World Cup lesson #1 — don’t reward success

France coach Didier Deschamps, Kylian Mbappe of France during the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 round of 16 match between France and Poland at Al Thumama Stadium on 4 December, 2022 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by ANP via Getty Images)

By Mike Wills

7 Dec 2022

France have cruised into the Fifa World Cup quarterfinals where they will meet England but a bigger obstacle could be The Jinx.

The Qatar Fifa World Cup is a shocking, preposterous idea on every level and never should have happened. Please consider my humanitarian, philosophical, sporting, practical and bibulous objections as duly lodged and, now that we’re at the tasty sharp end of the tournament, allow me to get hypocritically sucked right into the football.

This is far from the first time that we World Cup tragics have swallowed our ethics while devouring the football feast. I suppose I can be excused the 1934 World Cup hosted by Mussolini’s fascist Italy, on the grounds that I wasn’t alive.

But I greedily consumed both the 1978 event, overseen by the infamously brutal Argentine junta of General Jorge Videla, and the most recent installment when a certain Vladimir Putin was the charming host. (My favourite image of that entire tournament was Russia’s ‘strongman’ being sheltered by a personal assistant holding an umbrella during the torrential downpour which drowned the prize-giving ceremony while fellow heads of state Emmanuel Macron of France and Croatia’s Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic were left to get completely drenched.)

The Jinx

So, having cynically kicked to touch human rights issues, we obsessives have turned to the important matter of The Jinx. This does not refer to England never coming close to winning the thing since 1966 — that’s just a matter of inadequate talent and temperament (until now at least).

Nor does it refer to the Netherlands who have appeared in three final matches without a win — that’s just being free-speaking Dutch unable to pull together for five weeks without an almighty internal ruction along the way.

The Jinx refers to the inability of World Cup holders to defend their title. Amazingly, Brazil in 1962 were the last to do so and those fascistic Italians in 1938 are the only others to ever repeat.

I suppose a footnote is required here about the very first champions — Uruguay in 1930 — who boycotted the second World Cup in Italy in a fit of pique because the Italians had not bothered to attend their event.

Uruguayans have gone on to make fits of pique a national hallmark of their world cup exits with this year being no exception.

It’s not as if there have even been many decent campaigns in defence of a title. Only two champions in the past 56 years have gone on to reach the subsequent final — Argentina losing narrowly to Germany in 1990 and Brazil being thumped by France in 1998.

More significantly, four out of the last five title defences have been complete flameouts. France, who as holders carry The Jinx this year, went to South Korea in 2002 with a gilded side of world and European champions and promptly lost to Senegal, failed to score a single goal and didn’t reach the knockouts.

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The 2002 title holders, Brazil, did passably well in reaching the 2006 quarters but Italy, emotional winners that year, finished behind New Zealand of all teams in their group in our 2010 World Cup and went home to torrents of abuse.

The Spaniards were the bees’ knees in 2010 (and at the 2012 Euros) but in 2014 they were rapidly eliminated after hammerings by Holland and Chile. And the Germans swaggered through the 2014 cup in Brazil before, not for the first time in national history, retreating from Russia ignominiously as bottom of their group in 2018.

Bad luck

So, those are the facts of The Jinx but what are the reasons for such a long losing streak by champions?

Luck with injuries to superstars is undoubtedly a factor. The legendary Pelé was virtually lame for Brazil in 1966. Brilliant goalie Gordon Banks was ill for the quarter-final in 1970 when England squandered a two-goal lead against West Germany.

Ronaldo (the brilliant Brazilian original not the posturing Portuguese version) suffered a mysterious seizure just before the 1998 final. French genius Zinedine Zidane was injured in a warm-up match in 2002 and took no effective part in the tournament.

In 2010. Italy’s talismanic keeper Gianluigi Buffon missed most of their truncated tournament. Is the very late withdrawal of France’s Ballon D’Or winner Karim Benzema this year going to join this Jinx list?

Overstaying their welcome?

However, there’s another more substantive and counter-intuitive reason for The Jinx. World Cup-winning coaches tend to keep their jobs and that, the Moneyball metrics would suggest, is a big mistake.

Of those 14 unsuccessful title defences, eight have been headed by the Cup-winning coach (including legendary names such as Sir Alf Ramsey, Helmut Schön, César Luis Menotti, Enzo Bearzot and Vicente del Bosque) and two by assistants from the previous campaign. And France has Didier Deschamps backing up again this time.

Didier Deschamps, France, World Cup France coach Didier Deschamps (centre) and Kylian Mbappe of France (right) during the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 round of 16 match between France and Poland at Al Thumama Stadium on 4 December, 2022 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by ANP via Getty Images)

Brazil is the only country to have rung the changes properly after World Cup wins in this period and I suspect that just reflects the inherent, highly politicised instability of football administration in that country rather than a deliberate process.

Italy’s Vittorio Pozzo (1934 and 1938) remains the only coach to win two men’s World Cups. Jill Ellis of the USA (2015 and 2019) is the only person to do so in the shorter history of the women’s event.

So, what to make of this repeated failure of talented coaches to repeat?

Business management experts warn that the most dangerous CEO is someone who has had previous success in the face of criticism. They become immune to advice believing that they have proven that they alone know best.

They can also become set in their ways, reliant on tried and trusted methods, and way too loyal to particular staff or particular personality types (is anyone else thinking of Elon Musk right now?).

In football terms, I suspect that translates into a winning coach replicating his training, tactics and team sheets rather than innovating and surprising both his own players and the opposition.

Not enough attention might be paid to how the game has moved on in four years and how the champion’s old masterplan has been analysed, emulated and improved upon by everyone else.

If in doubt, the Cup-winning manager possibly defaults to the familiar — selecting yesterday’s heroes rather than tomorrow’s. Or he seeks a like-for-like replacement for an absent star rather than radically re-shaping around what he has available.

The players can also get tired of the same voice and those on the fringes can believe there are entrenched favourites in the squad.

Whatever the reasons behind The Jinx, it seems clear to me that, if Didier Deschamps fails to repeat his Russian triumph, then whoever becomes the World Cup-winning coach in Qatar should be immediately and summarily fired on the grounds that rewarding success demonstrably is not a recipe for more of it. DM

Mike Wills is a journalist and talk show host.

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The Jinx

Bad luck

Overstaying their welcome?