For part 12 of the series, I caught up with Tomek Lenkiewicz. Tomek is originally from Wroclaw, Poland and is a recent college graduate from Arizona State University. He got his BA in History and currently works in the mutual fund industry in Scottsdale Arizona. His passion includes ice-hockey, politics, history and, obviously, football.

I thank Tomek for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about the Road to the World Cup – the qualification, and the emotions the fans went through at the time.

Poland’s road to the World Cup was not a very bumpy one. We were grouped with England, N. Ireland, Austria, Wales, and Azerbaijan. During the qualifications we only lost two games (both by the score of 2-1 to England), scored a total of 27 goals (only Portugal and Holland scored more in Europe), and qualified as one of the best second placed teams. The emotions of Polish fans would be best described as quiet confidence. We knew England was the best team in the group but all the other teams were well within our skill level. However, I must admit that some of the close games against Austria and N. Ireland were a little nerve wracking.

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For part 11 of the series, I caught up with Angelo Romano from Italy. Angelo, a Computer Science student at University of Pisa was born in Sicily in 1982, the same year Italy won its third (and, as of today, last) World Cup. In his freetime, Angelo acts as manager in the university intramural football league.

I thank Angelo for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about the Italian football history and the football culture which exists.

Football is kind of religion here in Italy, it is by far the most important sport, a masterpiece of country’s own culture and one of the few things that can actually unite all Italians. The first Italy’s football league ever was organized in 1893; nowadays football is always steady part of Italian daily news, despite the fact it is years there are just three teams (AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus) to compete for the Serie A title. The Italian football culture is basically made of passion, and almost everyone in Italy has his own favourite team. And, like every strong passion, there are several excesses: violence, racism and extreme-wing political infiltrations in Italian football are serious issues which has been longed for years and are still present.

About Italy’s national team, it is one of the most successful in the world: it has won three World Cups, in 1934, 1938 and 1982, and also ended second-placed in 1970 and 1994. Both times it was Brazil to defeat us, and the 1994 final match, played in Los Angeles, USA, is best remembered for having been the only one to end after penalty shoot-outs. In the last 2002 World Cup held in South Korea and Japan, Italy ended its adventure just in the round of 16 South Korea after a controversial match lost 2-1 on extra time to South Korea. That defeat is nowadays viewed as one of the most disgraceful football matches ever played by Italy, and second only to the 1966 1-0 World Cup defeat against North Korea.

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Michael Lawlor from U.S.A. joins us for part 10 of the series. Michael is a student at Penn State University. He will be receiving his Bachelor degree in Science degree in Meteorology this May. After that, he leaves the tough studies for a while and heads off to Germany to watch the World Cup!

Michael has been a football (or soccer as he calls it) fan for most of his life. He played football as a child and went on to play in his University’s athletic leagues. Michael’s favorite teams are Glasgow Celtic, New England Revolution, and Leeds United, and of course, the USA. I thank Michael for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about USA’s football history and the football culture which exists.

The USA, unlike most other countries, does not have a rich football history or even a major football culture. In 1930 the USA finished third in the first World Cup, and pulled off a stunnung upset of England in 1950. However, during the time between 1950 and 1990 the USA would not qualify for the World Cup, and even the largest soccer league, the NASL, would cease to exist.

However in 1994 the USA hosted the World Cup, and in 1996 Major League Soccer was established. Major League Soccer is at its largest ever, and with new soccer stadiums being built across America, it has established itself as a legitimate soccer league. At the same time, the US national team has grown to become a legitimate force in the soccer world, rising to 4th in the FIFA Rankings.

Our team in Germany is the best ever to play for the US. The soccer fanbase in America continues to grow, as MLS attendance is at an all time high, and the loyal fans of the USA, Sam’s Army, has never been bigger or louder.

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For part 9 of the series, I interviewed Graham Drummond. A huge Australia and West Ham United fan, Graham ,was addicted to the 98 World Cup and got to watching Premiership
highlights on TV. Graham is the webmaster and one of the contributors to the Australian West Ham blog.

I thank Graham for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about Australia’s football history and the football culture which exists down under.

We first (and last, till now) qualified for the World Cup, also in Germany, in 1974. We didn’t score a goal. Traditionally football (”soccer”) wasn’t considered tough or cool to play or watch. People here watch various forms of oval ball thuggery instead. However, that’s starting to change. The fever has caught on for two main reasons: one is the new A-League which has been a startling success so far, and the other of course is qualification for the World Cup.

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For the Ecuadorian interview, I caught up with Dennys Burgos. Burgos is a college student in the Hotel Management field, born and raised in Toronto, Canada by two hardworking and loving folks from Guayaquil, Ecuador. Dennys loves to play the beautiful game, of course. Dennys is highly enthusiastic about travelling as well and looks forward to trips to Germany, Korea, Japan, Latin America and Europe.

Over to the intervew.

Tell us a bit about Ecuador’s football history and the football culture which exists.

Very well. As many people may know, Japan/Korea 2002 was Ecuador’s first ever appearance in a World Cup finals. Many people expected they would not get very far, but they did exit on a high note, defeating Crotaia 1-0 through Edison Mendez’s thunderous volley. Historically, Ecuador was once considered the minnows of South American futbol along with Venzezuela.

With that said, it is not to say Ecuador have only recently become a respectable side. On 2 occasions, they have missed out of the big dance by very small magins. Their club sides, especially Barcelona de Guayaquil and LDU Quito have performed well in the Copa Libertadores, the South American version of the UEFA Champions league, with Barcelona de Guayaquil coming out finalist on 2 occasions. The country has showed excellent progress, and by qualifying once again, have proven to their critics they were not a fluke.

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For part 7 of the series, I caught up with Trinidad and Tobago’s Liam Camps. Camps, 18, is a huge sports fan. Liam got hooked to football when Dwight Yorke signed with Manchester United. From then on, he began to take great interest in football. He followed the team with passion during the ill-fated campaign for the last World Cup. Yorke was one of many who delighted in the inspirational triumph this time around, Camps says.

I thank Camps for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about the T and T football history and the football culture which exists

Football and cricket are the two major sports in Trinidad and Tobago. The support for the Warriors is typically overwhelming, and hopefully that will be seen in Germany with a sea of red. Twice in our footballing history has the country been in a position to qualify for the World Cup.

The first time was in 1989, but the USA won 1-0 on that occasion. T&T got another life in this campaign, and under the astute leadership of Leo Beenhakker, and as they say, the rest is history.

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For part 6 of the series, I caught up with Marvin Zumbado. At 23, Marvin is studying computer engeneering and will complete his graduation next year, His favourite soccer team is Saprissa, Currently, he works for an American horse racing company. Marvin is deeply passionate about football, music and extreme sports.

I thank Marvin for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about Costa Rica’s football history and the football culture which exists.

Costa Rica is a definitely a soccer country, our life is surrounded by soccer, we have a very competitive local league and we get lots of international games in TV everyday. You can find a soccer game everywhere you go, every town has it’s own soccer field and team, you can also find kids playing soccer in every neighborhood, a soccer game can paralyze my country and it has done it a few times in the past.

Costa Rica has qualified for 2 World Cups, the first was in Italy 1990, where we amazingly won our opening game vs Scotland 1-0, then we lost to brazil 1-0, and in the 3rd game of the group stage we defeated Sweden 2-1 and made it to the second round, where we played Czechoslovaqia and got spanked 4-1. Our second WC appereance was 4 years ago in Korea/Japan 2002, we finished with a 1-1-1 record, after a 2-0 win over China , a 1-1 draw with turkey and a 5-2 loss with Brazil.

Turkey advanced over us due to goal difference, eventually Brazil won the cup and Turkey finished 3rd. We have also played in most of the Concacaf Gold cups and also in a few Conmebol America’c cup, also our U23 teams has played a couple of times in the Olympic Games.

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For part 5 of the series, JP Thieriot joins us. JP, as he is popularly known, blogs at The Argentina Blog over at World Cup Blog. Born in Buenos Aires in 1968, JP was hooked to football every since his grandfather surprised him and took him for the finals of the 1978 World Cup between Argentina and Holland. An experience that has clearly been with him ever since. Buenos Aires, as JP recalls and every proud Argentine will tell you, was in non-stop celebration for at least 3 days. The memories will be treasured, I am sure, for a life time.

I thank JP for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about the Road to the World Cup – the qualification, and the emotions the fans went through at the time.

Qualifications can be divided into the Bielsa era and the Pekerman era. Bielsa should have quit after the disaster in 2002, but instead he hung on and wound up winning the Olympics (17 goals for, 0 against) in dominating fashion. Even the serious Bielsa doubters like myself started to come around - then he quit. Seems he lingered in order to vindicate himself and then left the team in middle of Qualifications. Bielsa’a greatest fault was a refusal to change things in the face of failure. He wasn’t quick enough in changing schemes/players to fit challenging situations.

The Pekerman era, on the otherhand, has been characterized by almost constant change. The only fixture has been Riquelme, whom Bielsa had previously ignored. Qualifications under Pekerman got off to a roaring start with a tremendous victory over Brazil, then got bogged down in rather hohum performances against weaker opponents. Argentina really has an overabundance of talent, so the question is finding the right chemistry. Newcomers like Messi, Aguero and the injury status of players like Mascherano, Heinze, Ayala and Aimar have further complicated the ultimate formation of Pekerman’s squad.

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I caught up with Steve Han for part 4 of the series. Steve was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea and has been a fan of Korean football ever since he was a little boy. Currently, he lives in the states for education and is a college student in Beverly Hills, California. I thank Steve for agreeing to this interview.

Tell us a bit about Korea’s football history and the football culture which exists.

Football first started in Korea when British sailors who happened to visit Korea in 1882 left a ball at Jemulpo harbour. However, modern football was introduced couple decades after that incident and right now, there is a professional domestic league called the “K-League” which started in 1983. Although not as popular as national team football, there are 14 teamscompeting on a very competitive level of football.

There is also a league called the “Korean National League(N-League)” which is a second division below the K-League. N-League is a semi-professional league which consists of 11 teams and the promotion/relegation system between the K-League and N-League has yet to be formed although part of the plan is to promote the champions of this N-League season to the K-League. The plan is to continue to promote teams from the N-League without any relegations from the K-League until K-League has 16 or 18 teams in the league.

After that, they’re planning to start the proper promotion/relegation system. As for popularity of domestic football in Korea, K-League have been averaging a little over 10,000 per match in the past with N-League attendance figures being much less than that due to the fact that most N-League matches were being played during weekdays. For this season, however, most games will be played during weekends and they expect the attendance figure to increase.

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For Part 3, I caught up with Football Commentator. He is one of the best football bloggers around in the cyber space. He is so neutral that it is difficult to decipher which country he is from! Now officially, we can declare that the dude is English. Football Commentator is dedicated to covering up and coming players, trends in football, major tournaments, European domestic leagues and commentary of rule changes. I thank Football Commentator for agreeing for to interview.

Tell us a bit about the Road to the World Cup – the qualification, and the emotions the fans went through at the time.

England didn’t really have the hardest qualifying, yet didn’t storm through the group, winning most matches by the single goal. They had a relatively easy group but a coach who is a constant source of tabloid reading. Poland proved to be the only close competition for the top spot.

Give us a brief summary of your country’s footballing history.

England has won the World Cup once in 1966 at home and has featured in almost every tournament except for the first 3 and couldn’t compete during the next 2 because of WW2. Since 1950 they have missed the 1974, 1978 and 1994 Cups. Other than the single win their results have been a bit of a let down.

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