World Cup History – Post-Modern Soccer 1990-2006

World Cup History – Post-Modern Soccer 1990-2006
FIFA Football Tournament Expands Global and Social Horizons

* Mar 25, 2010
* Shona Black

France 98 Hero, Germany 06 Villain Zinedine Zidane - Getty Images/Staff
France 98 Hero, Germany 06 Villain Zinedine Zidane - Getty Images/Staff

The history of FIFA World Cup in the post-modern age of expansion: Italy 1990; USA 1994; France 1998; Japan-South Korea 2002; and Germany 2006.

Where other ages changed the face of football as the game itself evolved, the post-modern era changed something less obvious but in many ways more profound: the face of football fandom.
Italia 90 – The Pavarotti Cup

The 1990 World Cup in Italy heralded a new age of football. FIFA president João Havelange’s ambitious vision for the game had flourished through the age of television, and Italia 90 was in some ways a culmination of efforts to push the boundaries of soccer’s popularity ever further.

In England, the tournament represented redemption after the dark days of 1980s hooliganism. What happened on the pitch – England’s best finish since winning on home turf in 1966, a semifinal loss on penalties to eventual winners West Germany – helped, but was secondary in significance to the sea-change in the public’s attitude toward the national game. No longer a disgrace, a pastime for thugs, football became glamourous. The image of skinheads in the stands was replaced by scantily-clad samba-ing Brazilian beauties. Thanks to the BBC’s masterful coverage, for a vast middle-class sector of brand new football fans, the sport now conjured up slow-motion heroics set to Pavarotti.
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The irony of Italia 90 is that it was the most defensive tournament in World Cup history, offering up little in the way of scintillating soccer. The rather dreary final between West Germany and Argentina was won by a single late penalty. Yet a whole new fan demographic had been born, and would change forever the way soccer is played, watched and consumed.
USA 1994 – Soccer in America

To FIFA’s chagrin, one massive lucrative market remained largely unmoved by – indeed, completely oblivious to – the beautiful game: the USA. One obvious remedy was to award the country World Cup 1994.

It was not World Cup’s finest hour. Memories of 1994 are besmirched by the murder of Colombia’s Andres Escobar on his return home after scoring an own-goal to send his country out of the Cup; not to mention Diego Maradona’s expulsion from the tournament after failing a drug test, and Brazilian defender Leonardo fracturing American Tab Ramos’ skull with a vicious elbow. And it all ended, for the first time, with a goalless draw. Brazil eventually beat Italy on penalties in a dully defensive match that did little to change the view of soccer in America.
France 1998 – A Bigger Better World Cup

Nonetheless, the juggernaut of football’s popularity could not be stopped, and FIFA decided once again to expand the tournament for France 1998. The format changed to allow 32 teams, expanding the competition’s global coverage and making France 98 the most diverse World Cup yet, with five African nations, four Asian and three from the CONCACAF region encompassing North and Central Americas and the Caribbean.
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It also furnished a finalist outside the dominant Italy-Brazil-Argentina-Germany coterie for the first time since Holland twenty years earlier. Home side France, propelled by the sublime genius of Zinedine Zidane, made it to the final, where they faced favourites Brazil, a team lavishly stocked with some of the world’s best players in Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Cafu. Les Bleus astonished the world with an exuberant, resounding 3-0 victory over the favourites, becoming the first first-time World Cup winners since Argentina in 1978.
Korea / Japan 2002 – Soccer in Asia

2002 marked a double departure for World Cup – not only was it hosted in Asia for the first time, but hosting duties were split between two nations, Japan and South Korea. And whereas USA 1994 had largely failed to coax the American public into the soccer fold, Korea/Japan 2002 was a resounding success in building the sport’s image in the lucrative Asian market. The soccer boom in Asia was well under way.

After the glory of 1998, defending champions France were in for a rude awakening, going out in the first round without scoring a single goal. Brazil, so comprehensively beaten in 1998, struggled to qualify in 2002, scraping past Venezuela in their final qualifying match to book a place at Korea / Japan – but once there, things turned around.

Performances from Ronaldo, Rivaldo, and the emerging superstar Ronaldinho helped Brazil to a record seventh World Cup final – and ultimately to their fifth World Cup, conquering Germany 2-0 in the final.
Germany 2006 – A Festival of Football

By 2006, FIFA’s grand plans to expand the game all over the world had met with astonishing success. Football was enjoying unprecedented popularity around the globe, fired by the widespread popularity of the richly entertaining English Premier League – a phenomenon that traces its roots to the “embourgeoisement” of football stemming from Italia 90.

The FIFA regional expansion project would continue and launch another new era with South Africa 2010, but in 2006 the Cup returned to Europe for a festival of football. The Germans were widely applauded for the best-organised and most enjoyable World Cup in memory, if not history.

World Cup 2006 ended with a piece of drama so outrageous it couldn’t have been scripted to make a bigger impact. Italy and France met in the final after hard-fought campaigns, Italy once again playing against the backdrop of a domestic league scandal, France battling mortality with an ageing, if majestic, squad. In a tightly balanced contest, France seemed to be gaining the upper hand until the absurd, the bizarre, the inexplicable happened: national treasure Zinedine Zidane headbutted Italian defender Marco Materazzi, with delicious deliberation and lurid brutality, in full view of the officials.

On the verge of retirement, one of the game’s greatest ever players made his last action on a football pitch a memorable – and costly – one. Zidane was sent off, and Italy eventually won their fourth World Cup in a penalty shoot-out.
References:

* Crouch, Terry. The World Cup: the Complete History, Aurum Press, 2010
* Fiore, Fernando. The World Cup: Ultimate Guide to the Greatest Sports Spectacle in the World, Harper Collins, 2006
* Goldblatt, David. The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football, Penguin Books, 2006


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