Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Critics of globalization should take a close look at the World Cup soccer games in Germany: They may be the best example of how an increasingly open world eco-nomy is helping emerging countries become stronger and more competitive.
I have to confess that I thoroughly enjoyed it when Trinidad and Tobago, a country whose national sport is cricket and whose population of just over 1 million makes it the smallest nation ever to participate in a World Cup, managed to tie 0-0 with soccer powerhouse Sweden. Or when Ecuador beat mightier Poland 2-0, or when Ghana -- playing for the first time in a World Cup -- easily won against the Czech Republic, 2-0.
Up-and-coming countries are doing reasonably well in the World Cup. While they are most often not beating the best in the world, they are making them sweat like crazy.
Decades ago, European and South American national teams used to crush Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern and Asian teams by half a dozen goals or more. In the 1982 World Cup, Hungary beat El Salvador, 10-0.
Those days seem to be gone. In the current World Cup, with few exceptions -- such as Argentina's 6-0 victory over Serbia-Montenegro on Friday -- the world's best teams are winning most matches by only one or two goals.
"Small teams are giving strong performances," Franklin Foer, the author of the book "How Soccer Explains the World," told me last week. "Globalization has helped level the playing field."
Indeed, soccer may be one of the most globalized industries. Until the early '90s, soccer was one of the most protected industries in the world. European soccer clubs could only hire a limited number of foreign players -- most often two -- per team. But in 1995, a Belgian player named Jean-Marc Bosman sued the French soccer federation, demanding to be allowed to play in France. The case went to the European Court of Justice, and he won.
Hiring foreigners
Branko Milanovic, a World Bank poverty expert and author of the recent essay "Globalization and Goals: Does Soccer Show the Way?" in the Review of International Political Economy, said that lawsuit changed the history of soccer. After the European court ruled Bosman's club had violated the Treaty of Rome's protection of free movement of labor within the European Union, soccer clubs throughout Europe began hiring foreigners at full steam.
Nowadays, London's Chelsea plays with as many as nine foreign players in its 11-member team, and more than half of Spain's Real Madrid players are foreigners, including Brazil's world star Ronaldo and Britain's David Beckham. Virtually all players on Brazil's national team play abroad, and the same goes for several other country teams.
Even national team coaches at the World Cup often are from a different country than the one they represent. Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and Japan have Brazilian coaches. Mexico has an Argentine coach, England has a Swede, Ghana a Serb and Iran has a Croat.
"It's clear that the differences between the national teams have been reduced in recent years," Milanovic told me in a telephone interview from Germany, where he is watching the games. "If you look at the scores so far, most games end with a difference of one or two goals. The game is becoming tighter."
The downside of globalization in the soccer industry is in the lower echelons of the local club level, Milanovic said. Prices of top players have risen so much that the smallest clubs cannot afford the best players. But, overall, countries are better off with the free movement of soccer players, he says.
My conclusion: Globalization in soccer is allowing smaller countries to sell their players at world-class prices, improve their clubs' finances, and spend more money to scout and train new stars. And internationally, there is little question that having their top athletes playing in the big international leagues allows smaller countries to be much more competitive on the world scene.
Big crowds
Who would have imagined a few decades ago that Ecuador or South Korea or Ghana would draw big crowds at a World Cup? You can say whatever you want about globalization, except that it's killing emerging countries on the soccer field.
On the contrary, it is making them increasingly better. Viva Trinidad and Tobago!
Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.