Sudden change

Life at the World Cup can change in just 90 minutes

Terry Baddoo is co-host of World Sport, the international sports show that airs live on CNN International. He will regularly contribute Postcards from South Korea to CNNSI.com during the World Cup.

The fickleness of football has once again been in evidence at this World Cup, where a win can turn the victor into a world-beater, and a loss can turn the highest of the high into the lowest of the low.

It all began with the FIFA presidential election, which Sepp Blatter entered painted as some kind of Godfather mobster, and emerged, after victory, as Uncle Sepp the champion of all things good in the game. The latter description I don’t have a problem with, since Mr. Blatter has always seemed like a decent guy to me. But can you believe the rapidity with which his detractors turned around their opinions?

So to the field, where France entered the tournament feted as world champions. It will start its final group-play game against Denmark cast in the role of World Cup whipping boys, battling to avoid first-round elimination and the humiliation that would go with it. The headlines proclaim a great team gone bad in the space of just two games.

Going in the other direction, meantime, is the United States. The worst team in the tournament at France '98, the Yanks arrived with no one but themselves expecting them to be much better. Three goals against Portugal, albeit assisted by some of the worst defending we’ve seen in the competition so far, and in the space of 90 minutes American credibility has risen off the chart.

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Individuals, too, have seen their stock jump through the roof in the time it takes to eat a good dinner. With due respect, I don’t think many people, myself included, expected Ronaldo to touch the dizzying heights he reached early in his career before a series of injuries blunted his fire. Yet there he was running at the Turkish defenders, jinking, turning and scoring as if his battered knee had never seen the surgeon’s knife. In the space of one game, the word is that he’s suddenly been born again.

Is this U-turn culture good for the tournament? Well, it certainly means there’s never a dull moment. I’m not sure I’d like to be on the receiving end of such polarized opinion though. But, as French fullback Bixente Lizarazu told me the other day, "In football, that is the life."

 

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