ABU DHABI // It was the German historian Clausewitz who said that "plans do not survive the first contact with the enemy". Not that football coaches ever have been deterred by the truism; they are sure to seek as much information as possible on their next opponent so that they can plot ways of attacking and defeating him.
Imagine their frustration, then, at the Club World Cup, an event which brings together some of the world's best-known sides but also some of its most exotic.
The fog of sporting war hangs heavy, for instance, over Hekari United of Papua New Guinea and Al Wahda of the UAE, separated by 10,600km and seven time zones yet scheduled for an 8pm collision tomorrow in the first match of the Fifa-sponsored tournament in Abu Dhabi. Or TP Mazembe of Africa and Pachuca of Mexico, 14,200km and seven times zones apart but matched at 8pm on Friday.
What these clubs did not know about each other a month ago was near absolute, a condition only slightly ameliorated since.
"It has been very hard to find out about Al Wahda, how they play," Tommy Mana, Hekari's assistant coach, said yesterday. "We still find it difficult to get good information about them."
Josef Hickersberger, coach of Wahda, faced similar problems learning about Hekari. "I can understand [Mana's] answer because for me it is very difficult, too."
Hickersberger ultimately went directly to the source, travelling 19 hours, in each direction, last month to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea to see Hekari play a league match.
"It was a long trip from Abu Dhabi to Sydney to Port Moresby and back via Manila," he said. "I spent almost two days for 90 minutes, and I didn't see the first five minutes of the match."
Mana later elaborated on Hekari's frustration in learning about Wahda. He said the club never obtained video of a full Wahda game and had been limited to watching snippets of play on YouTube.
Travelling to see Wahda in person was out of the question because of the club's limited financial resources.
Asked about which Wahda players have impressed him, Mana offered No 10 (Ismail Matar) and No 80 (Hugo). But the information gap persists, he conceded; he later asked a reporter what formation the Abu Dhabi club prefer.
Lamine Ndiaye, the coach of TP Mazembe, was a font of non-specific generalities when asked about Pachuca, stressing the competence of the North American side and his respect for them.
However, he could not or would not identify a Pachuca player who impressed him, and the coaching fraternity no doubt feels his pain; it is hard to imagine that Mexican league matches are often televised in sub-Saharan Africa. But Ndiaye did promise that his team would be ready.
Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma of South Korea no doubt will lean heavily on direct observation of the Wahda-Hekari game because they face the winner on Saturday.
Seeing a team in person is key, Hickersberger said. "I got a good impression of Hekari United from watching them," he said. "They are well-organised and they won 4-0 over Koloale. At least I have an idea about the team."
He no doubt would prefer more information. It seems universal, this desire to formulate plans that do not survive kick-off.
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
High profile Al Shabab attacks
- 2010: A restaurant attack in Kampala Uganda kills 74 people watching a Fifa World Cup final football match.
- 2013: The Westgate shopping mall attack, 62 civilians, five Kenyan soldiers and four gunmen are killed.
- 2014: A series of bombings and shootings across Kenya sees scores of civilians killed.
- 2015: Four gunmen attack Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya and take over 700 students hostage, killing those who identified as Christian; 148 die and 79 more are injured.
- 2016: An attack on a Kenyan military base in El Adde Somalia kills 180 soldiers.
- 2017: A suicide truck bombing outside the Safari Hotel in Mogadishu kills 587 people and destroys several city blocks, making it the deadliest attack by the group and the worst in Somalia’s history.
Hili 2: Unesco World Heritage site
The site is part of the Hili archaeological park in Al Ain. Excavations there have proved the existence of the earliest known agricultural communities in modern-day UAE. Some date to the Bronze Age but Hili 2 is an Iron Age site. The Iron Age witnessed the development of the falaj, a network of channels that funnelled water from natural springs in the area. Wells allowed settlements to be established, but falaj meant they could grow and thrive. Unesco, the UN's cultural body, awarded Al Ain's sites - including Hili 2 - world heritage status in 2011. Now the most recent dig at the site has revealed even more about the skilled people that lived and worked there.
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Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
* Agence France Presse
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
