FRANCE FTW!

New Zealand’s PM is very similar to David Cameron (except from a working-class background), and they did much better than anticipated

Maybe we can get Paul the psychic octopus to predict New Labour’s future.

Yes but some of the great football teams were from horrible dictatorships.
1970 Brazil
Early fifties Magical Magyars
1960′s Franco Real madrid

Personally I love the lefties in football at an individual level.
Socrates and Cloughie (although he lost the plot at the end)

Gavin
NZ had only 3 shots at goal in the 3 games they played.
Perhaps they are going through the same cuts that we enduring.
They also , like Switzerland the most boring team in the World cup.

We did try to do the World Cup history on Next Left at the time of the world cup draw, though I would need some advice on the political situation in Uruguay in both 1930 and 1950 to offer a definitive scorecard.

http://www.nextleft.org/2009/12/come-on-you-reds-why-left-should-lift.html

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We also have a scoreflash just in …

Looking at European World Cup winners since the second world war, the result, is:

Centre-left 5
Prodi 06 (Italy), Wilson 66 (England), Schmidt 74 (Germany), Spadolini 82 (Italy), Jospin 98 (France).

Centre-right 2
Adenauer 54 (Germany), Kohl 90 (Germany)

Jacques Chirac claims an assist for France in 1998, but I am crediting it to Lionel Jospin as a Le Pen own goal.

These post-1950 pro-democracy World Cup results exclude the two Italian World Cups won under Mussolini’s fascist regime.

***
If somebody with a phD in South American politics, particularly a Uruguay specialist, wants to get in touch then a global result might yet be possible.

Brazil’s first three World Cups were won under what I think would best be called the populist centre in 1958, then the populist left in 1962 and an authoritarian dictatorship by 1970, before two more under democratic governments, both centrist, though alternatively perhaps leaning centre-right and the other centre-left.

Argentina won under a fascist junta in 1978 and a liberal president in 1986.

All of that may suggest that, when it comes to political footballs, there does seem to be everything to play for in South Africa.

“The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, the way I see life” Bill Shankly

At the start, the bookies odds would have anticipated the group winners score to have been either 4-4, or probably 5-3 to the right (Italy, England as favourites; France more marginally).

Gavin – Yes, New Zealand’s draw with Italy was a historic achievement, and to end on 3 draws a surprise success in their first world cup since 1982. They are a right-of-centre country that has exceeded expectations (before going home) as have South Korea. Chile have done well, so have Holland and Germany. Against that Italy and France have had a shocker. Denmark and Nigeria will be disappointed too.

The over-achievers with left-of-centre governments have been Japan, Paraguay and the USA, perhaps Ghana, and less surprisingly Uruguay. Perhaps Greece and Serbia will be a little disappointed to have gone out in the opening round, though few will miss them, while South Africa have come out with a respectable exit.

Slovakia? Had a ‘Left’ government? Hahahahahahaha

The US is left-wing now, is it?

The initial selections are set out in the first post – and its based on domestic politics, so am happy for a Democrat-governed US to make it.
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/06/next-lefts-2010-world-cup-guide.html

“Though Nick Clegg and the LibDems are junior Coalition partners in Britain’s centre-right government, anybody wanting to stick fully to the Next Left world cup plan would have to back that unlikely pairing of underdogs, Slovenia and the United States of America against England. Both countries saw the main centre-left parties defeat the governing right in the most recent Presidential and Parliamentary polls, though ex-diplomat Danilo Turk and the Slovenian Social Democrats got less international notice than Barack Obama’s US Democrats.

England have, of course, only won the World Cup under a Labour government. The best remembered US World Cup highlights – defeating England in 1950, and a creditable performance against Brazil as hosts in 1994 – came under Democratic Presidents Truman and Clinton, though the hapless Republican duo of Herbert Hoover (semi-finals, 1930) and George W Bush (quarter-finals, 2002) may have been unaware that the US progressed further in the soccerball tournament under their Presidencies”.

The USA is centre-left!? WTF?

They’re all fake-left. Only North Korea under the dear captain’s leadership.

Sorry but since WHEN has the USA been centre-left?

The US is left-wing now, is it?

I think Sunder answers that point. It’s meant to be relative not absolute.

In what parallel universe is the USA centre-left? This is crazy-talk, yo.

The left of centre French implode after defeat and go home amid recrimintions and national calamity……………………..

Sunder says it’s based on domestic policy. While I concede that it’s impossible to draw a line in the sand and say “this is the centre”, I still don’t see how it’s possible to call the UK right-wing and the US left-wing. The US only just got something resembling the NHS, for goodness’ sake, and while that was admittedly achieved under the current government, they remain broadly more right-wing than the UK in most ways, domestic or otherwise.

From thoroughly perusing (read ‘glancing at’) Next Left’s definitions, it seems to me that ‘left’ and ‘right’ are in fact being defined by national standards, so we’re considered to be ‘right’ because the Tories are in and the US is considered to be ‘left’ because the Democrats are in. Presumably Canada is right-wing, too. This is hardly a good basis for comparison.

That said, we’re discussing the correlation between political trends and sporting prowess, so heigh ho.

Yes, its basically a bit of fun, and a way to catch up on Uruguayan and Slovenian politics.

But its one very simple criteria. Is that country’s government from the left/left-of-centre/centre-left or the right/right-of-centre/centre right of *that country’s* domestic political spectrum, in terms of the major electoral parties or alliances who compete for power.

So a Swedish centre-right government plays for the centre-right team, just as the relevant party would be part of various centre-right international alliances. Ditto a US Democrat one lining up as centre-left.

If that’s the rule, then at least applying it is actually pretty objective. (There are occasional issues in judging some coalitions, but it is usually pretty clear what the broad answer is. The Social Democrat-led last Slovak government is a good example, given that it had nasty coalition partners which even saw SMES suspended, for a time, from the Party of European Socialists. And there are bound to be a handful – but very few in practice – that don’t fit some type of left/right/centre characterisation as a fair and broadly used shorthand about the governments in question).

Anything else is impossible, in terms of gauging the point at which a Swedish/Danish/Dutch government should get called “right” or a British or US government “left”, etc.

The left of centre French implode after defeat and go home amid recrimintions and national calamity……………………..
Sarkosy , left of centre. Isn’t he a fiscal conservative.

Just to muddy the waters.
Isn’t this about individual against the communal
England indivualistic players lose to the communal Germans.
Or the third way Argentina, flair individuals with a communal spirit, if not a little homo erotic.