Everyone in football agrees there is too much of it, most of the people in football would point the finger at International fixtures which there appears to be an excess of but what people can't agree on how to reduce this number. The likes are Arsene Wenger have raged against the bi-annual appearance of African Cup of Nations but if I was in charge of the world game I'd be wary about putting pressure on The African Football Association to move this tournament to a four year cycle. This decision is for the African Association to make and given that their best players emigrate to Europe at a very young age, I believe they are entitled to see some of their finest exports every two years should they wish to.
One tournament that I believe could be altered for the good of the game is the Confederations Cup. Maybe it is just me but other than testing out South Africa's infrastructure and pre - warning the world about the racket the vuvuzelas would make, what did anyone take out of the 2009 Confederations Cup?
It's pretty evident to me that FIFA need to "dry run" a mini tournament, especially in countries without the experience of hosting global tournaments (Brazil, Russia and Qatar hosting the next 3 world cups) but with the exception of the host nation which other nations are really interested in playing in these tournaments?
With that in mind I was thinking that seven representative sides could take on the Host Nation in re-badged "Continental Cup".The format would remain exactly the same, with two groups of four before a the semi final stage. I'm confident that more revenue would be generated from TV audiences sold from this tournament which could split around the developing football nations.
All of the representative sides should be strong even withstanding the inevitable injury withdrawals. The way I would divide the footballing stratosphere is thus, I have tried my best to keep continents together but obviously this was not entirely possible. Europe has been divided into 3 sectors, with each sector having roughly the same population aggregated from nations listed in FIFA Top 50 September 2011:
1. Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Great Britain, EIRE, Russia and Armenia)
2. Central Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Romania
3. Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia)
The other regions to be represented would be:
4. South America
5. Central and North America
6. Asia / Australasia
7. Africa
Now I accept that there will be some people that can not abide the idea of a Greek sharing playing alongside a Turk for example but we all saw how the African continent got behind the Black Stars in 2010 maybe this will actually improve relations in certain regions as well.
The counter argument would surely be just imagine some of the teams that could be put out. You would see combinations of players that would ordinarily see together.
Just imagine, Rooney and Ibrahimovic linking up for Northern Europe, imagine the Central European Manager having to choose between Neuer or Cech in goal or having to work out how to get the best out of any combination of Wesley Sneijder, Marek Hamsik, Arjen Robben, Mesit Ozil and Thomas Muller.
The options available to the Southern European Manager are equally appealing with the Spanish contingent joined by the class of Andrea Pirlo, Antonio Cassano, Pazzini and Rossi from Italy with of course Portugal's Ronaldo, Fabio Coentrao and Pepe.
You know the South Americans will be strong when Argentina and Brazil are you 2nd and 3rd best nations! Could any manager get the best out Messi? Or would they opt to stick to potent Uruguayan trimative of Forlan, Suarez and Cavani?
Anyway I for one believe, it could be a goer and would interest me. If you need further convincing think back to what you could have witnessed in 1997 version....Ronaldo and Batistuta, Baggio and Raul, Bergkamp and Klinsmann.
Worth a try?
If the tournament was to start to tomorrow I would place my hard earned cash on the South Europeans - I would imagine they would line up something like this:
Casillas
Sergio Ramos - Pique - Pepe (Puyol) Fabio Coentrao
Xabi Alonso - De Rossi
Iniesta - Xavi - Ronaldo
Villa
