Day 4 WorldCup2018
Ah football, wonderful World Cup football. On a Sunday, when there is nothing else to do.
Ah Mexico. Mexico and their wonderful, exciting football. Mexico who normally play the role of "we're almost good" so well. Today they took it a step further. They took on Germany with so much confidence, they made the Germans look like they were the underdogs. A win is a win, an unexpected win is a huge win. Do they regret that it was only 1-0 when it could have so easily been 3-0?
Good players can become great players when it matters with good coaching. Juan Carlos Osorio, Mexico's Colombian coach has to take a lot of credit how he inspired his players to play.
The same can be said about Switzerland's Vladimir Petkovic. The Swiss have been unspectacularly solid for the last eight years so. Apart from Shakiri it's hard to mention another Swiss player. They have done what Iceland have done without the romanticism of Iceland. They have gone diligently about their business putting together a team, from a relatively small country, who have slowly risen to be the sixth best team in the world according to the Fifa rankings. This is the team that won all of their qualifying matches except for one defeat against Portugal.
Watching Switzerland today, and Iceland yesterday, made me realize that teams like this, teams without the Messi's, Couthinho's and Neymar's, have turned the notion of "playing as a unit" into an exciting piece of football artwork. It's no longer boring. They are not sucking the life out of games, they are giving it a different, intriguing kind of life. Sure, they crowd the edge of their penalty area, but they also have players defending ahead of that line, players harassing the opposition who then have the ability to move that unit up the field to the opponent's defensive areas. It's fascinating.
Brazil were briefly spectacular for a while against the Swiss today. Couthinho's goal was the kind you would expect from a Brazilian. But after that they seemed to falter against the organization of the Swiss. It's true that Europeans play differently and Brazil have to adapt after a relative breezy run though qualifying.
Their struggles today were ironic because their coach, Tite, took a year off work to study European playing systems which he then added into his team when he took as coach of Brazil.
Tite looks like a very studious man. As he stands on the touchline he looks he is not only looking at Neymar's movement, but he is also wondering what kind of paint was used for the lines on the pitches in Russia and whether that could make a difference to his system. He's the kind of man who if everybody around him on the bench was celebrating a last minute winner he would be trying to figure the exact velocity at which the ball hit the back of the net, and whether it could be improved upon.
By the way, in case you were too busy watching the US Open golf or the latest shocking celebrity videos on TMZ, little Switzerland did not beat Brazil. They came close but took the 1-1 draw as a victory.
And if you are a big golf fan and were watching the US Open, I was one of those people who didn't pay much attention to it because I was too busy watching Switzerland batter Brazil. So who won?
In the first match today Serbia beat Costa Rica 1-0. There's not much else to say other than to mention the fantastic Kolorov free kick that gave Serbia the win. It wasn't a terrible match. It was just unfortunate that the quality and standard of excitement of this tournament has been so high so far that this match was a bit below that level. And with the incredible, emotional excitement that followed later, poor Serbia and Costa Rica are easily forgotten.
Ah football, wonderful World Cup football. On a Sunday, when there is nothing else to do.
Ah Mexico. Mexico and their wonderful, exciting football. Mexico who normally play the role of "we're almost good" so well. Today they took it a step further. They took on Germany with so much confidence, they made the Germans look like they were the underdogs. A win is a win, an unexpected win is a huge win. Do they regret that it was only 1-0 when it could have so easily been 3-0?
Good players can become great players when it matters with good coaching. Juan Carlos Osorio, Mexico's Colombian coach has to take a lot of credit how he inspired his players to play.
The same can be said about Switzerland's Vladimir Petkovic. The Swiss have been unspectacularly solid for the last eight years so. Apart from Shakiri it's hard to mention another Swiss player. They have done what Iceland have done without the romanticism of Iceland. They have gone diligently about their business putting together a team, from a relatively small country, who have slowly risen to be the sixth best team in the world according to the Fifa rankings. This is the team that won all of their qualifying matches except for one defeat against Portugal.
Watching Switzerland today, and Iceland yesterday, made me realize that teams like this, teams without the Messi's, Couthinho's and Neymar's, have turned the notion of "playing as a unit" into an exciting piece of football artwork. It's no longer boring. They are not sucking the life out of games, they are giving it a different, intriguing kind of life. Sure, they crowd the edge of their penalty area, but they also have players defending ahead of that line, players harassing the opposition who then have the ability to move that unit up the field to the opponent's defensive areas. It's fascinating.
Brazil were briefly spectacular for a while against the Swiss today. Couthinho's goal was the kind you would expect from a Brazilian. But after that they seemed to falter against the organization of the Swiss. It's true that Europeans play differently and Brazil have to adapt after a relative breezy run though qualifying.
Their struggles today were ironic because their coach, Tite, took a year off work to study European playing systems which he then added into his team when he took as coach of Brazil.
Tite looks like a very studious man. As he stands on the touchline he looks he is not only looking at Neymar's movement, but he is also wondering what kind of paint was used for the lines on the pitches in Russia and whether that could make a difference to his system. He's the kind of man who if everybody around him on the bench was celebrating a last minute winner he would be trying to figure the exact velocity at which the ball hit the back of the net, and whether it could be improved upon.
By the way, in case you were too busy watching the US Open golf or the latest shocking celebrity videos on TMZ, little Switzerland did not beat Brazil. They came close but took the 1-1 draw as a victory.
And if you are a big golf fan and were watching the US Open, I was one of those people who didn't pay much attention to it because I was too busy watching Switzerland batter Brazil. So who won?
In the first match today Serbia beat Costa Rica 1-0. There's not much else to say other than to mention the fantastic Kolorov free kick that gave Serbia the win. It wasn't a terrible match. It was just unfortunate that the quality and standard of excitement of this tournament has been so high so far that this match was a bit below that level. And with the incredible, emotional excitement that followed later, poor Serbia and Costa Rica are easily forgotten.
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