Search: ' World Cup 2006'

Simon Cotterill examines the legacy of half-filled stadiums from the 2002 World Cup

There was dismay in Japan and South Korea when FIFA announced in 1996 that the 2002 World Cup would be shared between them. The countries’ relationship was frosty at best and the bidding war between them had been fierce, bitter and expensive. Although shocked at FIFA’s unprecedented decision, both were at least relieved that they hadn’t actually lost the vote, and so set about trying to out-do each other by pumping billions into football facilities.

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Quito’s El Nacional pick only native players, a policy that is coming under increasing pressure. Henry Mance reports

As a boy, Juan Carlos Burbano knew never to support foreigners; for a decade as a player, he tried never to pass to them; and now as a coach he is determined to beat them. Such is a life with El Nacional, the Ecuadorian club which only fields locally-born players. “If the national team can do it, why can’t El Nacional?” says Burbano, referring to Ecuador’s unprecedented qualification for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. “We’ve got low self-esteem in Ecuador, and sport has helped it recover”. El Nacional’s “pure creoles” rule was the idea of their founder, an army captain. Forty-five years later the rule remains, as does military control.

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Five years ago the Football League became Leagues One and Two and the Championship. Roger Titford assesses the transition

Lord Mawhinney of the Football League is pleased to announce attendances in the competition have risen to their highest level since the early 1960s. The particular star of the show is the Championship where crowds are up five per cent on last season and back to a level last seen in the reign of George VI (apart from a statistical blip in 2006-07).

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A Yorkshire MEP is campaigning for an investigation into the 1973 Cup-Winners Cup final. Matthew Barker wonders why

The 1973 European Cup-Winners Cup final wasn’t, by all accounts, a great game. Leeds United and Milan kicked chunks out of each other in a typically brutal early-Seventies footballing culture-clash, played in a torrential downpour in Salonika. Luciano Chiarugi scored the only goal from a third-minute free-kick ­(indirect, claim Leeds), with the Italians happy to defend deep in a catenaccio master class under the tutelage of Nereo Rocco. Don R­evie’s team had three penalty claims waved away by Greek referee ­Christos Michas, while Norman Hunter was sent off. It was, as Italian newspaper Il ­Manifesto recently put it, “a disaster from beginning to end … a night of rain and rage”, with a disgruntled local crowd pelting Milan’s players with missiles as they attempted to celebrate their win.

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John Morrow examines a season in which football took a backseat to politics as Derry City were forced to resign from the league

 The long-term significance
The Northern Irish Troubles, which had broken out in earnest in 1969, cast a long shadow over football in the province as nationalist-supported side Derry City resigned from the league during the course of the season. Derry, whose Brandywell ground is located near the city’s Bogside area – the scene of fierce rioting in 1969 and Bloody Sunday in January 1972 – had been forced to play home games at Coleraine’s Showgrounds since September 1971 due to the fears of unionist-supported teams entering the area. Unable to sustain senior football, Derry City were put on the road to joining the League of Ireland in 1985 and remaining outside Northern Irish football to this day.

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