Day
10. What happened today in Brazil. And there goes another day of
excitement from unexpected places. First up, from the man who threatens
to be great, the player who can dance through any defence in Spain, can
score the most outrageously amazing goals in Europe, but seems to forget
it all when he plays for Argentina. Lionel Messi did shut me up (and
remind me he was there) with a wonder goal in
the 93rd minute after spending 92 minutes making the Iranian defenders
look better than any team he faces in Spain every week. 1-0 to Argentina
and they are through to the next round. Every match, especially in a
new round has a different story, but can Argentina get better? Can Messi
finally do a Maradona? Argentina's '86 team was not that good. Maradona
made them. And before any "expert' says Argentina's system doesn't suit
Messi, I'd say Maradona could play with anybody. He was the system.
The play was at Iran's end for so long, yet with Argentina not getting
anywhere I found myself distracted by what was going on with a red
banner that kept getting hung by supporters behind the Iranian goal.
Hard to see what it was but it seemed to create a lot of consternation
amongst the stewards who called a few suits over. In the end it was
taken up, but reappeared further over in the corner, where it stayed. A
good story there, or just somebody complaining that someone had taken
their seats? Such is my wandering mind.
Germany and Ghana
played one of the most exciting second halves. Once Germany went ahead,
all bets would have been on their Germanness killing off the poor
Ghanians. But Ghana came back, not once but twice. At 2-1 up, and later,
they had a couple of great counter attacks where they really looked
like they did not know what to do. I guess they never practiced the
scenario where Germany would have most of the possession and they would
get chances on the breakaways. Ghana's other weird strategy was to shoot
at will from great distances. And they were the kind of shots that a 10
year old would hit when playing at school and the ball came to them,
they couldn't believe it and thought, oh I should just whack it because
I'll probably have it taken off me soon anyway. Germany got an equalizer
from that player, Klose, who has been around for ever but has also
seemed old forever. Klose has now equaled the record for the most goals
scored in World Cups, 15.
Finally, Bosnia, poor Bosnia.
Nigeria won 1-0 and Bosnia, the first-timers, are off home. But it could
have been so different if the linesman from New Zealand (New Zealand?
you mean that country that sees top level football all the time?) hadn't
got it completely, terribly wrong and disallowed Dzeko's goal for
offside. Bosnia have a wonderful midfielder, Pjanic, the quarterback of
the team. It was his perfect pass that set up Dzeko for his no-goal
goal. Strangely, mid way through the second half Bosnia's strategy
seemed to be get the ball out to the left wing, to the new guy
Salihovic, who had come in. His service to Dzeko? Terrible. Salihovic
lost the ball repeatedly in every way possible. And Pjanic was out of
the picture. This is where I might want to add my disclaimer that the
views expressed here are of someone sitting on his couch, beer in hand,
unaware of the extreme heat these players were playing in, and not those
of an expert of any sort. And when I say expert I don't mean an
ex-England player who failed miserably in every World Cup he played in,
but now has an opinion about the latest bunch of failures which we
should all listen to. But I seriously digress. Dzeko very unluckily had a
shot (a pretty terrible one after controlling the ball with his hand)
hit the goalkeeper's foot and rebound off the post in the last minute.
And that was that. Bosnia finish against Iran. Will they play for pride
or will they let Iran win, and have one of the most negative teams
(experts say "organized") move through to the next round.
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