Opinion – Juca Kfouri: The time has come to look at smaller teams without so much arrogance

The 22nd World Cup, disputed for the first time in a country in the Middle East, more precisely in Qatar, is the first to challenge the restricted club of eight world champions. The round of 16 started and three of them were not among the 16 classified.

The four-time champion Italy did not even come for the second time in a row, Germany ended up eliminated in the group stage, also for the second time in a row, and the two-time champion Uruguay remained eliminated.

Two-time champions France lost to Tunisia, two-time champions Argentina were defeated by Saudi Arabia, champions Spain fell to Japan, who had already beaten Germany, and five-time champions Brazil suffered their first defeat in a World Cup to an African team, from Cameroon.

Only England has not yet been shamed. Shame? Yes, this is how the inhabitants of the select group of eight treat defeats against Asian, African, Central or North American teams, as well as those from Oceania. By chance Australia, in a group that had Denmark, got the vacancy.

In the same way as the Asians Japan and South Korea and the Africans Senegal and Morocco, the latter in first place, overcoming the Belgians and the Croatian world runners-up. Something happens out of order in the new world order, grant the brilliant Caetano the mixture of Sampa and New Order.

And you need to change the lenses of your glasses, or adopt them for those who haven’t already, to better see and understand the unexpected results on Arabian turf. Well, one Qatari said to another, both perplexed:

“Once, Japan beat Germany, it passes. It’s a zebra, it’s part of it. Twice, Saudi Arabia beat Argentina, OK, in fact the camels are losing place to the zebras. But Japan won again, now from Spain. What is there? And the Australians and their tamed kangaroos? And Cameroon? After all, animal, what animals are these? Morocco? Senegal, without Sadio Mané?”

Thus, at first sight, the difference in commitment between the supporting actors and the protagonists of Planeta Bola, always full of themselves, arrogant in plain sight —a bit like the lady who complains about poor people at the airport and indicates the way to bus station, or the indignant boss because the cook’s daughter took his son’s vacancy at medical school.

Nothing prevents that at the end of the funnel we have the usual ones disputing the title. Especially because eight of the 16 are European, accompanied by eight other teams from other continents, something unprecedented, three from America, two from Africa, two from Asia and one from Oceania.

The five remaining world champions have total conditions to turn around and impose themselves. A hiccup here, another hiccup there, it won’t be drinking water with the glass upside down, but rather the scares that will provide the solution.

Because nobody has the right to be surprised by any result, with any team, because even the Central American Costa Rica, who took seven from Spain and four from Germany, was the only one to beat Japan.

It is true that the defeats of all those previously classified in the third round were with teams full of reserves against teams that fought for a place and that the Spaniards left a noisy castanets behind the ear.

Only the future will forget the details and remember the results. And the present allows us to speculate whether, finally, we will see, with new glasses, an African or Asian country, world champion