Cue the funereal music for Serbia & Montenegro. After a thrashing like that, maybe the country should just dissolve. This result brings to mind, again, the cosmic injustice that Europe doesn't have more teams in the tournament. Why, it's political correctness run amok! Why should spots be cleared for the likes of Trinidad, Australia and Ecuador when Europe undoubtedly has at least six more teams just as good as S & M that don't make the field? What the World Cup really needs is more Polands, Serbias and Ukraines!
Seriously, though—what is wrong with Eastern European football? So far, the Czechs are looking great and the jury remains out on Croatia. But everything else from beyond the Tattered Curtain is in abysmal shape, to say nothing of the absence of Russia and Romania. Do we need a soccer Marshall Plan? (That last bit was for you, Scruffins.)
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There is a Marshall Plan for European teams: The Union of European Football Associations, which hosts UEFA 2008. It features 50 teams and will be played in Austria and Switzerland. Damned Yankee! Now, tell old Mr. Scruffins, what are the odds of the Dutch beating Argentina to take their group....
Based on the Argies performance today, nil.
It is weird that there aren't better teams coming out of Eastern Europe considering the many strong teams--Puskas and Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia--that flourished there behind the Iron Curtain. What happened? No more state funding? A softness of spirit in the wake of rampant consumerism? I haven't a clue.
There's actually a new book called BEHIND THE CURTAIN--TRAVELS IN EASTERN EUROPEAN FOOTBALL by Jonathan Wilson that I've been meaning to pick up. Perhaps it would answer the question.
Thank the gods for the Czechs, though.
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