Every national team has the dreams of winning the most
prestigious football awards –the world cup. However, the recent world cup
finals are proving a curse for most defending champions.
Three of the last four
world cup finals have seen the then defending champions really struggle and
shamefully exit the tournament in the group stages.
France, the 1998 champions went into the 2002 world cup and
just like the other teams, expected to win the championship; in this case a
second successive time, but their dreams were quickly shuttered as they were
eliminated in the first round of the group stages.
The tournament jointly
hosted by South Korea and Japan and for the first time in Asia champions
managing only single point. The French side had an automatic qualification to
the competition, and some would say an almost automatic elimination as well.
South Africa were the host of the 2010 world cup that saw the
resilient Italians come into the tournament as defending champions from the
previous 2006 competition which were held in Germany.
Italy was however not
given a n automatic qualification as it was the case in previous world cups.
They were bundled out of the tournament in the group stages after a
disappointing performance in the tournament.
Yet the trend seems to be going on, the victim this year in
Brazil being Spain, the 2010 world cup champions. The Spaniards came in not only as
defending champions but also the 2008 and 2009 UEFA champions. They also have
bowed out of the tournament in just their second match with a shocking 2-0
defeat in the hands of Chile which came after receiving a 5-0 beat down in
their first match against the Dutch.
It’s quite evident that defending a title is one of the hardest tasks in the world cup and until one team successively
defends their title, then the curse of the defending champions lives on!
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