholders, with a multi-national lineup of stars
circling the sport's ruling genius, the Zen-like Zinedine Zidane, $154 million-worth of flesh, bone, brain and boot at the current exchange rate.

Of the other European challengers, Italy and Spain look more likely than Germany, who are in what coaches like to call "a rebuilding phase, Brian". Portugal has the elegant maestro, Luis Figo, but he doesn't have the support of his Real Madrid clubmates like Zidane and Brazil's Roberto Carlos. The tournament format and humid conditions will reward teams who can pace themselves and keep hold of the ball, neither exactly strengths of England's team, particularly with Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad missing so many of his first choices.

Argentina, with the Exocet strike force

of Gabriel Batistuta, are favourites after an impressive qualification series. This is a combination of awesome experience and depth. "Argentina are not going to the World Cup just to make a good show, but to come out as champions," says Carlos Bilardo, the country's 1986 World Cup-winning coach.

Rarely have Brazil entered a major tournament with so many question marks hanging over them. Their qualifying campaign was a shambles, but the very idea of a World Cup without the Samba Soccer squad is unthinkable.

Lack of organisation, corruption, in-fighting and the drain of talent away from the continent has hindered Africa's progress in international football. Nigeria and Cameroon have become Olympic champions. Cameroon, always talented, ever chaotic, might prove the surprise package.

Uruguay, twice cupwinners and the last team to qualify, Poland and Turkey are others with the potential to damage some fancy reputations, particularly in the earlier rounds.

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