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 face one of two future outcomes: the Soviet Union (remember them?) would trigger a thermonuclear war, or we’d all be running 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 although my car is very attached to dry land, the intervening years have brought a series of changes to society, which probably no one would have foreseen in 1984.
The point, I suppose, is that the business of forecasting is at best a game of dice, and at worst an opportunity for people to write things that subsequent events will make fun of. Football is not immune to stupid predictions, as anyone who has followed Pelé’s occasional comments in the press well knows. So, wanting to look into 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 be 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 mind writing something 54 years ago that makes me look dumb. If I am 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 be looking forward to the 2066 Cup, knowing that fate will certainly be on their side as they watch 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 of things change, I don’t see China putting together the kind of league and national youth system needed to produce 11 world-class players. Also, watch out for 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 I’m still not convinced of China’s perpetually bright future, and that goes doubly for football.
3. CONMEBOL and CONCACAF will merge. Merging these two regions only makes sense. And, as a kid in the 1980s, seeing these parts merge brings back memories of Devastator coming together to work on the best of Megatron to drive the Autobots…sorry. Back to my point, a merger of the North and South American confederations makes sense and will improve the quality of the game overall. First, it would give the United States and Canada more consistent and significant exposure to superior competition. Second, it would be 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 the nations into groups, which would mean fewer games to qualify for South American teams.
4. The Caribbean nations will jointly host the greatest World Cup of all time. Building on their joint organization of the Cricket World Cup, 10 Caribbean nations will invite football 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 leave 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 skeptical (ahem, consummate America hater, 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 excellent corporate backing, has the best sports science in the world, and, oh boy, we’re Americans and we don’t lose. This is the sporting equivalent of the Apollo lunar mission. Hell or high water we’ll make it.
6. Great Britain will finally 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 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 continual failures, and perhaps even a little chastened by their experience with the Olympics where the IOC did not allow England to send their own team, they will get their act together and outfit a British team.
7. Africa… wow, who knows? This is the most difficult. I have no doubt that Africa will continue to produce top-tier talent, and I expect that in 50 years the majority of the best players in the world will come from Africa. However, the real question is whether Africa can begin to develop leagues that can compete at the highest level and whether its football associations will stop interfering and destroying their national teams. Over the past decade, we have seen football associations in Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal and Ivory Coast rightfully accused of theft, massive player mismanagement, threats of violence, political coercion and utter and total incompetence on a scale never seen before. in football history To make matters worse, African nations have not dedicated themselves to developing their own coaches, do not adequately prepare youngsters and offer the poorest and most dilapidated facilities for training and playing.
That 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 straighten out its economies, produce wealth, create infrastructure and purge its governments, and thus its football associations, of the kind of kleptocratic, bureaucratic nepotistic and capricious that has crushed the best minds and talents of the continent. If the continent can turn around, there are at least ten nations that have the potential to become true world football powerhouses (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 emerge, 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) MLS and 3) French Ligue 1. Brazil is becoming more confident as a nation, and as its economy grows, it will produce the kind of wealth broad and deep that can support teams that develop and retain the best players in the world. When Santos, Flamengo and Gremio have the bankroll to prevent the likes of Kaká, Ronaldinho or Robinho from leaving, Brazilian teams will improve rapidly and exponentially. As for MLS, soccer is growing steadily and surely in the United States, and in about twenty years, the league will be among the best in the world. The United States has a real advantage because, as the cultural center of the world, it will always have cache and convening power that other nations cannot match. In other words, once MLS becomes a viable option, financially and competitively, with the European leagues, the marketing potential and brilliance of the United States will allow MLS to overtake 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 been underperforming for a long time, and it seems that a nation with the wealth and football pedigree of France should have a better league. Also, watch out for 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 play-off against a South American team, and until this latest 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 face an increasingly difficult path to qualification and miss out on some World Cups that they could have if they had decided. instead. face teams like Uruguay or Venezuela.
10. Someone will downgrade FIFA. In recent years, Sepp Blatter has become increasingly sanctimonious and exaggerated in the way he discusses football’s role in the world, its ability to transcend national borders and, more worryingly, that the game (or , more specifically, the administrators of the game: FIFA) is not subject to any national law. There have been other sports institutions that have tried to make the same lame argument, and in the United States, at least, they have generally lost. FIFA must be subject to national laws, and to say otherwise is complete nonsense and, if true, 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, say, worrying about local labor laws, is undemocratic and completely unwarranted. Furthermore, FIFA will have to learn a hard lesson as it tries to fight the flow of history and enforce maximum limits on foreign players employed and fielded in club teams. Globalization is a reality and over time FIFA will learn these lessons.
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 have offered my opinion on what the next six decades hold, I am curious to hear your thoughts on what you think will happen in the world of football.
