Sh*t Just Got Serious

Today has seen the start of the World Cup quarter-finals.

The day's first game was an all Euro affair between France and Germany. Throughout this tournament Germany have played a very domineering style of football which has seen them play very high up the pitch with even their defensive line often straying into the opposing half of the pitch. By contrast France have played in a very counter-attacking style which has seen their attacking line hover around the half-way line only to break away for the quick attack.

As a result this grudge match was always going to be a tightly balanced affair. Ideally what the neutral would have liked to have seen is for France to score an early goal which would then force Germany in to really attacking in the hope of producing an equaliser and in the process leave themselves vulnerable to lots of French scoring opportunities.

Unfortunately (unless you're German) Germany scored the first goal early on. At around 11 minutes France's Paul Pogba fouled Germany's Toni Kroos on the side of the penalty area. From the ensuing free-kick Kroos found the head of Mats Hummels who gently directed the ball into the French net with a deft header.

Finding themselves 1-0 up after only 12 minutes all Germany needed to do then was sit back in their own half and break up the play. Despite the boos from the neutrals in the crowd this is exactly what they did meaning that they won the game 1-0.

France's main problem was that they couldn't find a way to beat Germany's off-side trap. So whenever France's strikers were looking to make a break the German defenders simply stepped forward as the ball was played meaning that the French players were caught off-side and play was stopped. France weren't helped in this by the linesmen/assistant referees both of whom had a very bad game. Basically they struggled to keep up with play leading to them making a lot of mistakes so they were awarding off-sides when the French players were on-side and vice versa. The nicest thing I can say about this is that they were consistent in their inconsistency although the French did suffer more because it made it very hard for them to guess when they were going to be called off-side or not.

The second match of the day was an all South American affair. Unfortunately for one of those sides the other side was the host Brazil meaning that the match was played in a massive atmosphere in front of a hugely partisan sell-out crowd at the Castelao stadium and the game certainly did it's surroundings justice

Being an all South American tie the match was such a flurry of Samba hips, chips, turns and nutmegs I don't really know were to start. In the first-half alone there was the battle of the afros on Brazil's left-wing between Columbia's Cuadrado and Brazil's Marcelo alongside Columbia's James Rodríguez taking on all comers in the centre of the pitch. Then there was Brazil's David Luiz's (a defender!!) mazy run up the pitch only to be stopped by a Colombian player who immediately started a mazy run of his own only to be stopped by a pin-point tackle from (I think) Marcelo. Even Brazil's Hulk who neither looks nor sounds particularly light on his feet got in on the party tricks using them to very nearly score in the 20th minute.

By comparison the first goal seemed almost dull with Brazil's 'bellying' in a Neymar corner in the 7th minute. There was nothing dull about the second goal with Brazil's David Luiz curling a pin-point free-kick in from around 20-25 yards out. Despite Brazil going 2-0 up Columbia still had some fight left in them with Carlos Bacca being brought down by Brazil's 'keeper Julio César in the penalty area in the 77th minute. César was booked for this sloppy challenge and was probably only saved from a straight red card by David Luiz running back to make sure he was the last man between Bacca and the goal. Rodríguez neatly slotted home the penalty putting him two clear goals ahead in the golden boot (top goalscorer) tournament and pegging Brazil back to 2-1.

At this point I should take a moment to commend Carlos Velasco Carballo - the Spanish referee - on a good game despite all the criticism he has come in for from the English (ITV) TV commentators and other fans of the English Premier League on Twitter. Although this was clearly a very physical game with lots of shoves, elbows, kicks and body checks all those muscular moves were purely intentional rather than reckless and stayed away from areas (ankles, knees etc) that could cause players serious injury. Plus both sides were at it as much as each other and there was no specific targeting of players. As a result rather then constantly blowing his whistle and getting his cards out the referee simply let the players sort it out between themselves and the game was all the better because of it.

A small problem did begin to emerge after half-time when the Colombians came out and started diving and faking injury in an effort to break up the play and get Brazilian players booked. The referee responded to this by simply ignoring every Colombian call which let the Brazilians get away with some pretty hefty challenges. For example Thiago Silva's challenge in the centre circle around 60 minutes certainly should have earned his a yellow card despite the referee not even seeing a foul. What I would have done is to have booked the first Colombian player to make a bad tackle soon in the second half to send out the "Oh you want yellow cards do you?!" message. Cuadrado's thumping challenge on Neymar in the 63rd minute would have been a prime example and probably would have prevented Silva's strange challenge on the Colombian 'keeper shortly afterwards that earned him the yellow card that means he will miss the semi-final even if he should have been on one already by that point.

Despite their best efforts Columbia couldn't find an equaliser meaning that the match ended 2-1 and Brazil go through to the semi-final where they will face Germany. My mouth is already watering over that match-up even if Brazil will be without Silva and face an injury worry over Neymar.

23:05 on 4/7/14 (UK date). 

Edited at around 14:50 on 5/7/14 (UK date) to add;

Shortly after writing the above it emerged that Neymar in fact sustained fractured vertebrae and is now out of the World Cup. However I should point out that it sounds like he has suffered stress fractures to some of the vertebrae in his lower back rather then breaking his back entirely. Essentially this means that Neymar has suffered hairline cracks to the bone rather then the bone being broken apart. If Neymar wasn't a professional athlete with access to top of the line medical care he would probably have put the pain down to a simple bad back. He will though need to rest in order to the injury to heal properly meaning that he is out of the rest of the tournament although at 22 I'm sure he's got plenty more World Cups ahead of him

I should point out that this injury is probably the cumulative effect of numerous collisions and knocks rather than one single incident. So while Columbia's Juan Zuniga's knee to Neymar's back in the 88th minute probably pushed things over the edge the weakness was created by all the knocks Neymar took in the game against Chile particularly Arturo Vidal's heavy-duty body-check.

It does also give me an opportunity to talk about one of my biggest bugbears of the tournament - players feigning injury. Not only is it cheating but it also makes it much harder to tell if a player has genuinely been hurt making the game much more dangerous for everyone. As I result I would like to start seeing players getting booked for feigning injury although it's sods law that the first time a referee does that the player will actually be injured.