3rd Place Play-off Conundrum

Wherever you go right now, especially when you are socializing with family members, relatives and/or friends, you are most likely to be asked, “Holland or Spain?”. Trust me, today alone, I was asked for an umpteenth time about which team I am going to root for in the final match of World Cup 2010 between Holland and Spain. Almost everyone if not every single person who likes or even only having little glimpses of football are talking about Holland and Spain. Not that they can be blamed though. This is the finale, the mother of all football games, the biggest ever game of the football calendar. However, everyone of us, at least at some point this week forgets one huge thing about the World Cup, and that's none other than the presence of one more match, the 3rd place playoff which is contested between the two loser teams in the semi-finals round of the World Cup. This year, that 3rd place playoff to determine the which team has the right to become the 3rd placed team in the competition. In simpler terms, and for those Olympic geeks, it's about “completing the podium”. It is sad that such a game which is supposed to be some sort of “pseudo-final” can be forgotten rather easily by the general public as well as the staunchest of fans of football in the world. For those who care, they are divided by a huge gulf of two separate opinions regarding the justification of the existence of this much forgotten match. This World Cup's 3rd place playoff will be contested between Uruguay and Germany who were defeated by Holland and Spain respectively in the semi-finals, and this compels me to just contribute my two cents' worth on this issue, and trying to fathom the possible motives for people denouncing as well as defending the playoff game.

The first and only fact that causes this playoff game to be forgotten by the public is because of the very fact that people are only focused on the final. This is quite understandable as the final game itself is ultimately the penultimate game which would decide who will be crowned as the champions of that particular edition of the World Cup. Especially with the very fact for this particular edition whereby the final will be contested between two footballing powerhouses that have historically been dubbed “the best team to not have won the World Cup Trophy”, Spain and Holland. Let's start with Spain. Besides the bizarre Final Group Stage system in place at the 1950 World Cup, they have never been able to go beyond the quarter-finals stage of the competition. This is despite the fact that Spain have traditionally been possessing an array of world beating talents on paper, but for one reason or another, they have always been failing big time to reach the last four. As for Holland, this is after all the country that mesmerized the world with its Total Football style especially in the 1970s, and in that decade, they reached the final of the World Cup on two consecutive editions of the World Cup in 1974 and 1978, losing to both hosts West Germany and Argentina respectively. Just like Spain, throughout their history, their squad have been filled with world class players but their squads have always been marred with troubles mostly internal strife among players or even player(s) and the manager.

A clash between those two teams who are competing fiercely to finally win their first ever World Cup Trophy and finally have one star above their national team's crest will always be a huge spectacle, and it is inevitable that the hype and the build-up of the game are huge and sweeping the entire planet. This is valid for every edition of the World Cup, but due to the aforementioned two countries that are contesting the final, this further consigns the 3rd place playoff to a mediocre game and even an irrelevant game that should not exist. Everyone is thinking, “come on, just get on with the final, we don't want to see those two losers anymore in this World Cup!”, of course the loudest of that would come from the neutrals, but for this World Cup, I am pretty damn sure that the neutrals totally outnumber the number of the Spaniards and the Dutch in this world.

Due to the above reason, and also due to the fact that both teams contesting the 3rd place playoff have just been defeated within a week in the semi-finals, both teams are likely to be lacking in morale as well as anymore drive to compete. After all, they have just been defeated and are simply denied a place in the final and of course the opportunity to grab the World Cup Trophy. The purists of the competition would argue that the whole point of having matches in the World Cup competition is to advance to the next round and to get closer and closer to the ultimate prize, which is none other than the World Cup Trophy itself. However, technically the 3rd place playoff is nothing of that sort. There's no further round to advance to, and there's no longer a trophy to be striven for. According to the purists who really take the concept of “knockout rounds” probably a tad too seriously and to the letter, the loser is knocked out and that's it, there will be no further involvement of the losers in the tournament. In other words, and perhaps a reference to a pro-wrestling match-up type, “Loser Leaves Town” and that's all. Besides, it should not be interesting to see two teams who are forced to play one another right after they have just suffered rather difficult to take defeats. It would perhaps be just like kicking a man when he's down, or in this case, kicking two men who are down, and then force them to bring their A-games and fight one another to determine the best among the losers.

Despite all that, we have seen throughout the history of the World Cup that the 3rd place playoff has always been a showcase of a rather liberal and gung-ho attacking style of play between two teams who have nothing more to lose and nothing more to compete for. For example, the 2002 World Cup's 3rd place game between co-hosts South Korea and Turkey ended 3-2 in the Turkish's favor as both teams attacked each other liberally in an entertaining match. Same goes for the 2006's edition as hosts Germany beat Portugal 3-1 in a glittering display of attacking football, especially from the host team in which the German fans in attendance had a lot to cheer their national team in that match to cap their marvelous World Cup performance.

Talking about cheers from fans, the 1998's 3rd place playoff also triggered plenty of cheers and plenty to be proud about to the citizens of a certain country, and that country was Croatia, a debutant to the World Cup competition. Croatia was not quite a renowned footballing nation at that time, and blessed with an array of talents such as Robert Prosinecki and Davor Suker, the country which gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 dazzled their citizens and won many of fans among the neutrals when they went all the way to the semi-finals of the competition before bowing out in the semi-finals to the hosts and eventual champions France in which Lilian Thuram scored a brace which were ultimately the only two goals he had ever scored for his country. They lost to France 2-1. The dream of the tiny nation was squashed with that defeat, but they still had their moment to shine, and that was the 3rd place playoffs. They were up against Holland (who lost to Brazil on penalties), and to cut a long story short, they managed to beat Holland 2-1 and those who had shed tears in the semi-finals were now shedding tears of joy. Arguably, this achievement of finishing 3rd in the 1998 World Cup was the catalyst of the nation's slow but steady rise to become a good (but not yet great) footballing side and are still continuing to improve as a footballing nation. The confidence, the pride, and the joy of 1998 kicked things off for Croatia, and thus the importance of the 3rd place playoff cannot be underestimated so lightly.

Putting things in context, Uruguay and Germany, the two teams competing for the third place in the competition will stand to gain plenty of benefits if they manage to win this encounter. Uruguay, a historically great footballing nation, especially in the first 50 years of 20th century, have somewhat been in a slump ever since and a 3rd place finish in this World Cup might trigger one big change in this country and wake this sleeping giant which has been in some sort of an unwanted hibernation especially among its citizens. As for Germany, which has a dynamic youthful squad, a great victory in this tie will definitely restore their massive confidence seen in their double drubbing of England and Argentina in the last 16 and quarter finals respectively after that anti-climactic defeat against Spain in the semi-finals. At the very least, these youngsters would end the World Cup in glory, in celebration, and they would go home with a medal, although that's not the color they want, but nevertheless, they manage to end their campaign with a win, and this will go a long way in ensuring that the youngsters will continue to believe in themselves and start to pursue more glories, starting from the qualification campaign to Euro 2012 and the competition proper two years from now.

Lastly, did anyone mention medal? And yes, there is a winners' medal being dispensed for the winners of this 3rd place playoff tie. Again, for the Olympic junkies out there, the 3rd place match indeed completes the “podium” for the World Cup. I remember Olympic Games 2004 in which the US Basketball team, dubbed the best team in the world by far, being defeated in the semi-finals stage which totally shook the basketball universe at that time. They were expected to snatch gold and no chance or belief whatsoever were attributed to any other teams to challenge the US team to glory. Ultimately they were defeated against all odds, and they had to contend with trying to get the bronze medal, in other words the third place in the competition. I remember the US team was quite in a disarray, everyone was demoralized and were basically just in a shell-shocked mode. Tim Duncan, the US Team's captain reportedly told his team during the pep talk before the game that “Hey, even if it's nothing more than the bronze medal that we are aiming for right now. It's still better than nothin'!” and they duly won the third place match to win that bronze medal and third place.

From that story, I won't be surprised if the respective captains of Uruguay and Germany included at least an equivalent of what Tim Duncan had said to the US team prior to their 3rd place play-off. So what if they fail to compete for the World Cup. They are still in it, there's still something significant to be fought very hard for with all their might. From restored confidence, possible resurrection and/or emergence of a football nation (re-emergence for the case of Uruguay), and of course the fact that the teams which are always remembered are the 1st, of course, the runners-up, and the third placed team. While the proverbial fourth placed team is forgotten. For those who love to surf Wikipedia, just check out the various World cup editions, as well as the aforementioned basketball section of the 2004 Olympics, and just glance at the very beginning of the page, and in the article, the first, second, and third team in the competition are stated while the “fourth” placed team are not.

Also, the match between Uruguay and Germany will be further spiced up by the fact that the race to the Golden Boot is still pretty much open for Klose's Germany, and even if he fails to capture the tournament's Golden Boot (which means his rivals David Villa and Wesley Sneijder score some goals in the final), two goals from the veteran German striker would be enough for him to surpass Ronaldo (the Brazilian version) as the top scorer in the World Cup finals of all time. Surely Klose will relish this chance to make history for himself and to regain the record for his country (after the Brazilian had surpassed Gerd Muller, a German).

Not to forget the fact that two key players of both teams Luis Suarez for Uruguay and Thomas Muller for Germany will also be eager to perform for their countries again after both men had been suspended for their semi-final games. They will also be eager to compete for the Young Player of the Tournament award. All in all, for this match-up, everything still to play for for both countries, and there's no reason not to be psyched up and be compelled to win this one gloriously.

Therefore, no matter how many reasons that detractors of this play-off game want to bring up such as the few mentioned at the beginning of this piece, there are always reasons which totally justify the continuing existence of the 3rd place playoff game stated just above and perhaps those reasons are much bigger and much more significant than the reasons to play down the importance of the 3rd place playoff game. Besides, there's still the bronze medal to be played for, a special glory in its own way, and also a way to end the World Cup Campaign in victory, basking in the loud cheers (and vuvuzela sound for this World Cup) of their fans, as well as receiving the Bronze Medal, which many world class players actually do not possess, and there's every reason to be proud of the bronze medal. I know the very last reason might border with insanity, but that's a fact. Nevertheless, the upcoming 3rd place play-off game between Uruguay and Germany is the second last game of the World Cup 2010, and arguably will be the second last time that ordinary fans like yours truly could hear the much hated and equally much loved unique sound of vuvuzela which constantly reminds us that this is the first World Cup in Africa, and this is the vintage and exotic African culture. Also, the game will promise to be an explosive one with plenty of goals to be scored.