The Logic of Choice: World Cup Commentary aka "1994: I Want to Look Like That"

Predictions:

Group A: Uruguay, Mexico
Group B: Argentina, Nigeria
Group C: England, US
Group D: Germany, Serbia
Group E: Netherlands, Cameroon
Group F: Paraguay, Italy (on goal differential over Slovakia)
Group G: Brazil, Portugal
Group H: Spain, Chile

Actual:
A: Uruguay, Mexico
B: Argentina, South Korea

C: US, England
D: Germany, Ghana

E: Netherlands, Japan

F: Paraguay, Slovakia (Italy finished last in the group, wow...)

G: Brazil, Portugal

H: Spain, Chile

So we are doing well- 12 of 16 in the second round. Asian tsunamis are unpredictable, and I did not see South Korea and Japan coming down the pipe or we would have been a suave 14/16.

But what I really want to talk about is World Cup haircuts.

I distinctly remember the blonde Romanian team at '94 World Cup (above). I was roughly 11 yrs old and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. The Iron Curtain had just come down, and Romanians were suddenly finding bottles of peroxide for sale. Blonde hair was kryptonite to these Eastern Europeans that were so used to the Soviet-era drabness.

Another important fashion-plate of the '94 Cup was Roberto Baggio pictured below. The beautiful Beaded, Rat-tailed One played as handsome as his haircut all thru the knock out rounds, but his tousled-top-growth let him down in th Final when he placed the crucial PK in the third row. Agony for rat-tail-sporting footy fans worldwide...

Obviously '94 was a great time of fashion for the sport, and the pictures above personify the mid-90's- a golden era for soccer style. But then suddenly in 2002, disaster struck when the first Ronaldo- the rounder, toothier, Brazilian one--catapulted the sport's style back into the dark ages (even admitting to being a bed wetter) while winning it all...but soccer style was back at square one and I had to wait 8 years before I could publicly admit that I was a fan of the game.

But now its 2010 and soccer is cool again--and even if goalkeeping has been down in South Africa, style is obviously on the rise. Some of the best coiffs I have seen since the Clermont County Fair have been at this year's Cup and even in the furthest reaches of the globe - Ivory Coast, Slovakia, Algeria, Cameroon, Japan, Wayne Rooney's house, and in Portugal, where a new Ronaldo has swooped in with a full bottle of LA Looks and stolen almost all of the WC coolness.

The 7 best looks of WC 2010 below in no particular order:

Ivory Coast's Gervinho aka Lil Wayne (the new look is cool, but not as cool as his old look)