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The Agony and the Irony
I like Enrique Zaldua's likening of modern pro football (and ergo
football) as quasi-Enronique (which is not meant to be ironique). That said,
Spain of all national sides (apart from expat-dominated France) shows the
worst signs of post-dotcom football economics. Spanish players who aren't
birds from Real's gilded cage are playing for Spanish sides trying to keep
pace with Perez's neo-Reaganian "Spend now, feel good, and die tomorrow"
mania. Sweden may be boring, Croatia may be an enormous-shot, and Turkey may be about as palpable as 11 Mike Tysons trying to break your shins, but
they're all low on stars and high on grit. I'd watch out, top-billers,
including Spain...
Meanwhile, Spain showed impressive offensive muscle during its win over South Africa, but also contrasting defensive iffiness. No knock on the Bafana Boys, but Spain leaked two relatively quick goals to South Africa, and largely got them back due to do post-goal lapses of attention by SA that drives coaches fruit. Spain is tough — and it was playing for nothing to speak of in yesterday's game — but definitely looked take-able.
Sweden's Gain is Football's Loss
(June 12, 12pm)
There can 't be anyone left in Sweden, because the entire population was in
the Swedish box defending against Argentina. You can't blame Sweden, I
suppose, but you can't like them very much either. There's no point in
sending up biplanes against a fleet of F-16s, but the CUP took a retro turn
to the bad old days when boredom ruled. You can envision the Swedish
practice now: 10 minutes of scrimmage and an hour of penalty kicks. That
must be the strategy against Senegal, a team with tremendous flair and speed.
We need flat-out attacking teams such as Argentina, and bless little
Paraguay for hanging tough. But Sweden, England, Ireland and Germany is not
my dream draw for the quarters out of that bracket. Spain, we really need
you not to choke.
World Cup as Enron
Spain is in, and in good fashion. Now we will here the usual cries about how easy the group was (or more likely we will hear nothing about Spain and will keep reading about England). Anyway, here are my two cents. Spain has earned the right (or the curse) to be considered a favorite to win it all. No other team, except possibly Brazil, will win its three qualifying matches. Talking about easy opponents is nonsense, unless we include Saudi Arabia in the sentence. There are no easy sides in this Cup (beware US; Poland will have an axe to grind). Any team that makes it to the second round has earned it, and in Spain's case it had to overcome also bad starts with Slovenia and Paraguay. I am not saying that Spain has suddenly sprung to main favorite, but they certainly should receive more attention, at least until Ireland proves them wrong. Any bets?
Argentina is going home, just like France and possibly Italy. All of those who bet on a Franco-Argentine raid on the cup will have to reconsider our prognostications. Personally I believe that this World Cup is a victim of the Enronization of the world. Nothing is like it appears to be, football assets are in reality liabilities, high salaried players transfer from club to club automatically inflating the market capitalization of their national squads. But it's all a pure broad band-like switching scheme.
It seems that the real value is in the unacclaimed, small and the mid-caps, i.e. Sweden, Senegal, Denmark, Ireland and the likes. England and Spain are quietly doing their thing; I'd love to see those two meet. I really like the Irish but I can't see them going past Spain.
South Africa's Goalie Was Spain's Most Effective Player
Inspiring though Bafana Bafana's exploits may have been at World Cup 2002, South Africans will wonder what might have been had coach Jomo Sono chosen to play the more established Hans Vonk in goal rather than the second-string Andre Arendse. Spain's first two goals came from unforgivable errors by Arendse — the first, a bizarre rugby scrum-half's pass from the ground into the path of an oncoming Spaniard; the second a repeat of the gift he presented Paraguay in an earlier game by failing to properly position his wall against a free kick. (He did, of course, keep South Africa in the game with a great reflex header to deny Raul's header, but at the World Cup you can't afford a goalkeeper whose basic positioning and handling errors gives away four unecessary goals.)
Bafana Bafana came back magnificently from Arendse's first blunder, Benni McCarthy's close-in volley from Nomvete's target-man header being South Africa's best goal of the tournament. Then Arendse made his second offering to the King of Spain, and again, Zuma, Fortune, Sibaya and fullback Cyril Nzama exposed weaknesses in the Spanish lines until Lucas Radebe headed a well-deserved equalizer from a corner. Raul's second was a great goal, and we had no reply, not for lack of effort. In the end, though, it was Nelson Cuevas's second goal for Peru against Slovenia that sent us packing on goal difference.
We could have gone further, but it was a fine performance considering the parlous state of the national team following our humiliation in March at the African Nations Cup. But on the Spanish performance, I'd say the Keane-less Irish have a fighting chance of making the quarterfinal. And I agree with Saporito about the unfortunate triumphs of some pretty negative teams at this tournament — that commentator's clich, "football was the winner," hardly applied in Sweden-Argentina. Still, you've got to admit Svennson's free kick whipped over the wall and low into the near corner was probably the finest we'll see at the tournament. For better or worse, I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of the Swedes in the next couple of weeks.
Requiem for Les Bleus
All Bets Are Off!
England-Argentina: It's Anybody's Cup
France-Uruguay: Adieu, Les Bleus?
Team USA: Who Knew?
Ave, Korea!
England Sticks to a Sad Script
Europe vs. Africa
Requiem for a Dream
(June 11, 9am)
Well, it took me an hour of grinding my teeth into ground-teeth-dust to
admit it, but it's probably for the best that France was emphatically shown
the door by a far better, dominating Danish side whose technical soundness,
solidity, strategic set, and sheer "oomph" highlighted the sad reality (for
me, anyway) of World Cup 2002 : Les Bleus either came to Asia unprepared to
play, or ready but unable to do so. They just were never in it.
Mind you, this isn't sour grapes. I still love my Bleus to death, and will stand by them as a great side — both past, and (I confidently maintain) future. But the honest, gut-check demonstrated that despite the apparent signs of rebound versus Uruguay, France was dominated by two clearly better teams in this Cup — and for all intents and purposes undone by a Uruguayan squad at least as good, and which showed more desire than the French. Indeed, had the Zizou-enhanced team in Match 3 bowed out of the Cup after beating Denmark 2-1 or 1-0 — with a couple of posts, a few crappy refereeing decisions, and perhaps another scandalous red carding for good measure — there'd be mighty bitterness to digest, with lots of "what ifs", "almost was" , and similar second-guessing. As it is, the Bleus come home having been thoroughly mastered in all three games, with no blame or regrets to hang on anyone but themselves. Kudos to Denmark and Senegal — and best of luck in the next stages.
Meanwhile, how 'bout them Bleus? I probably won't provoke much taunting by repeating that — in post-for-post terms based on past individual performance of players — France still is probably one of the most impressive, star-studded line-ups around. But as the retarded Wall Street obsession with "paper value" also demonstrates, none of that matters when you can plunk down cash on the sporting barrel-head. France's problem was — tired, hurt, or just lacking sufficient motivation or preparation — its individual stars never played like the seamless, synchronized unit they have in the past. And even on the individual level, something was off. Zidane's return provided an excellent example of how even the stellar technicity that has characterized French stars and teams in the past was lacking across the board, down to the very last man. Indeed, I'd love to see how many balls and passes the masterful Zizou lost against Denmark — it'd probably close to a personal record.
For whatever reason, France's fine footballing ingredients showed signs of turning a bit even before les Bleus left for Asia; by the time the dish was served up against Senegal, the souffle was in full collapse. Talk about lousy timing to go into a slump of collective decline and doubt. But that'd be sport, for better and worse. I don't think the dismal French performance is an indication — Rob Hughes' Alzhemerian assertions to the contrary notwithstanding — that les Bleus are in dire need of massive rejuvenation, nor the palace coup to throw of the admittedly weird and bean-up-the-buttish Roger Lemerre that many national Federations would respond with. They've got to go back and find out what from 1998 and 2000 was so flagrantly lacking in 2002, and work out a way to turn what seemed like bad voodoo in Asia back into "magique". In other words, and to paraphrase Albert Camus: I came into this Cup looking to win, but leave preferring my Bleus over the eventual victor.
What a Wonderful World
If your name didn't go in the referee's book, you probably weren't in the game. Cameroon-Germany was an unsightly but thrilling affair, in which the champions of Africa rattled Germany's composure for a half hour in which they should have had a couple of goals — and the Germans were lucky to have only one man sent off. (Goalkeeper Khan would have been a prime candidate for that forearm smash to the face of Rigoberto Song.)
Although Germany's 'vorsprung durch techniek' (that's an old Audi ad, for those who don't recognize it) game dominated for the first 20 minutes, once Cameroon settled and Geremi began regularly splitting the German defense with pinpoint passes for the always-dangerous Eto'o and Mboma, Germany were in tatters. And although Cameroon failed to capitalize — and then threw the game away as discipline went out the window and a couple of German defenders looked in danger of being decked by sheriff Song — the Germans won't be as lucky against more composed sides. A scrappy affair in which the hapless ref at times appeared to confuse his yellow card for his whistle, booking a World Cup record 16 players in his vain attempts to stamp his authority onto a game always one shove away from a brawl. And then, at the end — to my disbelief — players that had spent most of the game at each other's throats exchanged shirts. Like that shirt-swapping Adidas ad says, what a wonderful world?
Other observations
Death to Divers!
Okay, maybe I'm speaking for the fullbacks' union, but I'm
tired of games being decided by strikers whose sense of balance comes unglued
as they step over the 18 yard line as if some magnetic force field suddenly
repelled their cleats. Today's Senegal-Uruguay contest featured El Hadji
Diouf doing a two and half with a full twist without the formalities of
Uruguay keeper Carini actually laying a finger on him. Referee Wegereef went
for it like a frog on a fly. Penalty. Curiously, Carini only earns a yellow
card — if that's a takedown, the only shade that should be shown is red.
Sure, Uruguay made a brave comeback and turned the tables when Morales collapsed under the weight of certain dispossession. But the first penalty changed the game, unfairly. (The last time this happened to me I took the SOB down well outside the box at the next opportunity. "I wanted you to have the benefit of a REAL foul," I told him.) And consider that Brazil, those faux foul aficionados, are yet to step onto the board. FIFA needs to suspend floppers like Diouf after reviewing the tapes.
Which leads us, folks, to the need for a videotape referee. It works well enough in rugby, american football and hockey, and it's worth a try in football. Italy could bounce out of this thing because of an incredibly bad decision on Vieri's "second" goal. Linesmen screw up; fine, it happens, but why not take the opportunity to right a wrong. Give each coach one protest a half on a scoring play such as that one. And by red-carding the pretty-boy forwards as they go into their a third roll after another air tackle (does this sound familiar, Inzaghi), we'll eventually make the ref's job easier. And judging by the refs' performance in this Cup, they need it.
Requiem for Les Bleus
All Bets Are Off!
England-Argentina: It's Anybody's Cup
France-Uruguay: Adieu, Les Bleus?
Team USA: Who Knew?
Ave, Korea!
England Sticks to a Sad Script
Europe vs. Africa