Day 24. What happened today in Brazil.
Today's exciting stories in the world:
Mark Cavendish fell and dislocated his shoulder in the first stage of the Tour de France.
Petra Kvitova won the ladies singles at Wimbledon.
Toronto Fc lost at home to DC United.
The three time defending hot dog eating champion of the contest held every year in Coney Island lost her title.
A car caught fire in Malta.
Costa Rica and Holland played a football match in Brazil.
And I really could stop there, other than to tell you, in case you have
other things you are interested in right now, about the last minute of
the 120 minutes. At 0-0 and it obviously going to penalties, Holland
changed their goalkeeper. I only hope that it was planned and spoken
about beforehand, because if I was the regular goalkeeper my confidence
would have taken a real bashing if I thought my coach didn't think I was
good enough. But there was the fairytale ending with the sub goalie
saving 2 penalties, and Holland are in the semis.
Now, we all
expect the quarter finals to be tight. Nobody wants to make a mistake,
no team wants to risk giving away a cheap goal and be out after coming
so far. But this really was ridiculous. Holland didn't have a shot on
goal for 40 consecutive minutes. Costa Rica, the neutrals' favourite
team, had a game plan. Defend for 90 minutes, then another 30, get to
the penalties and hope to get lucky. Yes, the important thing is
winning, entertainment is an occasional by product. Go ahead, call me a
terrible heartless cynic but, unlike what I read all over the place,
Costa Rica did not play a wonderful game. They could barely put three
passes together. When Holland did shoot they hit the post three times,
had a shot cleared off the line, and were a little tame in their
finishing. To top it all off, Van Persie had the chance right at the end
to put us out of our misery, but couldn't decide whether to stick his
head or foot out and ended up crumpling into a heap of forlorn
footballer. Holland were not much better than Costa Rica but they did
try to win. They were centimetres away from scoring and that would have
completely messed up Costa Rica's game plan. That the plan almost
succeeded was mostly down to the Dutch missing, rather than the Costa
Rican's bravery.
So why do we keep watching? Hidden deep under
that mediocrity is the excitement of knowing that there is going to be
an outcome. The battle will end, and one team will be out and the other
on their way to the semi-finals. The event is exciting for the outcome.
Pity about the process.
Of course with nothing much happening
on the pitch my eyes wondered, with the help of the cameras, to Patrick
Kluivert, the Dutch assistant manager. I've always been slightly amused
by his presence on the Dutch bench. He looks like the kid brought along
to the important meetings by his father. There's Louis Van Gaal, and the
other men who look like they have a plan and system to put in place.
And then there's Patrick, following along with scribbles in his notebook
(probably writing down the questions he's going to ask later, or trying
to figure out how the 30 minutes of extra time is broken into 2 halves.
Important disclaimer: Patrick Kluivert is probably a very smart man,
who was hired because he does a good job, and I know nothing about his
personality and these are all good natured suppositions). Patrick was a
pretty decent player, but he seemed to have a chip on his shoulder when
he played that made Van Persie's strut look like a timid walk. Patrick
strutted around with the look of "I'm better than everybody else around
me and I will score when I want to". Today I think he was really baffled
as to what his assistant managerial duties were, so in an effort to
seem interested, he kept putting pen to notebook. The most entertaining
was when he wrote something down just as soon as Van Gaal did. "I wonder
what Louis wrote. I hope mine is as good. Maybe I can peak while he's
watching the game". As the monotony on the pitch reached epic
proportions, Patrick was hard at work on his notebook. The opinions as
to what he was doing varied from doodling, to hangman, to tic tac toe
(xoxo). Now I think he was probably writing down ideas for his next
birthday (see below).
Holland-Costa Rica followed Argentina's
1-0 win over Belgium. Argentina weren't great, Belgium were pretty bad.
The best thing about it was how great it is to see Messi playing like he
is the best player in the world. He still had not reached the Maradona
levels, but I have a sneaky suspicion he is timing his peak to happen in
the next 2 matches. Just as he suddenly kicks into 5th gear with the
ball at his feet in any match, I believe he is going to hit Formula 1,
down the straightaway, speed at any moment. Today he was helped by
Higuain actually looking interested. Higuain scored the only goal off a
very lucky deflection that gave him the ball but he still needed a
pretty good finish. It was sad for the purists that he didn't score when
he ran at the Belgian defence, nutmegged Kompany and hit his shot off
the crossbar. That would have made for a more satisfying win than the
early goal and kill the game kind of win that happened.
Watching Argentina is more entertaining for their fans who take over
every stadium they play in and seem to have staked a claim to ownership
of Copocabana beach. Their singing adds an atmosphere element that only
the Brazilians seem able to match (as seen on TV). The chants back and
forth have started even before a possible meeting in the final.
Argentinians taunt the Brazilians with something on the lines of,
"Brazil, how does it feel to be bossed around in your own back yard", to
which the Brazilians in their stadium reply; "five times champions".
How can we have a Holland-Germany final when the whole World Cup has
seemed like a build up to Messi scoring a last minute winner against
Brazil in the final.
I have enjoyed this World Cup immensley.
There's been great football, especially in the first round, the big
players have shone, not frozen, lots of excitement and passion and Brazil
seems to be living up to it's name as the cradle of football
civilization. So I will take a few tedious 0-0s. After all, in a week it
will all be over for 4 years. But at least I'll have 4 years to plan
how to get to Russia.
Patrick Kluivert, celebrating his 38th birthday with Van Persie.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nfQSCNfbzQ
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