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Europe's rich clubs blamed for World Cup woes

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-06-22 17:02

England's Wayne Rooney stretches for the ball during a 2010 World Cup Group C soccer match against Algeria at Green Point stadium in Cape Town on June 18, 2010. [Agencies]

Julio Cesar, Maicon and Lucio have helped Brazil win its opening two group games at the World Cup, while Argentina has such depth that coach Diego Maradona felt able to leave Inter's Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso out of his squad.

Argentina has also won both its games, beating Nigeria 1-0 before clicking into gear with a 4-1 victory over South Korea.

European clubs pay their players' enormous salaries and feel entitled to get the best out of them before turning them over to the national associations. The result of all this is that Europe could be headed for its lowest representation in the round of 16 since the World Cup was expanded to 32 teams in 1998.

At least European champion Spain and Portugal finally sprang to life Monday. Spain recovered from its shock 1-0 loss to Switzerland with a 2-0 win over Honduras, and Portugal came up with a 7-0 rout of a physically unimposing DPRK.

Greece, Slovenia, Serbia, Switzerland and Denmark each have one victory to take Europe's tally to 10 from 26 games.

But only the Spanish and Portuguese, with Cristiano Ronaldo in their lineup, can have realistic aspirations of making it all the way to the July 11 final at Soccer City in Johannesburg.

"You see that any day any team can win," Spain striker Fernando Torres said. "We're seeing that the favorites are having a lot of problems winning and the motive is clear: in a World Cup everything is much more even. The surprises have come very early this time."