A World Championship different from the expected. (Yahoo)

The professor Oscar Tabárez every day could less simulate his smile. School teacher, he manages as few the cordiality and measure vocabulary. But he is sincere and knows well that if somebody would tell him that this will be the panorama of the “light-blues” for the final part of the World Championship, he would surely call him crazy.

And Tabarez is right because to tell the true, Uruguay is availing a calendar that is not to favour them casually, but because the FIFA structured it thus the local South Africa would advance all the possible, as in the 2002 gave result with the South Korea team.

But they had no luck with South Africa and did not help the scandal of the French team to such a point that when they arrived to their own territory, the veteran forwarder of the Barcelona, Thierry Henry, who was not the protagonist in the field, was cited nothing less, but by the president Nicolás Sarkozy to learn what happened.

The French debacle and the lack of coherence in the play confirmed by the “Bafana Bafana” in the Group A, with the Brazilian Carlos Parreira stating a few days of the start of the World Championship “that now yes” his team found an identity when he assumed seven months ago in substitution of another countryman, Joel Santana, he declared that the same team “had no” identity, derived in a quick elimination and with the Uruguayan projected now almost until the semi finals if they get to work wisely and pass the South Korean in the eights and the winner of the United States-Ghana in the quarter.

What happens to Uruguay FIFA had in mind for South Africa and the same for other teams of the local continent, but they confronted not only that from the six Africans only one continued in the career (Ghana), but they did it entering by the window, losing in their last match vs Germany and however, without doing too much force when the final whistle was heard.

Just the contrary image is what projects the South American Continent, with their five protagonists (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile) classified for the eights of final and already with a team in the quarters, because Brazil and Chile will have to confront on the next June 29 in Cape Town.

The improvement in the production of the five South Americans is neither casual, but is related to the arrival of the great league players of the whole continent who were having experience winning self estimation and knowledge with the different tactical systems so when knowledge and experience are the same, the technical skill has more importance.

In change, Occidental Europe and Africa are the great defeated from the first phase of this World Championship and should meditate a lot as stated with courage by the Italian midfielder Gennaro Gattusso after that the last World Champion resigned its chances falling defeated vs a limited Slovakian team: “Our calcio should be changed” and he referred to the systems of play and the form in which is managed in his country and all over Europe.

Also the renouncing coach Marcello Lippi was clear when he referred to Italy: “We prepared badly and made nothing and I am disappointed”, but he did not cleared up why when he really needed it, the “azzurri”, arrived at the final with a conductor such as Andrea Pirlo and three forwarders as Quagliarella, Di Natale and Iaquinta, but in the remaining cases he preferred to defend the zero in the own goal.

Neither some of those who passed to the eights, as Portugal, England and in good measure Germany, showed much and even less Serb and Denmark, who had to pack quickly.

The African should ask themselves where did remain that freshness, that magic of the first times of their appearance in the great football, submitted by the tactisisms of Europe with a discipline that has nothing to do with the tradition of each of their countries.

It was ridicule to hear Sven Goran Ericksson, the Swedish coach of another of the disappointments, Ivory Coast, stating that there was few time to prepare the team for a contest of such category but he said nothing about it when he was paid a fortune and accepted it, same as Parreira with the “Bafana Bafana”, that now does not even contemplate the chance of a foreigner and their directives do not wait long to design his substitute who will be local.

Everything indicates that Africa has to go back to its resources to bet on their rich football, meanwhile that Europe must understand that the formula proposed by the president of the FIFA Joseph Blatter, and sustained by the president of the UEFA, Michel Platini, related to the “6 + 5”, (six local players and five foreigners, that are reducing until arriving to 2012 with “8+3” should be studied deeply because there almost was no renewal and the foreign players are over all the leagues in a market of agents and representatives.

Then, when the Inter or the Arsenal enters the stadium with no player born in the country is not only a curious matter but the germen of what will happen afterwards with the national team.

In times of great power of the clubs, the national teams owe their existence, in great part, to their identity. And if their players does not participate, there will be difficult to obtain same, even with the skilful coaches who will sell their soul to Lucifer, insisting to the contrary. This kind of truth do not last long in front of the evidence.