How does hosting the World Cup affect a team’s mindset going into the tournament?

When a nation is chosen to host the World Cup, it is an honor. Nations work hard to ensure that their tournament runs smoothly and is a great success. Behind the scenes, new infrastructure is built, new stadiums are erected, and many cities genuinely improve for the better. Of course, there are some instances where things go downhill after the tournament. For example in Manaus, Brazil, where the new stadium built for the 2014 World Cup has largely been unused since. We can also analyze how the Qatari’s are preparing for 2022 in a somewhat controversial manner. Overall though, cities and nations as a whole, can look back on major sporting events as a way that they helped people smile, and helped their towns grow. 

On the soccer side of things, host nations need not go through the qualification process, meaning that they will not have a competitive game for around two years prior to the start of the tournament. This is often presented as a bad thing. Players are not in the right mindset, teams are often unorganized and unprofessional, and coaches often make key mistakes in their team selections. Hosting the World Cup recently, has led some teams to success, and others to failure. Take World Cup 2006 in Germany or even last time out in Brazil. Both host nations had some awesome performances, however when it mattered most, they failed to reach the stages that they would’ve liked to. What is key about these instances however is that they involve some of the worlds best. Failure in their books is perhaps great achievement for other, smaller nations. In South Africa in 2010, the hosts played well, but failed to advance. However, this is likely thought of as a fantastic achievement for Bafana Bafana; they tied with Mexico, shocked France (albeit a frankly awful French team), and almost snatched a point from Uruguay, who reached the semi finals. After being the first African nation to host a World Cup, the South African team should be proud of the passion they played with, and its a shame that we won’t get to see them in Russia.

Many have stated that Russia will struggle at their own World Cup. They are the lowest ranked team there. Of course, FIFA rankings have always been incredibly reliable. Dodgy statistics aside, Russia does lack a real star player, and relies heavily on experienced, aging players to get results. These results however, have been commonplace. Despite being in friendly matches, in the last few months the Russians have beaten a plucky South Korean team, and tied with Spain; a team many think could win it all. They have games in the next few weeks with Brazil and France, so we will soon get a better idea of how prepared the hosts are. Russia have never been a team that would simply roll over for the opposing team. Moreover, their group is quite favorable, and they will have the backing of millions watching in the stadiums, and at home. So to count them out simply due to not needing to qualify or because of the useless FIFA ranking system is quite bizarre. 

Russia is a nation based on pride. Their soccer team is no different, and I am sure that they will play hard, and make their country proud. 

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