Day
11. What happened today in Brazil.
There's been a theme this weekend.
Superstar Messi does nothing for the whole match yesterday but then
scores a wonder winner. Today, Belgian, wannabe superstar, Hazard, looks
like he should be playing with the Under 18s for 88 minutes and then
sets up the winning goal. And the best of them all, supposedly, Ronaldo
after 94 minutes of almost complete non-superstardom, whips in a perfect cross onto his teammates head for the goal that silenced the USA! USA!
What a day it was. The boring match of the day was supposed to be
Algeria-South Korea. The Koreans never score many and Algeria had
defended for 89 minutes in their last match. But suddenly the Algerians
had a become a one touch, quick on the counter attacks football machine.
At 3-0 it looked like this could be the one big one sided one that
happens at every world cup....would it be 6,7. And this was Algeria, who
are supposed to be on the receiving end of these hidings. The Koreans
made it 1-3 early in the second half, Algeria made it 4-1, and finally
it was 4-2. Revenge for 1982 is getting closer.
This match followed
Belgium -Russia, which one could have been forgiven for expecting a
classic: the hot shot Belgians against the battle hardened Russians.
Well, the hot shots are firing quite a few blanks and the Russians might
be having a hard time understanding Mr. Italian taskmaster Fabio
Cappello. This was memories of Italia 1990, lazy, boring matches in the
hot sun, a bit like watching baseball....you want to be excited but
nothing, and I really mean nothing, happens. Finally, 2 minutes from the
end Hazard, who spent the afternoon being knocked off the ball like he
was a teenager invited to play with the big boys, goes off on one of his
runs and sets up the young substitute, Origi, to score. Belgium have
scored 3 goals, all by substitutes. Coach Wilmots must be planning 3
good substitutions for the next match.
As again my mind wandered, I
realized something that's happening a lot at this world cup. Well over 5
minutes into the second half there were still lots of empty seats.
Either there's not enough toilets, or the beer takes a long time to be
poured.
Portugal-Usa was another, to quote the BBC, belter. Maybe
every team and every coach was so sick of Tika Tika that they all agreed
that they all need to play all out attacking football. Belgium and
Russia didn't get the memo. This was end to end, non stop. The US came
back from 1-0 down to lead 2-1 with 30 seconds to go when Ronaldo
planted the ball right on Varela's head. You really had to feel for the
Americans, they were almost there, almost the first team qualified from
the group they were tipped to finish last in. But they are still very
close. In the last round of matches they could lose to Germany 1-0 and
Portugal would have to beat Ghana 5-0. In an easier scenario if Germany
and USA draw, then they both move on. For the non-followers out there
USA are coached by a former German idol, Klinsmann, who was also coach
of Germany...and his assistant was the current German coach. Now if ever
a couple of.old friends needed to do each other a favour. And it's not
like the Germans haven't asked, allegedly, unproven of course, for a
favour before....Algeria, 1982.
No comments:
Post a Comment