Day 20. What happened in Brazil today.
Belgium and USA gave us quite the ending to the round of 16. Argentina
and Switzerland reminded us why Americans don't watch football.
There is some consistency about Brazil and Argentina in this world cup.
There is hope, by some, that they will meet in the all time classic
final. Is it maybe a sense of destiny that they are both under
performing but still winning? Brazil, as
we have long established are never going to be the team we dream
of...the flicks and tricks have been replaced by Fred and Jo. Argentina
are looking like the anti-team to everything that has happened at this
World Cup....boring, predictable and no flair. Today they were up
against the Swiss who, thanks to their German coach, are more German
than the Germans in their cliche-d efficient organization. The Swiss
have a Nadal to Argentina's Messi. Since Wimbledon is competing with
world cup for viewing a tennis reference is long overdue. Yes, the
magician with his feet, Messi, was up against the Swiss Messi, but with a
bit more aggression and toughness, Shakiri, Shakiri...... In the end
the real Messi beat the Swiss almost Messi, but Shakiri gets bonus
points for an award winning stare and swear at the referee for getting
in his way.
This one, almost unsurprisingly now, went to extra
time. Swiss resistance was finally broken after a mistake at the half
way line gifted Messi the ball, and just when you thought he was going
to try waltzing through the Swiss defence, didn’t you, he set up the
Angel off his right shoulder for a beautiful finish. As poor as
Argentina were, Messi was at the centre of everything. He's not quite
putting in the Maradona type of inspired performances yet, but he
definitely looked up for a battle, constantly looking for the ball. But
maybe he needs a Valdano and Burruchaga around him. There was a rumour
today that Argentina had a centre forward called Higuain playing. Maybe I
heard wrong.
Argentina and Brazil may meet in the final. Do,
or don't, the fan rivalry is evident every time Argentina play. They
have some of the strongest support, but the sea of light blue in the
stadium is interspersed with a whole load of yellow Brazilian shirts.
The locals must have a lot of fun supporting any team that comes to play
against Argentina in their country. Again, the Argentinian support was
rocking in the first 10 minutes, but by the second half the fans must
have been as bored as us at home. Silence reigned.
Switzerland
were terribly unlucky not to equalize right at the end when Dzemaili
headed against the post and then his own rebound rebounded off him and
out. One to replay in the poor man's head over and over again.
Argentina had tried to lift the gloom by bringing on the man with the
most questionably ridiculous hair style, Rodrigo Palacio. Is it a braid,
is it the world's skinniest ponytail sticking out of his shaved head. I
do not know.
As is the norm, I resorted to the BBC for a
second opinion on this match. And, as has become Bbc's standard with any
match that isn't an and end to end barnstormer, described it by using
their favourite word, turgid. One of my regular readers, has become so
amused by the turgid-ness of Bbc's reporting, that he looked up the
definition of turgid: swollen, congested or pompous and bombastic. The
midfield was congested and there is always pompous-ness on show. So
turgid it was.
Belgium and the Americans put on a show that our
commentator described as lively. It was end to end, the Belgians
showing flashes of what their individual stars should be able to do. And
the Americans played as though they had to justify the decision by the
millions back home to spend their afternoon watching soccer.
That it was 0-0 at the end of 90 minutes was mostly down to Tim Howard,
American goalie, doing what he is supposed to do and the Belgians doing
what they are not supposed to do when they have chance after chance to
score: not let Howard do his job so comfortably. There were many saves,
but, really, how many of them were more than would be expected?
In extra time Belgium brought on star striker Lukaku and within seconds
he charged at the American defence, did his thing (caused panic) and De
Bruyne scored. Who else thinks that Kevin De Bruyne is the grumpiest
footballer out there. Even a goal couldn't take the scowl off his face.
Maybe that's why Chelsea got rid of him: good player, but too damn
grumpy.
When Lukaku scored a second, who would have thought
that there was any way back for the Americans? But, hello, what's this?
Young guy, just on, Green scored a beauty with his first touch at the
beginning of the second extra half and this game, if it wasn't on
before, was now definitely rocking. Courtois made an incredible save and
the Americans kept coming. But to no avail, and again a near upset was
averted.
Before Lukaku, Belgium also brought on Mirallas for
Mertens, a switch of skillful industrial-ness for occasional flashiness.
Mertens always looks outstanding for about 15 minutes but them seems to
be a bit of a one trick wonder, who's trick is figured out pretty
quickly by the other team. Mirallas, on the other hand, is the kind of
guy I would like in my team. He gets stuff done.
The match was
interrupted for a few minutes when a fan/person/joker ran onto the
pitch. Of course, we must not mention pitch invaders lest we give them
publicity. Our wonderful, Fifa trained commentator took this instruction
to heart. As the arm waving, look at me prankster ran around the pitch,
we were told that Jones seemed to be having a problem, and as Mr Fun
started his second lap we were further informed that Jones still seems
to be having an issue and that's why the game is stopped. When it became
obvious that the Brazilian stewards are happy to give somebody like
this their moment in the spotlight and were happy to let him do a few
laps, and when it became impossible to keep him out of every camera
shot, the commentator finally admitted that we don't need these kind of
interruptions.
That's it until Friday. If you are new to World
Cup and you thought the last 16 matches were tight and low on
excitement, just wait for the quarter finals. All the big teams will now
be looking to outsmart each other. Thank goodness for Costa Rica!
Saturday 26 July 2014
African Champions...2014?
Day 19. What happened today in Brazil. The Ochoa curse struck again.
Today was the day for the Africans to a make a statement against 2 big European teams. Nigeria came into their match against France as one of those teams who had qualified, but you wondered how much they deserved it. After a painful 0-0 draw against Iran, they beat Bosnia 1-0, partly due to Bosnia being denied a legitimate goal, and then lost to Argentina. It was a case of them being better than the really bad teams. Today they really seemed up for it and with a bit of better finishing might have scared the French a bit more. They also had Victor Moses, who plays for Liverpool and looked like he was on the team solely on reputation, which is further still probably only based on the fact that he is a rarely used sub for Liverpool. Surely there was somebody on that Nigerian bench more effective than him. France, on the other hand seemed a little confused. They went back to their experiment of star striker Benzema playing on the left wing, and Giroud up front. It worked in their friendly against Jamaica and for one match against Switzerland, but today Benzema looked pissed off that he had to share the spotlight. Once Giroud went off, Benzema came to life, and France looked like they would score a few. It took a while but they did get a goal, and it was a repeat of the Ochoa phenomenon, as happened yesterday.
The Nigerian goalkeeper, Enyeama, had been having another amazing match. Then, as happened with Ochoa, he got caught up in his own greatness, and eccentricity. He flapped at a cross and left Pogba with an easy header into an empty net. After that, Nigeria looked terribly disheartened. It is a normal tactic that when a team is in the lead with a few minutes left they try to hold onto the ball in the opposing team's half. Nigeria had so lost interest that they did if for France. Even when Nigeria got the ball they couldn't get it out of their half, and eventually gifted France a corner, which led to the gift of an own goal. 2-0 France and on they go. And all this without one of their biggest names, Ribery. Really, have they missed him?
On Saturday, the day of the 2 all South American matches, all 4 teams and their supporters belted out the national anthems like their lives depended on how well they sang them. When Brazil sang their's what was equally impressive were the ball boys and girls trying to sing louder than the players. But one ball girl today might have gone one better. I'm sure she was singing along to the French anthem. Maybe she was just mouthing what she thought were the words, maybe she was French or maybe she took it upon herself to learn the words. Whatever, it seems this national anthem thing is catching. Roy Hodgson would be proud.
Second match was the much talked about, by me, revenge match. Algeria went at Germany like their fathers had given the team talk before the match, not the coach. They wanted it. The Germans were getting attacked from all angles and were all over the place. Unfortunately, Algeria lacked the one important quality needed to win, the ability to turn all their opportunities into goals. Germany were defending so desperately that their goalkeeper, Neuer, came out of his area, more often than any goalkeeper I've ever seen do.
In the second half, Germany, looked like they had overcome the shock and had enough chances to make the scoreline look like it should when one of the best teams in Europe, in the world, plays an average to good African team. But time and time again, Mbohli, in the Algerian goal pulled of some stunning saves. So out-of-this-world good that the Ochoa curse seemed to be about to happen any minute.
This was quite the match for the neutral, the underdogs having a go at the ever so consistent, always make it to at least the quarter finals Germans. But I can imagine what it was like if you are German, an absolute bloody nightmare. This was supposed to be an easy path to the next round. When have Algeria ever beaten anyone. Ok, there was that one time, but, really, it's Algeria and we have Mueller and Schweinstiger and baby faced Goetze. We're so good we don't even care that Mertesecker is in defence, because when he screws up again and again, Neuer will run out and clean up the mess. But again, for the neutral it was fantastic. Germany attacked but were denied over and over again, and Algeria ran at the Germans head on with no fear. There were oh's and oooh's and aaaah's aplenty.
Off to extra time we went and barely 90 seconds into it, Schurrle tried a training ground flick and in it went. Mbohli was beaten, and at that moment who really thought that Algeria could get back into it. They had given it their all, but now they had to summon all their very low energy reserves and come from behind to beat the Germans. As it turned out, they did score in the second minute of injury time. But, sadly, by then Germany had already scored their second goal. Another great effort, just like the Mexicans, had just fallen short. But at least the closeness to upset had entertained us.
Tomorrow, Messi takes on the Swiss and the Americans tackle the cool, look how good we are, guys from Belgium. Enjoy it, because then we have 2 days of no football. How could they.
Today was the day for the Africans to a make a statement against 2 big European teams. Nigeria came into their match against France as one of those teams who had qualified, but you wondered how much they deserved it. After a painful 0-0 draw against Iran, they beat Bosnia 1-0, partly due to Bosnia being denied a legitimate goal, and then lost to Argentina. It was a case of them being better than the really bad teams. Today they really seemed up for it and with a bit of better finishing might have scared the French a bit more. They also had Victor Moses, who plays for Liverpool and looked like he was on the team solely on reputation, which is further still probably only based on the fact that he is a rarely used sub for Liverpool. Surely there was somebody on that Nigerian bench more effective than him. France, on the other hand seemed a little confused. They went back to their experiment of star striker Benzema playing on the left wing, and Giroud up front. It worked in their friendly against Jamaica and for one match against Switzerland, but today Benzema looked pissed off that he had to share the spotlight. Once Giroud went off, Benzema came to life, and France looked like they would score a few. It took a while but they did get a goal, and it was a repeat of the Ochoa phenomenon, as happened yesterday.
The Nigerian goalkeeper, Enyeama, had been having another amazing match. Then, as happened with Ochoa, he got caught up in his own greatness, and eccentricity. He flapped at a cross and left Pogba with an easy header into an empty net. After that, Nigeria looked terribly disheartened. It is a normal tactic that when a team is in the lead with a few minutes left they try to hold onto the ball in the opposing team's half. Nigeria had so lost interest that they did if for France. Even when Nigeria got the ball they couldn't get it out of their half, and eventually gifted France a corner, which led to the gift of an own goal. 2-0 France and on they go. And all this without one of their biggest names, Ribery. Really, have they missed him?
On Saturday, the day of the 2 all South American matches, all 4 teams and their supporters belted out the national anthems like their lives depended on how well they sang them. When Brazil sang their's what was equally impressive were the ball boys and girls trying to sing louder than the players. But one ball girl today might have gone one better. I'm sure she was singing along to the French anthem. Maybe she was just mouthing what she thought were the words, maybe she was French or maybe she took it upon herself to learn the words. Whatever, it seems this national anthem thing is catching. Roy Hodgson would be proud.
Second match was the much talked about, by me, revenge match. Algeria went at Germany like their fathers had given the team talk before the match, not the coach. They wanted it. The Germans were getting attacked from all angles and were all over the place. Unfortunately, Algeria lacked the one important quality needed to win, the ability to turn all their opportunities into goals. Germany were defending so desperately that their goalkeeper, Neuer, came out of his area, more often than any goalkeeper I've ever seen do.
In the second half, Germany, looked like they had overcome the shock and had enough chances to make the scoreline look like it should when one of the best teams in Europe, in the world, plays an average to good African team. But time and time again, Mbohli, in the Algerian goal pulled of some stunning saves. So out-of-this-world good that the Ochoa curse seemed to be about to happen any minute.
This was quite the match for the neutral, the underdogs having a go at the ever so consistent, always make it to at least the quarter finals Germans. But I can imagine what it was like if you are German, an absolute bloody nightmare. This was supposed to be an easy path to the next round. When have Algeria ever beaten anyone. Ok, there was that one time, but, really, it's Algeria and we have Mueller and Schweinstiger and baby faced Goetze. We're so good we don't even care that Mertesecker is in defence, because when he screws up again and again, Neuer will run out and clean up the mess. But again, for the neutral it was fantastic. Germany attacked but were denied over and over again, and Algeria ran at the Germans head on with no fear. There were oh's and oooh's and aaaah's aplenty.
Off to extra time we went and barely 90 seconds into it, Schurrle tried a training ground flick and in it went. Mbohli was beaten, and at that moment who really thought that Algeria could get back into it. They had given it their all, but now they had to summon all their very low energy reserves and come from behind to beat the Germans. As it turned out, they did score in the second minute of injury time. But, sadly, by then Germany had already scored their second goal. Another great effort, just like the Mexicans, had just fallen short. But at least the closeness to upset had entertained us.
Tomorrow, Messi takes on the Swiss and the Americans tackle the cool, look how good we are, guys from Belgium. Enjoy it, because then we have 2 days of no football. How could they.
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