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Chapter 4

AND THE BIG WINNERS WERE: RONALDO,

SOUTH KOREA, AND “OUR GAME”

by Rob Hughes

from The International Herald Tribune

For the first time in World Cup history, the tournament was co—hosted by two Asian countries, Japan and South Korea. The South Korean team’s thrilling win over Spain in overtime also marked the first time an Asian team had advanced to the semifinal round of the tournament.

Once the ball has stopped rolling, and the Brazilians stop partying, we can begin to count the costs and the gains of World Cup 2002.

It has been a tournament of many faces. Asia, first of all, was unbroken ground} a triumph of organization and security, and a lesson to the world in civility?

Brazil’s team was bound for home, where the Penca—the historic fifth homecoming of the World Cup——will reignite a population of 170 million whose problems with their beleaguered currency, the real, will be set aside while the return of Ronaldo prolongs the carnival.4 He not only scores the goals, he finds the simple sentence that sums up a nation: “It’s a fantastic feeling to be a Brazilian tonight,” he said in Yokohama, Japan, as Sunday night turned into Monday morning.

Looking at him, Oliver Kahn, the beaten German goalkeeper and captain, could only say: “This is not about your club, it’s about the entire nation. When you look at the expectations and the enthusiasm of millions back home, you realize what’s at stake.”

Maybe too much. Maybe soccer is exceeding its purpose in life and at this World Cup we have seen the best of it, and potentially the worst.

The skills of Brazil transcended everything, and masked a little that this was a tournament of tired athletes (that’s what they say, anyway, from France to Argentina, from England to Italy), and of uninspired, unpolished techniques.

But if Brazil was, without room for question, the champion, the Republic of Korea was a remarkable victor also. Its streets became vast seas of red, impenetrables lines of supporters like poppies in an overgrown field.

The celebrations that lasted from the first to the last ball that South Korea’s sons chased were extraordinary. They were laced with fever,9 and with the joyousness that Latin American countries parade“) when they win. There was something so proud, so deep, and so

overwhelming“ throughout South Korean society that with 5 million people in the town squares it still felt perfectly safe.

“We discovered unity in our people,” said Chung Mong Joon, the man whose tigerish fight within FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the governing body of world soccer, brought at least half a World Cup to his country.

Speaking one morning at breakfast in Tokyo, Chung added: “They demonstrated they are free, they are mature, they are global citizens.” And, he added, “nobody lost control.” So, above all, the memory of this World Cup is the people of South Korea. They have, as Chung says, discovered unity.

“The World Cup has been a lifetime experience,” he said, “and even if in the end we were disappointed to lose the semifinal, I can say that I worked in FIFA for ten years without understanding the full impact of the World Cup.”

He knows it now. It was mounted at huge cost.13 and in South Korea and Japan the infrastructure” will now have to be paid for.

South Korea paid more than $2 billion to erect 10 new stadiums, while Japan’s cost was close to twice as much.

We visitors——those not let down by the ticketing mess created by FIFA’s appointed agency—were the beneficiaries.” There is no continent better served by state—of-the—art stadiums than Asia now.

How they will be used in the future (bearing in mind that a $660 million stadium costs at least $6 million a year in maintenance) is part of the headache, the cost Asian taxpayers will bear.

There are, of course, some who are counting their profits, some bemoaning” losses from an event that claims to have been viewed by a cumulative audience of 42 billion over its 64 matches.

FIFA hopes that its television and marketing return nears $1 billion, and thus wipes out the bad bloods caused by its debts after one of its marketing companies collapsed” last year and its television group ran into financial problems this year.

But if soccer is inseparable from politics and commerce, the two sporting images that surpass all others are the awakening of South Korea, and the heart—warming resurrection of Ronaldo.

It was as if 2002 was predestined” to be his tournament. He came back to rediscover himself, to conquer fear and long, long injuries, and inevitably, to score the two goals that defeated Germany in Yokohama on Sunday.

Magnificent. Ronaldo is a young man, still only 25, who has so much wealth that he did not need to push his body through pain. He could have retired on his fame. But in his soul is to be a footballer, and every Brazilian aspires to winning the World Cup.

Long may he thrill us.

South Korea and Japan did not manage to smooth over” their separate customs (either at the airports or at the heart of a joint tournament). They remain suspicious and often incompatible neighbors. But both saw in the flesh” the greatest teams and the greatest player of this World Cup.

Yet football crossed the boundaries. North Koreans peeped at the games, which is an improvement on 1988, when Pyongyang remained a closed and shuttered Window, ignoring the world at play.

The hope is that, long after the stadiums are closed, some of them becoming relics“ even in their imaginative structural design, the human sharing of this event will remain with those who hosted it.

A boundary has been crossed, and FIFA now talks, optimistically, of Africa in 2010 (after Germany in 2006).

If one person found the joy in this now gargantuan business enterprise, then soccer, the game, is still a remarkable life force.” And I know of one. Po Soon Bun is 68, and a grandmother.

“I did not watch football, even on television, before this World Cup,” she said. “I could not understand those boys running after the ball. But now, I read every World Cup article in the newspapers. It’s amazing what football can do to you.” Welcome to our game, Madame. You are never too young or too old to catch the fever.”