World cup 2010 news

Below you’ll find a complete list of the 32 coaches at World Cup 2010. You’ll also find their nationality, and their age going into the tournament. Beneath that you’ll find some amateur hour number crunching I did with pen, paper and the calculator on my cell phone to work out a few statistics.

Before you look at the list of coaches and the numbers, do yourself a favour and have a guess at how those numbers pan out. What do you think the average age of the World Cup coaches will be? How many coaches are in their forties? What percentage of World Cup teams have a foreign coach? Which country has the most coaches at World Cup 2010? Ignore the image of three German passports above, take a best guess at those numbers and then read on for the answers…

Team – Coach (coach nationality) coach age
Algeria – Rabah Saâdane (Algeria) 64
Argentina – Diego Maradona (Argentina) 49
Australia – Pim Verbeek (Netherlands) 54
Brazil – Dunga (Brazil) 46
Cameroon – Paul Le Guen (France) 46
Chile – Marcelo Bielsa (Argentina) 54
Cote d’Ivoire – Sven-Göran Eriksson (Sweden) 62
Denmark – Morten Olsen (Denmark) 60
England – Fabio Capello (Italy) 63
France – Raymond Domenech (France) 58
Germany – Joachim Löw (Germany) 50
Ghana – Milovan Rajevac (Serbia) 56
Greece – Otto Rehhagel (Germany) 71
Honduras – Reinaldo Rueda (Colombia) 53
Italy – Marcello Lippi (Italy) 62
Japan – Takeshi Okada (Japan) 53
Mexico – Javier Aguirre (Mexico) 51
Netherlands – Bert van Marwijk (Netherlands) 58
Nigeria – Lars Lagerbäck (Sweden) 61
North Korea – Kim Jong-Hun (North Korea) 53
New Zealand – Ricki Herbert (New Zealand) 49
Paraguay – Gerardo Martino (Argentina) 47
Portugal – Carlos Queiroz (Portugal) 57
Serbia – Radomir Antić (Serbia) 61
Slovakia – Vladimír Weiss (Slovakia) 45
Slovenia – Matjaž Kek (Slovenia) 48
South Africa – Carlos Alberto Parreira (Brazil) 67
South Korea – Huh Jung-Moo (South Korea) 55
Spain – Vicente del Bosque (Spain) 59
Switzerland – Ottmar Hitzfeld (Germany) 61
USA – Bob Bradley (USA) 52
Uruguay – Oscar Tabárez (Uruguay) 63

So let’s break this down. First by how many years these coaches have seen.

Seven World Cup coaches are in their forties. Fourteen World Cup coaches are in their fifties. Ten World Cup coaches are in their 60s. Just one World Cup coach is in his seventies.

Otto Rehhagel is that old man of the group at 71 years old. Even though he only looks about 50. Vladimír Weiss is the baby at 45 years old. The total ages of all coaches combined is 1,788 years. Which is a lot of experience. Average age is 55.875 years old.

Second, nationality. A total of 20 teams have native coaches. Those 20 teams are:
Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, North Korea, New Zealand, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, USA, Uruguay. Well done you guys.

A total of 12 teams have gone foreign, hiring non-native coaches. Those 12 teams are:
Australia, Cameroon, Chile, Cote d’Ivoire, England, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Nigeria, Paraguay, South Africa, Switzerland. Please try harder next time (though Switzerland gets a semi-pass since Ottmar Hitzfeld is considered almost Swiss by some).

So that means 62.5% of teams have native coaches, while 37.5% don’t. Native coaches are in the majority, but that 37.5% seems like a whole lot of foreigners.

Here are the nationalities with more than one coach at the World Cup:

3 – Argentina, Germany
2 – Brazil, France, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia, Sweden

It’s incredible to me that Argentinean coaches are well respected enough to be in demand by other nations, and yet Diego Maradona is in charge of the albiceleste. But perhaps the strangest fact is that there are three coaches at the World Cup who come countries whose team didn’t qualify. They are Sven-Göran Eriksson and Lars Lagerbäck of Sweden, and Reinaldo Rueda of Colombia. And here’s what you’ll want to say if you’re outraged by a foreigner managing your national team. Derka derb.

Chile can’t be considered a shock going in with a good crop of youngsters coming through, but damnit, they shocked South America with the manner of their qualification. They finished one solitary point behind Brazil, taking down Argentina for the first time in an official game on their travels, and ran strong on the back of Marcelo Bielsa, exorcising his demons from 2002 – even if it wasn’t very patriotic.

It’s setup something of a quandry in South Africa, because history says they won’t make tremendous waves, but if they bring their good qualifying form to the party – it wasn’t all rosy – says they just might turn a few heads.

Which qualifies them as the underdog to watch throughout the tournament.


Nickname: La Roja (The Red)

FIFA World Ranking as of April 28th 2010: 15th

Group H Matches:

Honduras v Chile, June 16th, 1:30p, Nelspruit
Chile v Switzerlan, June 21st, 4p, Port Elizabeth
Chile v Spain, June 25th, 8:30p, Pretoria

Buy Chile World Cup tickets here.

Kit: Red top with blue shorts.

More on the Chile kit here.

Coach: Marcelo Bielsa. Some coaches are strange, others are quirky – Marcelo Bielsa is out of his mind. So much so he’s called El Loco Bielsa – no points for translation.

But while he’s mad, he’s also a mad genius. There will be no better disciplined team at the World Cup, and no team whose players respect their coach more. He earns his respect by constantly devising and scheming, with a 3-4-3 that is every bit as bipolar as it sounds. They might score four, they might concede four, or they might do both. It’s maddeningly good.

Key Players: They’re a bit top heavy – partly because of that 3-4-3, but largely because point man Humberto Suazo is so large. Flanking him will be the super pacy duo of Mark Gonzalez and Alexis Sanchez, one of the biggest talents in the world, with Mathias Fernandes, once one of the world’s best talents, tucked in just behind as a trequartista. It’s a phenomenal ode to attacking football.

Carlos Carmona, Rodrigo Millar and Roberto Cereceda have been called in to provide a bit of the work in midfield, while the three-man back of Gary Medel, Gonzalo Jara and Waldo Ponce get to enjoy nightmares of the counterattack. The man who gets to enjoy the fun evolve in front of him is No. 1 Claudio Bravo.

Player with best YouTube video: He’s likened to Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United tried to buy him to replace Cristiano Ronaldo, he sometimes falls in love with his own ability like a young Cristiano Ronaldo and someday soon he’s going to dominate YouTube like Cristiano Ronaldo. Alexis Sanchez:

Player with best name: Waldo Ponce, obviously. Expect the liveblogs to break the Where’s Waldo? meter during the summer. It’s just a damn shame Chile don’t play in red and white striped tops – they could humor us, couldn’t they?

Player with best nickname: Humberto Suazo – El Chupete. The bald head, boyish face and baby fat has earned him the nickname which translates to The Pacifier.

It may not be so great for him, but we like it.

Qualification: An awfully good run for Chile, finishing at 33 points and with a 10-3-5 record. What may be more impressive is that the wins home and away were split – five and five. No travel worries for South Africa.

Interesting: Argentina have Chile to thank for Diego Maradona at the helm – they beat Argentina for the first time ever and Alfio Basile subsequently stepped down and Diego was summoned. Don’t expect postcards.

National Anthem: Canción Nacional (National Song)

World Cup History:

Expectations: Barring the world tilting off its axis, Spain are going to win the group and Honduras will not advance. Therefore, they’ll scrap for second with many tipping Switzerland – which will be fine by them.

Squad: Chile World Cup squad.

Blog: Mathias mans the ship at the Chile World Cup Blog.

- More World Cup 2010 Team Profiles.

Chile coach Marcelo Bielsa has dropped five players from his provisional FIFA World Cup squad following yesterday's 1-0 friendly defeat to Mexico.

Chile coach Marcelo Bielsa has announced three surprise names in his 30-man provisional squad for South Africa 2010.