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Story and Photos: Vanchai Tan
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"My friends will follow me here to cheer us on after the first round. My family intends to fly here in the last week of the tournament," Marseilles Desalouix, Captain of the French National Team, exclaims confidently before the start of the 2002 World Cup. After the first round of matches, however, the defeated former world champions had to return home without ever even having scored a goal...
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The French National Team is actually not much different from the teams from Argentina, Portugal, Italy and England, consisting of world-famous soccer superstars, with some players earning more than the entire combined salaries of the members of the Senegalese National Team. This time around, the superstar quality of the famous soccer players, possibly drained from the other various tournaments previously played (Premier League, F.A Cup, etc.) was not able to counter the readiness and togetherness of the teams with a lower profile. Some soccer analysts even offer that teamwork is difficult when all the superstars on one team are striving to outdo the other, and essentially are only playing for themselves. |
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The 2002 World Cup, therefore, highlighted the traditional underdogs like no other World Cup ever had. Turkey impressed the audience with their style of game, Ireland with their fierce determination to score, and even the co-hosts of the game, Japan and South Korea succeeded further than anyone would have ever expected them to. But whether it was all the glorious moments, the agonizing defeats or the spectacularly unexpected that glued the audience to their seats for one entire month, in the end, they all played a hand in offering the world the absolute best of soccer. |
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