I was just thinking that it would be nice to write up a World Cup match without getting into a complex, technical discussion about the rules. Not least because I'm a little bit stoned and prone to going off on tangents. Unfortunately the Netherlands versus Mexico match brought us the first drinks break of the tournament.
Although it's the middle of winter in Brazil the heat or more accurately the humidity was always going to be an issue at this World Cup. As a result FIFA put in place a procedure whereby if the temperature at the start of the game rose above 32C the stadium doctor would strongly advise the referee to insert a three minute "cooling break" at the 30 minute mark of each half to allow the players to take on water and, well, cool down. However it has always been down to the referees discretion whether or not they do this. On this occasion Pedro Proença - the Portuguese referee - opted to include a cooling break despite the average temperature only being 29C. With FIFA seeming to make up a half-time figure of 38C obviously one of the tangents I could now go off on is how temperature readings vary constantly and are very dependent on the methodology used to measure them.
However I think the main reason for this particular cooling down break was as the result of a tactical play of Louis van Gaal - the Netherlands and now Manchester United's head coach. As was shown during their respective final group games both the Netherlands and Mexico play a very similar style of play. This involves spending much of the game using precision skill and passing along with some subtle, erm, physical intimidation to break down the opponent physically and mentally in order to score late goals.
Hidden amongst the folklore surrounding their "Total Football" the Dutch are past masters at this - particularly the fouling - so were obvious favourites to win this match. However the current Dutch side is not the same one that played in the 1974 World Cup despite having some creaky older players amongst its ranks and Mexico certainly don't deserve to be lumped together with some of the more agricultural South American sides such as Honduras. As a result Mexico most certainly stood a chance in this match especially if they were better able to deal with the heat.
So van Gaal set about making sure that there was a cooling break in this match to remove any advantage the Mexicans might have gained while at the same time helping to psychologically unsettle the Mexican team who wouldn't have been planning for a cooling break. The main part of this was a press conference he gave yesterday. Realising that the Netherlands has a reputation for its liberal approach to marijuana van Gaal gave a speech that was long, weaving and made leading claims about how the players would could lose up three litres of fluid during the game, needed to drink frequently and could even end up hallucinating from dehydration. This was meant to play on everyone's experiments with smoking marijuana and for those who hadn't experimented bring in issues about me, Rihanna and countless others
This of course added to the matter of the 2022 Qatar World Cup which has been a massive issue at this World Cup because it seems likely that it will have to be cancelled due to the heat. Then there is also the issue that US broadcasters have long complained that with 45 minute halves of often continuous play football matches don't allow them to show enough commercials. After all it appears your average American's maximum attention span is around 20 minutes. So in the end I think the referee just threw his hands up the air and went; "OK you can have a cooling down break!"
Despite this the Mexican team seemed to cope with the unusual break in play better than the Dutch coming out from the half-time break looking the stronger side. This was confirmed in the 48th minute when Giovani dos Santos put them 1-0 up with an impressive left-footed shot. However with the Dutch famously being at their most deadly in the last few minutes this simply seemed to be Mexico falling into the Dutch trap of then trying to sit back and protect the 1-0 lead. This seemed to be confirmed when Wesley Sneijder equalised with a deadly right-footed shot from range in the 88th minute. True to form Arjen Robben won the Netherlands a penalty in the 92nd minute which Klaas-Jan Huntelaar converted in the 94th minute after the Mexicans spent around 2 minutes trying to put him off.
This is how it ended and although Sneijder scored in the so-called "Hitler minute" I think that was more ironic than intended. We will find out later who the Netherlands will meet in their quarter-final.
18:45 on 29/6/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 23:10 on 29/6/14 (UK date) to add;
I should start by clarifying that the Netherlands didn't secure their winning penalty because Robben dived. Instead Robben tricked Rafael Marquez into just catching him on the toe and then made sure that the referee was aware of what was technically a foul. This isn't strictly speaking cheating and fits into that grey area known as gamesmanship. It is also are large element of the Mexicans repertoire so I don't think they're so much angry about what Robben did but the fact he did it so much better then they could.
The other game of the day was between Costa Rica and Greece. Now Greece don't so much kill off a game as suck any pleasant memory of football directly from the minds of anyone who is unfortunate enough to lay eyes on them. As a result in the first half absolutely nothing of note happened.
In the second half also absolutely nothing of any note happened until the 52 minute when Costa Rica's captain Bryan Ruiz attempted to smash the ball into the bottom right-hand corner of the net from about 20 yards out. Unfortunately he very badly scuffed this shot. Fortunately that scuff put just enough spin on the ball to carry it into the bottom left-hand corner of the net while the Greek 'keeper was carefully guarding the bottom right-hand corner. Then in the 54th Greece's Torosidis blocked the ball in the penalty with his arm meaning that there should have been a clear penalty to Costa Rica and a sending off. Unfortunately the referee was Australian and there's a large Greek population in Australia so instead he decided to book a Costa Rican player who was sitting on the substitutes bench.
Then absolutely nothing of note happened until the 66th minute when Costa Rica's Oscar Duarte did a late and rash challenge on Greece's Jose Holebas which left the referee with no option other then to show him a yellow card. As this was Duarte's second yellow card of the match he was then shown a red card and sent off leaving Costa Rica to play the last 24 minutes with only 10 men.
Then absolutely nothing of note happened until the 91st minute (90 + 6 minutes stoppage) when Papastathopoulos netted Greece an equaliser with a shot from close range. This forced the game into 30 minutes of extra-time which apparently livened up slightly in the last 10 minutes but by that point I'd given up in favour of playing "Lez or Hag" on the Pride hashtag. Not further goals were scored so it went to a penalty shoot-out which Costa Rica won 5-4.
Costa Rica will now go on to play the Netherlands in the second quarter-final which weirdly will be played first on July 4th.
Sunday 29 June 2014
Saturday 28 June 2014
Bye, Bye Uruguay.
Today at the World Cup saw the very rare event of an empty bracket when Columbia faced no opposition in their last 16 knock-out match. As is standard when a team forfeits a game by failing to attend Columbia were awarded a 2-0 victory and will progress into to the next round.
Sadly Uruguay didn't even have the decency to do that and not only turned up for the game but also brought all their dirty tricks along in an effort to actually win the game. So for example at his press conference yesterday Uruguay's head coach Oscar Washington Tabarez refused to answer any questions and instead gave a 12 minute speech blaming Luis Suarez's ban on the media rather Suarez's biting of Italy's Giorgio Chiellini. Although as far I can tell no-one has bothered to translate what I gather was a very rambling performance into English I suspect Tabarez was trying to suggest that I was only being so harsh in my criticism of the Uruguayan team because I was upset that they'd beaten Italy.
As such I should point out that while as a neutral it's more fun to pick a team while watching a match I would have been perfectly happy to see Uruguay beat Italy if they'd played the better football or even attempted to play football rather than physically assaulting the Italian players. I might even have been happy if the referee had even considered picking the Uruguayan players up on their violent conduct rather then making it so blatantly obvious that he was rigging the game in order to award victory to Uruguay.
The much more sinister element of Uruguay's mind games in recent days have been the attempts to circulate an entirely false story that there was some sort of conspiracy against them when clearly nothing could be further from the truth. The intention here was to intimidate the referee into not issuing yellow and red cards against the Uruguayan players as they set about their usual game plan of kicking, stamping on and body-checking their opponents into submission.
Sadly this seems to have had some effect with Björn Kuipers - the Dutch referee - seeming very hesitant to punish any Uruguayan player for their multiple infractions. For example in the 77th minute Uruguay's Christian Stuani kicked Columbia's Pablo Armero up the a*rse while the ball wasn't even in play. The referee's response was to book Armero for time wasting. Fortunately that incident aside for the most part the referee was equally lenient on Columbia's players although as they were more disciplined they never quite achieved Uruguay's level of brutality. This was of course in direct contrast to the Italy game during which I'm pretty sure Marco Rodríguez - the referee - seriously contemplated booking Chiellini for being bitten by Suarez.
Fortunately a type of poetic justice was done when Columbia's James Rodríguez put them 1-0 up with a stunning volley from outside the penalty area in the 28th minute. Rodríguez netted at second in the 50th minute with a goal that puts him in the lead of the golden boot contest but I pretty sure his first has already won the goal of the tournament award.
2-0 was how it ended so the only thing that Uruguay achieved by turning up to play the game was to lose whatever dignity they had left. Columbia can feel a little aggrieved that they were robbed of the chance of beating Italy. After all Italy may be stylish but they lack speed and attacking bite. Those are two things Columbia has in spades.
The other match of the day between the hosts Brazil and their near neighbours Chile was sadly dominated entirely by the referee. That referee was Britain's Howard Webb who you may remember also made a complete mess of the 2010 World Cup final by failing to keep the Dutch players in line.
The main problem has been this FIFA guidance to referees advising them to be lenient when handing out red and yellow cards. Despite all my complaints about Uruguay I actually fully support this guidance because it has largely improved the games. The reason why it has been issued is that if a player is sent off in a match it completely ruins the game with one side being forced to play at a disadvantage. It also means that the player is automatically banned from the next match and the same thing is true if a player picks up two yellow cards. With the tournament only coming around every four years it can be heartbreaking when players are forced to miss matches. As a result if players are worried that the referee is going to hand out cards for every infraction - no matter how accidental - they stop taking risks and this makes for some really boring games.
The other extreme of that though is that if players know that the referee is not going to issue a card no matter what they do they just start cheating which not only risks players being seriously injured but can absolutely kill off a game. This is what started to happen in the USA V Germany game when Beckerman and Bradley realised they weren't going to be booked so started shoving the German players around just to break up the play. Fortunately things settled down a bit when Beckerman was finally shown a yellow card.
Howard Webb's main problem is that he doesn't seem to understand the thinking behind FIFA's advice so appears to have taken "shown leniency" to mean "don't show any cards in the first half." As a result the first half of the Brazil V Chile game was a very scrappy affair with lots of little kicks and digs along with what looked like a deliberate plan to take Brazil's Neymar out of the game by injuring him. So although there was lots of end to end play with countless attacks and counter attacks none of these seemed organised enough to actually be going somewhere. As such David Luis' goal which put Brazil 1-0 up after 18 minutes came for a set piece while Alexis Sánchez' equaliser for Chile in the 32nd minute was largely the result of Brazil seeming to forget that they needed to mark players and generally attempt to defend their goal.
I think Webb's two key mistakes in the first half actually came within two minutes of each other. In the 29th minute Chile's Arturo Vidal clattered into Brazil's Neymar with a body-check that wouldn't have looked out of place in an ice hockey game. Although Webb did award a free kick he failed to take any further action against Vidal. Given that there was little to no attempt to play the ball and a strong suspicion of malicious intent I would have shown Vidal a yellow card. The leniency would have come from not showing him a red card and sending him straight off.
In the 31st minute Brazil's Fernandinho fouled Chile's Marcelo Díaz. As this was just a foul Webb reasonably only awarded a free kick. However 16 seconds later Fernandinho fouled Chile's Alexis Sánchez which struck me as a clear sign that he'd started to think that he could get away with anything. As such Webb should have immediately booked him and I think his failure to do so was the moment the game really started getting away from the referee. Webb seemed to immediately realise this and his decision to book Chile's Francisco Silva for a nothing foul on Neymar seemed like a desperate attempt to regain control by randomly booking the next player who came into contact with Neymar.
During the half-time break Webb no doubt found out that not only was I criticising him on Twitter but so many people were criticising him on Twitter that his name had been trending worldwide throughout the first half. As a result Webb started the second half clearly in the mood to stamp his authority on the game and show that he wasn't afraid to make tough decisions.
This blew up in his face almost immediately when Hulk put Brazil 2-1 up in the 55th minute only for Webb to disallow the goal for hand ball - an offence that he proceeded to book Hulk for. If you watch the replays the ball actually hits Hulk on the shoulder but given the size of a football it also catches part of his upper arm. As it would be unreasonable to ask Hulk to chop his arm off while running for the ball and there was no malicious intent this wasn't hand ball. What I think confused the assistant referee (Mike Mullarkey, also British) who instructed Webb to disallow the goal was the movement of Hulk's forearm which in real time appeared to swing in to make contact with the ball although slow motion replays confirm that it didn't.
That is why in his little conversation with his assistant and the players Webb taps each of his forearms. As such rather then being wholly sure - which he needed to be - that Hulk had intentionally handled the ball Webb only appears to have an extremely limited understanding of why his assistant was suggesting that there may have been a handball offence. This uncertainty was revealed by the way that throughout the rest of the match Webb made a point of awarding free kicks and issuing cards to Brazil players in order to prove that he wasn't trying to correct his mistake of disallowing the goal. After all Webb didn't know enough about why he'd disallowed the goal even entertain the idea that he might have made a mistake.
With the referee appearing to completely lose touch with reality the game continued in a sort of stunned silence. This led to it going into 30 minutes of extra-time and - although Chile's Mauricio Pinilla nearly won the game when he hit the cross bar in the 120th minute - a penalty shoot-out. Amid the usual heart-wrenching drama Brazil eventually won that shoot-out 3-2.
As such Brazil will face Columbia in the first quarter-final which due to scheduling issues will actually be played second on July 4th.
23:30 on 28/6/14 (UK date).
Sadly Uruguay didn't even have the decency to do that and not only turned up for the game but also brought all their dirty tricks along in an effort to actually win the game. So for example at his press conference yesterday Uruguay's head coach Oscar Washington Tabarez refused to answer any questions and instead gave a 12 minute speech blaming Luis Suarez's ban on the media rather Suarez's biting of Italy's Giorgio Chiellini. Although as far I can tell no-one has bothered to translate what I gather was a very rambling performance into English I suspect Tabarez was trying to suggest that I was only being so harsh in my criticism of the Uruguayan team because I was upset that they'd beaten Italy.
As such I should point out that while as a neutral it's more fun to pick a team while watching a match I would have been perfectly happy to see Uruguay beat Italy if they'd played the better football or even attempted to play football rather than physically assaulting the Italian players. I might even have been happy if the referee had even considered picking the Uruguayan players up on their violent conduct rather then making it so blatantly obvious that he was rigging the game in order to award victory to Uruguay.
The much more sinister element of Uruguay's mind games in recent days have been the attempts to circulate an entirely false story that there was some sort of conspiracy against them when clearly nothing could be further from the truth. The intention here was to intimidate the referee into not issuing yellow and red cards against the Uruguayan players as they set about their usual game plan of kicking, stamping on and body-checking their opponents into submission.
Sadly this seems to have had some effect with Björn Kuipers - the Dutch referee - seeming very hesitant to punish any Uruguayan player for their multiple infractions. For example in the 77th minute Uruguay's Christian Stuani kicked Columbia's Pablo Armero up the a*rse while the ball wasn't even in play. The referee's response was to book Armero for time wasting. Fortunately that incident aside for the most part the referee was equally lenient on Columbia's players although as they were more disciplined they never quite achieved Uruguay's level of brutality. This was of course in direct contrast to the Italy game during which I'm pretty sure Marco Rodríguez - the referee - seriously contemplated booking Chiellini for being bitten by Suarez.
Fortunately a type of poetic justice was done when Columbia's James Rodríguez put them 1-0 up with a stunning volley from outside the penalty area in the 28th minute. Rodríguez netted at second in the 50th minute with a goal that puts him in the lead of the golden boot contest but I pretty sure his first has already won the goal of the tournament award.
2-0 was how it ended so the only thing that Uruguay achieved by turning up to play the game was to lose whatever dignity they had left. Columbia can feel a little aggrieved that they were robbed of the chance of beating Italy. After all Italy may be stylish but they lack speed and attacking bite. Those are two things Columbia has in spades.
The other match of the day between the hosts Brazil and their near neighbours Chile was sadly dominated entirely by the referee. That referee was Britain's Howard Webb who you may remember also made a complete mess of the 2010 World Cup final by failing to keep the Dutch players in line.
The main problem has been this FIFA guidance to referees advising them to be lenient when handing out red and yellow cards. Despite all my complaints about Uruguay I actually fully support this guidance because it has largely improved the games. The reason why it has been issued is that if a player is sent off in a match it completely ruins the game with one side being forced to play at a disadvantage. It also means that the player is automatically banned from the next match and the same thing is true if a player picks up two yellow cards. With the tournament only coming around every four years it can be heartbreaking when players are forced to miss matches. As a result if players are worried that the referee is going to hand out cards for every infraction - no matter how accidental - they stop taking risks and this makes for some really boring games.
The other extreme of that though is that if players know that the referee is not going to issue a card no matter what they do they just start cheating which not only risks players being seriously injured but can absolutely kill off a game. This is what started to happen in the USA V Germany game when Beckerman and Bradley realised they weren't going to be booked so started shoving the German players around just to break up the play. Fortunately things settled down a bit when Beckerman was finally shown a yellow card.
Howard Webb's main problem is that he doesn't seem to understand the thinking behind FIFA's advice so appears to have taken "shown leniency" to mean "don't show any cards in the first half." As a result the first half of the Brazil V Chile game was a very scrappy affair with lots of little kicks and digs along with what looked like a deliberate plan to take Brazil's Neymar out of the game by injuring him. So although there was lots of end to end play with countless attacks and counter attacks none of these seemed organised enough to actually be going somewhere. As such David Luis' goal which put Brazil 1-0 up after 18 minutes came for a set piece while Alexis Sánchez' equaliser for Chile in the 32nd minute was largely the result of Brazil seeming to forget that they needed to mark players and generally attempt to defend their goal.
I think Webb's two key mistakes in the first half actually came within two minutes of each other. In the 29th minute Chile's Arturo Vidal clattered into Brazil's Neymar with a body-check that wouldn't have looked out of place in an ice hockey game. Although Webb did award a free kick he failed to take any further action against Vidal. Given that there was little to no attempt to play the ball and a strong suspicion of malicious intent I would have shown Vidal a yellow card. The leniency would have come from not showing him a red card and sending him straight off.
In the 31st minute Brazil's Fernandinho fouled Chile's Marcelo Díaz. As this was just a foul Webb reasonably only awarded a free kick. However 16 seconds later Fernandinho fouled Chile's Alexis Sánchez which struck me as a clear sign that he'd started to think that he could get away with anything. As such Webb should have immediately booked him and I think his failure to do so was the moment the game really started getting away from the referee. Webb seemed to immediately realise this and his decision to book Chile's Francisco Silva for a nothing foul on Neymar seemed like a desperate attempt to regain control by randomly booking the next player who came into contact with Neymar.
During the half-time break Webb no doubt found out that not only was I criticising him on Twitter but so many people were criticising him on Twitter that his name had been trending worldwide throughout the first half. As a result Webb started the second half clearly in the mood to stamp his authority on the game and show that he wasn't afraid to make tough decisions.
This blew up in his face almost immediately when Hulk put Brazil 2-1 up in the 55th minute only for Webb to disallow the goal for hand ball - an offence that he proceeded to book Hulk for. If you watch the replays the ball actually hits Hulk on the shoulder but given the size of a football it also catches part of his upper arm. As it would be unreasonable to ask Hulk to chop his arm off while running for the ball and there was no malicious intent this wasn't hand ball. What I think confused the assistant referee (Mike Mullarkey, also British) who instructed Webb to disallow the goal was the movement of Hulk's forearm which in real time appeared to swing in to make contact with the ball although slow motion replays confirm that it didn't.
That is why in his little conversation with his assistant and the players Webb taps each of his forearms. As such rather then being wholly sure - which he needed to be - that Hulk had intentionally handled the ball Webb only appears to have an extremely limited understanding of why his assistant was suggesting that there may have been a handball offence. This uncertainty was revealed by the way that throughout the rest of the match Webb made a point of awarding free kicks and issuing cards to Brazil players in order to prove that he wasn't trying to correct his mistake of disallowing the goal. After all Webb didn't know enough about why he'd disallowed the goal even entertain the idea that he might have made a mistake.
With the referee appearing to completely lose touch with reality the game continued in a sort of stunned silence. This led to it going into 30 minutes of extra-time and - although Chile's Mauricio Pinilla nearly won the game when he hit the cross bar in the 120th minute - a penalty shoot-out. Amid the usual heart-wrenching drama Brazil eventually won that shoot-out 3-2.
As such Brazil will face Columbia in the first quarter-final which due to scheduling issues will actually be played second on July 4th.
23:30 on 28/6/14 (UK date).
Thursday 26 June 2014
Uruguay: Still Stinking up the Tournament.
Today at the World Cup began with the continuing scandal of Tuesday's (24/6/14) 'match' between Italy and Uruguay with FIFA announcing their punishment of Luis Suarez. The maximum punishment FIFA could have imposed on Suarez for biting an opponent was a 24 game, two year ban. When Suarez bit an opponent in Dutch league game in 2010 he was handed a seven match ban. When Suarez bit an opponent in English league game in 2013 was banned for 10 matches. So FIFA's decision to respond to Suarez's third biting offence - this time on football's biggest stage - by banning him just 4 game and 9 months seems ridiculously lenient.
The only possible explanation for handing Suarez a short ban is that bans of less then two months carry no opportunity to appeal. So although it would have been stupidly lenient it would at least have meant that Suarez would have been sent straight home and the tournament could have begun to try and recover. However by handing down a 4 month ban FIFA have somehow managed to insufficiently punish Suarez while still giving him the right to appeal. The Uruguayan Football Association (FA) have exercised that right of appeal in clear attempt to have Suarez's ban delayed long enough for him to play against Columbia on Saturday (28/6/14). As such I think it is long past time for the Uruguayan FA to be charged with bringing the game into disrepute meaning that the entire team is expelled from the competition. That is because along with their wild accusations that this is all a conspiracy against them it certainly appears that Uruguay don't understand what Suarez has done wrong and as such have no place in international football.
If they had any decency or sense of fair play Uruguay would have already sent both Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani home from the tournament in disgrace. This is precisely what Ghana did today when they sent home Sulley Muntari and Kevin-Prince Boateng for respectively striking and verbally abusing team officials. This was the latest twist in a long running row within the Ghanaian camp over appearance fees that last night saw the Ghanaian President order a plane load of cash to be flown out to Brazil. This is particularly undignified because for most international players their appearance fee is pretty nominal compared to their club wages so they play merely for the pride of representing their nation. As Muntari and Boateng are both hardly on the breadline playing for Inter Milan in Italy and FC Schalke in Germany respectively my only hope is that they were sticking up for some of their less well paid teammates. Sadly though I doubt that and the incident only serves to underline how unsettled Ghana have been off the pitch during this tournament.
There was also some football played today with the final games in Groups G and H. However even that came under threat when suddenly the climate changed around the Recife stadium where the USA and Germany were scheduled to play with torrential rain causing significant flooding preventing people travelling to the stadium. This also created a risk that the match would have to be abandoned due to a water-logged pitch although that was avoided.
The first bloc of games played were in Group G where literally any two of Germany, USA, Ghana or Portugal could have gone through with Germany playing USA and Portugal playing Ghana.
Despite playing in torrential rain with four points each Germany and the USA were the best placed only needing to draw with each other in order to progress. However Germany are still smarting from that incident at the 1982 World Cup when they conspired with Austria to draw in their last group game to allow both teams to progress at the expense of Algeria. As a result there was no way that Germany were simply going to play for the draw this time so they fielded a full strength side and set about trying to win from the opening whistle.
However Germany have a very distinctive almost trademark style of play. This involves making hundreds of very precise passes in order to slowly move possession of the ball up and down the pitch. The purpose of this is to force the opponent to chase the ball in order to tire them out so Germany can step up their attacks and score the winning goals in the last 10-20 minutes of the game. Although this can appear boring to people who don't understand what is going on it is a ruthlessly efficient style of play and why Germany have won three World Cups. Being heavily influenced by Germany the USA also try and play in this style but over the course of the first half were completely outclassed by Germany. As a result the USA barely had possession of the ball in the first 20 minutes.
The USA's frustration also began to show with a series of heavy tackles by both Kyle Beckerman and Micheal Bradley for which they initially went unpunished. This is largely a result of the fact that the referees have been instructed to be lenient when showing yellow and red cards. Generally I agree with this but when a player has committed a bad foul for the third or fourth time it starts making a mockery of the rules and leading players such as Suarez to think they can do as they like. As a result it was a relief when Beckerman was finally booked in the 62nd minute even if I think that Bradley should also have been booked.
The only goal of the game came on 55 minutes when Germany's Per Mertesacker shot was blocked by the USA's 'keeper Tim Howard. Unfortunately the ball rebounded to Germany's Thomas Muller who smashed in a brilliant shot from around 20 yards out that Howard could have done nothing to stop. Unlike much of the US team Howard has a well established reputation as a World class player and he knows it. As such I feel comfortable talking trash about him in a way I don't about younger and more unsettled players in teams such as Ghana. After all having played in the English Premier League for the past 11 years including at his current club Everton Howard has heard it all before.
Despite there only being one goal in the game the USA V Germany match was nail-biting until the end due to events in the Ghana V Portugal match. On 30 minutes Ghana's John Boye sliced an attempted clearance into his own net off the post putting Portugal 1-0 up. This own goal rather summed up Ghana's preparations for the game and hugely took the pressure off both Germany and the USA. That's because for Portugal to leap-frog either team into the last 16 they not only had to hope the USA V Germany game produced a clear winner but also beat Ghana by 5 clear goals.
Things got really exciting again on 57 minutes when - moments after Germany had gone 1-0 up - Asamoah Gyan levelled the score for Ghana and became the highest scoring African player in World Cup history. This meant that with the USA losing Ghana only had to score one more goal in order to secure the three points and leap-frog the USA on goals scored. So from there Ghana really set about chasing the game to score the winning goal leading to some dramatic attacking football. If anything Ghana's mistake was that their young players pushed too had and kept rushing to take chances rather than being more patient and allowing more quality chances to develop. They were cruelly punished in the 80th minute when Cristiano Ronaldo scored his first and only goal of the tournament giving Portugal a symbolic 2-1 victory.
Although both Germany and the USA qualified from the group the match was marred late on by yet another sole German pitch invader. I have say that the first time this happened it wasn't particularly funny so the second time in as many matches was really killing the joke.
Things were almost as exciting in the Group H matches because although Belgium had already qualified they weren't certain of topping the group and any one of Algeria, Russia or the Republic of Korea (South Korea/RoK) could have joined them. Either Algeria or Russia stood the best chance of qualification as they face up against each other.
Both Algeria and Russia are strong, physical teams who play the German/European style of possession football. However although both sides are talented their style of play is more focused on long diagonal balls and crosses into the box intended to pick out headers and tap ins to score goals rather than mazey runs and moments of flair. With both teams playing such a similar style and Algeria only needing a draw I was a bit worried that both sides would cancel each other out creating a dull 0-0 draw.
Russia (and neutrals) got a bit of early luck though when Algeria's Sofiane Feghouli bashed heads with another Algerian player splitting his head open in the process. This forced Feghouli to go off for treatment and with Algeria down to 10 men Russia's Dmitriy Kombarov crossed the ball into the area for Alexander Kokorin to head in scoring a classic Russian/Algerian goal that put Russia 1-0 up after 6 minutes. This of course forced Algeria to chase the equaliser although Russia spent the next 38 minutes rather expertly controlling the game. As result the teams went in at half-time with Russia 1-0 up and on schedule to progress to the last 16.
Things got even more exciting though in the dying minutes of the first half of the other game when Belgium's Steven Defour was sent off for an ugly tackle on a South Korean player. Basically both Defour and the South Korean player lunged for a loose ball but Defour lunged with his studs showing and missed the ball completely smashing the South Korean player on the ankle. Due to the angle and momentum this could have damaged any number of ligaments in the South Koreans knee or ankle and could well have just broken his ankle. Although luckily the South Korean escaped serious injury Defour can surely have no problem with the straight red card he received.
With Russia 1-0 up and RoK having a man advantage the stage was set for an absolutely thrilling second half in both games. If Russia continued to beat Algeria and RoK picked up a quick goal in their game it would have been 45 minutes of waiting to see if RoK could score the second they needed to pick up three points and leap-frog Russia on goal difference. Sadly RoK were unable to make a quick breakthrough and Algeria equalised in the 60th minute with a goal that was quite controversial.
Essentially Algeria's Abdelmoumene Djabou won a free kick on the left hand side of the penalty area after he was fouled by Russia's Aleksei Kozlov. As Algeria's Yacine Brahimi lined up to deliver a cross into the box an Algerian fan kept shining a laser pointer/pen into the face of Igor Akinfeev - the Russian 'keeper who clearly complained to the referee that he was being distracted. However the Turkish referee allowed the free-kick to go ahead and a clearly unsettled Akinfeev made a wild attempt to clear the ball allowing Algeria's Islam Slimani to head in the equaliser.
Obviously the conduct of the fans is a matter for the security staff who either need to search fans more thoroughly as they enter the stadium and eject anyone who is throwing objects onto the pitch or using laser pointers/pens. However the Akinfeev had made it quite clear to the referee that he was being impeded so the referee should have stopped play until stadium security could do their job.
RoK couldn't make any breakthrough in the other game and Jan Vertonghen netted a late winner for Belgium in the 77th minute although replays show he was off-side even if it was only his foot and it was well within the margin of human error. As a result Belgium go through as group winners with a perfect 9 points while Algeria came second with 4 points meaning that they finally go through to the last 16 of a World Cup for the first time in their long footballing history.
That means that the winners of Group G (Germany) will face the runner up from Group H (Algeria) and the Winners of Group H (Belgium) will face the runner up from Group G (The USA) in the last 16 knock-out games.
23:55 on 26/6/14 (UK date).
The only possible explanation for handing Suarez a short ban is that bans of less then two months carry no opportunity to appeal. So although it would have been stupidly lenient it would at least have meant that Suarez would have been sent straight home and the tournament could have begun to try and recover. However by handing down a 4 month ban FIFA have somehow managed to insufficiently punish Suarez while still giving him the right to appeal. The Uruguayan Football Association (FA) have exercised that right of appeal in clear attempt to have Suarez's ban delayed long enough for him to play against Columbia on Saturday (28/6/14). As such I think it is long past time for the Uruguayan FA to be charged with bringing the game into disrepute meaning that the entire team is expelled from the competition. That is because along with their wild accusations that this is all a conspiracy against them it certainly appears that Uruguay don't understand what Suarez has done wrong and as such have no place in international football.
If they had any decency or sense of fair play Uruguay would have already sent both Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani home from the tournament in disgrace. This is precisely what Ghana did today when they sent home Sulley Muntari and Kevin-Prince Boateng for respectively striking and verbally abusing team officials. This was the latest twist in a long running row within the Ghanaian camp over appearance fees that last night saw the Ghanaian President order a plane load of cash to be flown out to Brazil. This is particularly undignified because for most international players their appearance fee is pretty nominal compared to their club wages so they play merely for the pride of representing their nation. As Muntari and Boateng are both hardly on the breadline playing for Inter Milan in Italy and FC Schalke in Germany respectively my only hope is that they were sticking up for some of their less well paid teammates. Sadly though I doubt that and the incident only serves to underline how unsettled Ghana have been off the pitch during this tournament.
There was also some football played today with the final games in Groups G and H. However even that came under threat when suddenly the climate changed around the Recife stadium where the USA and Germany were scheduled to play with torrential rain causing significant flooding preventing people travelling to the stadium. This also created a risk that the match would have to be abandoned due to a water-logged pitch although that was avoided.
The first bloc of games played were in Group G where literally any two of Germany, USA, Ghana or Portugal could have gone through with Germany playing USA and Portugal playing Ghana.
Despite playing in torrential rain with four points each Germany and the USA were the best placed only needing to draw with each other in order to progress. However Germany are still smarting from that incident at the 1982 World Cup when they conspired with Austria to draw in their last group game to allow both teams to progress at the expense of Algeria. As a result there was no way that Germany were simply going to play for the draw this time so they fielded a full strength side and set about trying to win from the opening whistle.
However Germany have a very distinctive almost trademark style of play. This involves making hundreds of very precise passes in order to slowly move possession of the ball up and down the pitch. The purpose of this is to force the opponent to chase the ball in order to tire them out so Germany can step up their attacks and score the winning goals in the last 10-20 minutes of the game. Although this can appear boring to people who don't understand what is going on it is a ruthlessly efficient style of play and why Germany have won three World Cups. Being heavily influenced by Germany the USA also try and play in this style but over the course of the first half were completely outclassed by Germany. As a result the USA barely had possession of the ball in the first 20 minutes.
The USA's frustration also began to show with a series of heavy tackles by both Kyle Beckerman and Micheal Bradley for which they initially went unpunished. This is largely a result of the fact that the referees have been instructed to be lenient when showing yellow and red cards. Generally I agree with this but when a player has committed a bad foul for the third or fourth time it starts making a mockery of the rules and leading players such as Suarez to think they can do as they like. As a result it was a relief when Beckerman was finally booked in the 62nd minute even if I think that Bradley should also have been booked.
The only goal of the game came on 55 minutes when Germany's Per Mertesacker shot was blocked by the USA's 'keeper Tim Howard. Unfortunately the ball rebounded to Germany's Thomas Muller who smashed in a brilliant shot from around 20 yards out that Howard could have done nothing to stop. Unlike much of the US team Howard has a well established reputation as a World class player and he knows it. As such I feel comfortable talking trash about him in a way I don't about younger and more unsettled players in teams such as Ghana. After all having played in the English Premier League for the past 11 years including at his current club Everton Howard has heard it all before.
Despite there only being one goal in the game the USA V Germany match was nail-biting until the end due to events in the Ghana V Portugal match. On 30 minutes Ghana's John Boye sliced an attempted clearance into his own net off the post putting Portugal 1-0 up. This own goal rather summed up Ghana's preparations for the game and hugely took the pressure off both Germany and the USA. That's because for Portugal to leap-frog either team into the last 16 they not only had to hope the USA V Germany game produced a clear winner but also beat Ghana by 5 clear goals.
Things got really exciting again on 57 minutes when - moments after Germany had gone 1-0 up - Asamoah Gyan levelled the score for Ghana and became the highest scoring African player in World Cup history. This meant that with the USA losing Ghana only had to score one more goal in order to secure the three points and leap-frog the USA on goals scored. So from there Ghana really set about chasing the game to score the winning goal leading to some dramatic attacking football. If anything Ghana's mistake was that their young players pushed too had and kept rushing to take chances rather than being more patient and allowing more quality chances to develop. They were cruelly punished in the 80th minute when Cristiano Ronaldo scored his first and only goal of the tournament giving Portugal a symbolic 2-1 victory.
Although both Germany and the USA qualified from the group the match was marred late on by yet another sole German pitch invader. I have say that the first time this happened it wasn't particularly funny so the second time in as many matches was really killing the joke.
Things were almost as exciting in the Group H matches because although Belgium had already qualified they weren't certain of topping the group and any one of Algeria, Russia or the Republic of Korea (South Korea/RoK) could have joined them. Either Algeria or Russia stood the best chance of qualification as they face up against each other.
Both Algeria and Russia are strong, physical teams who play the German/European style of possession football. However although both sides are talented their style of play is more focused on long diagonal balls and crosses into the box intended to pick out headers and tap ins to score goals rather than mazey runs and moments of flair. With both teams playing such a similar style and Algeria only needing a draw I was a bit worried that both sides would cancel each other out creating a dull 0-0 draw.
Russia (and neutrals) got a bit of early luck though when Algeria's Sofiane Feghouli bashed heads with another Algerian player splitting his head open in the process. This forced Feghouli to go off for treatment and with Algeria down to 10 men Russia's Dmitriy Kombarov crossed the ball into the area for Alexander Kokorin to head in scoring a classic Russian/Algerian goal that put Russia 1-0 up after 6 minutes. This of course forced Algeria to chase the equaliser although Russia spent the next 38 minutes rather expertly controlling the game. As result the teams went in at half-time with Russia 1-0 up and on schedule to progress to the last 16.
Things got even more exciting though in the dying minutes of the first half of the other game when Belgium's Steven Defour was sent off for an ugly tackle on a South Korean player. Basically both Defour and the South Korean player lunged for a loose ball but Defour lunged with his studs showing and missed the ball completely smashing the South Korean player on the ankle. Due to the angle and momentum this could have damaged any number of ligaments in the South Koreans knee or ankle and could well have just broken his ankle. Although luckily the South Korean escaped serious injury Defour can surely have no problem with the straight red card he received.
With Russia 1-0 up and RoK having a man advantage the stage was set for an absolutely thrilling second half in both games. If Russia continued to beat Algeria and RoK picked up a quick goal in their game it would have been 45 minutes of waiting to see if RoK could score the second they needed to pick up three points and leap-frog Russia on goal difference. Sadly RoK were unable to make a quick breakthrough and Algeria equalised in the 60th minute with a goal that was quite controversial.
Essentially Algeria's Abdelmoumene Djabou won a free kick on the left hand side of the penalty area after he was fouled by Russia's Aleksei Kozlov. As Algeria's Yacine Brahimi lined up to deliver a cross into the box an Algerian fan kept shining a laser pointer/pen into the face of Igor Akinfeev - the Russian 'keeper who clearly complained to the referee that he was being distracted. However the Turkish referee allowed the free-kick to go ahead and a clearly unsettled Akinfeev made a wild attempt to clear the ball allowing Algeria's Islam Slimani to head in the equaliser.
Obviously the conduct of the fans is a matter for the security staff who either need to search fans more thoroughly as they enter the stadium and eject anyone who is throwing objects onto the pitch or using laser pointers/pens. However the Akinfeev had made it quite clear to the referee that he was being impeded so the referee should have stopped play until stadium security could do their job.
RoK couldn't make any breakthrough in the other game and Jan Vertonghen netted a late winner for Belgium in the 77th minute although replays show he was off-side even if it was only his foot and it was well within the margin of human error. As a result Belgium go through as group winners with a perfect 9 points while Algeria came second with 4 points meaning that they finally go through to the last 16 of a World Cup for the first time in their long footballing history.
That means that the winners of Group G (Germany) will face the runner up from Group H (Algeria) and the Winners of Group H (Belgium) will face the runner up from Group G (The USA) in the last 16 knock-out games.
23:55 on 26/6/14 (UK date).
Wednesday 25 June 2014
An Awkward Day at the World Cup.
Today at the World Cup began with the Group F games of Nigeria Versus Argentina and Bosnia & Herzegovina Versus Iran. Argentina were already through and Bosnia were already out so in order to qualify Iran needed to beat Bosnia and for Argentina to qualify. Nigeria simply needed Iran not to beat Bosnia meaning that Iran's performance alone would decide the group.
This made the Nigeria V Argentina game a bit of a strange affair because it wasn't a meaningless match like the final Group B games but the result of the Bosnia V Iran could easily make it so. As a result neither team could fully relax and make it an exhibition game but by the same token weren't under any real pressure to push hard. The game got off to a barn storming start with Lionel Messi putting Argentina 1-0 up after just three minutes. Still worried they might need a draw Nigeria retaliated from the re-start with Ahmed Musa levelling things for Nigeria after the 4th minute with a goal Messi would have been proud of.
Whatever pressure there was on Nigeria lifted in the 23rd minute when Edin Dzeko put Bosnia 1-0 up in the other match with an impressive left-footed shot from around 20 yards out. From here Nigeria started to relax a bit and ended up giving away a series of free-kicks on the edge of the penalty area from where Messi is so deadly. It was with the second of these that Messi punished Nigeria with a near perfect curling free-kick in the 46th (45+2min stoppage) meaning that Argentina went into the half-time break 2-1 up.
With Iran still 1-0 down Nigeria didn't really need to press but did anyway with Musa levelling the score with another great goal in the 47th minute. This made him the first Nigerian to score two goals in the same World Cup finals match and meant that the Iran result no longer mattered. That confidence lasted for all of four minutes when Marcos Rojo put Argentina 3-2 up with an almost comedy goal when the ball bounced in off his knee following a 50th minute corner that Nigeria failed to defend properly.
Things quickly got better for Nigeria in the other match with Miralem Pjanic putting Bosnia 2-0 up in the 59th minute with a goal that was only just onside. This might have proved hugely controversial when Reza Ghoochannejhad (Gucci) got one back for Iran in the 82nd minute scoring Iran's first goal of the tournament. However it was quickly cancelled out with another goal by Dzeko just 50 seconds later. As a result the match ended 3-1 to Bosnia meaning that Iran would be going out regardless of the result in the Nigeria V Argentina game.
By that point the Nigeria V Argentina game had slowed right down with Argentina taking Messi off in the 65th minute and seeming happy to sit back and coast. Although they did make some effort to equalise for a third time Nigeria knew that it seemed unlikely that Iran would come back so were also happy to sit back and rest. As a result it finished 3-2 to Argentina but both sides went through anyway.
The situation in Group E which made up today's second bloc of games was more complicated. Here France topped the group with 6 points, Ecuador and Switzerland sat in the middle both with 3 points and Honduras were in last place with 0 points. As a result if Ecuador beat France and Switzerland beat Honduras it was possible that Ecuador and France would go through provided that Switzerland didn't win by a lot of goals and France lost by a lot of goals in which case Ecuador and Switzerland would go through. Alternatively if Switzerland beat Honduras and Ecuador drew with France then France and Switzerland would go through.
As a consequence it wasn't really possible to say which game was the most important because it was a combination of the results that would decide the group. However I decided to watch the Ecuador V France game because based on their previous performances they seemed to be the most attacking teams in the group creating the highest chance of goals. Boy did I get that wrong because the action came from the Honduras V Switzerland game with Switzerland really going for it.
Xherdan Shaqiri opened the scoring for Switzerland after just five minutes with a screamer of a shot from 25-30 yards out which has to be a contender for the goal of the tournament. Shaqiri doubled Switzerland's lead in the 31st minute and scored his and Switzerland's third in the 71st minute giving him the second hat-trick of the tournament and the 50th hat-trick ever scored in a World Cup finals. With Honduras averaging a World Cup goal roughly once every 30 years it goes without saying that they never seemed to threaten Switzerland who went on to win 3-0.
By contrast the Ecuador V France game was something of a dull affair with France making five changes in order to rest their key players and possibly to give Ecuador a better chance of qualifying over France's neighbour Switzerland. Although both sides created half-decent chances it ended 0-0. The only key incident of note came in the 50th minute when Ecuador's Antonio Valencia was shown a straight red card for a foul on Lucas Digne. Essentially what happened is that both Valencia and Digne lunged for a loose ball. Valenica got there first coming in on top of the ball with his studs showing. Unfortunately as he made contact with the ball his foot bounced onto Digne's leg raking up his shin and eventually smashing into his knee no doubt causing him a lot of pain. There was no malicious intent on Valencia's part so I personally would have only shown him a yellow card. However it was a reckless challenge and referees are under instructions from FIFA to clamp down on challenges where studs are showing. So although harsh neither Valencia nor Ecuador have anything to complain about really.
As a result of these games the winners of Group E (France) will take on the runner-up from Group F (Nigeria) while the winners of Group F (Argentina) will take on the runner-up from Group E (Switzerland) in the last 16 knock-out phase.
Another day of excellent football has though been marred by the continuing fall-out from yesterday's game (if you wish to call it that) between Uruguay and Italy and the conduct of Luis Suarez in particular. Following his biting of Italy's Giorgio Chiellini FIFA have charged Suarez with violent conduct although they have yet to make a statement regarding the conduct of Uruguay's Edinson Cavani or the referee Marco Rodríguez. If Uruguay wish to contest the allegation they should have done so by 20:00 (GMT) today meaning that sentence is likely to be passed on Suarez at some point tomorrow.
Given the severity of the offence and the fact this is now the third time Suarez has committed the same offence it is highly likely that he will face the maximum penalty of being banned from international football for the next two years (24 games). The problem is that Uruguay are scheduled to play Columbia on Saturday (28/6/14) meaning that if either Suarez or Uruguay wish to appeal the punishment it will all have to be done on Friday (27/6/14).
This is where I think FIFA have made a huge mess of the situation because they should have immediately suspended the result of the Uruguay V Italy game while they investigate the conduct of the referee and a number of Uruguay players. They then could have annulled the result today allowing for Uruguay's appeal to be heard on Friday morning. Instead this nasty business is going to drag on until Saturday and a match that should leave any football fan furious for simple reason that Uruguay have no right to be playing in it. Even if Columbia knock Uruguay out there will still be a long shadow cast over their quarter-final because the question will remain of whether Columbia would have been able to beat Italy?
23:15 on 25/6/14 (UK date).
This made the Nigeria V Argentina game a bit of a strange affair because it wasn't a meaningless match like the final Group B games but the result of the Bosnia V Iran could easily make it so. As a result neither team could fully relax and make it an exhibition game but by the same token weren't under any real pressure to push hard. The game got off to a barn storming start with Lionel Messi putting Argentina 1-0 up after just three minutes. Still worried they might need a draw Nigeria retaliated from the re-start with Ahmed Musa levelling things for Nigeria after the 4th minute with a goal Messi would have been proud of.
Whatever pressure there was on Nigeria lifted in the 23rd minute when Edin Dzeko put Bosnia 1-0 up in the other match with an impressive left-footed shot from around 20 yards out. From here Nigeria started to relax a bit and ended up giving away a series of free-kicks on the edge of the penalty area from where Messi is so deadly. It was with the second of these that Messi punished Nigeria with a near perfect curling free-kick in the 46th (45+2min stoppage) meaning that Argentina went into the half-time break 2-1 up.
With Iran still 1-0 down Nigeria didn't really need to press but did anyway with Musa levelling the score with another great goal in the 47th minute. This made him the first Nigerian to score two goals in the same World Cup finals match and meant that the Iran result no longer mattered. That confidence lasted for all of four minutes when Marcos Rojo put Argentina 3-2 up with an almost comedy goal when the ball bounced in off his knee following a 50th minute corner that Nigeria failed to defend properly.
Things quickly got better for Nigeria in the other match with Miralem Pjanic putting Bosnia 2-0 up in the 59th minute with a goal that was only just onside. This might have proved hugely controversial when Reza Ghoochannejhad (Gucci) got one back for Iran in the 82nd minute scoring Iran's first goal of the tournament. However it was quickly cancelled out with another goal by Dzeko just 50 seconds later. As a result the match ended 3-1 to Bosnia meaning that Iran would be going out regardless of the result in the Nigeria V Argentina game.
By that point the Nigeria V Argentina game had slowed right down with Argentina taking Messi off in the 65th minute and seeming happy to sit back and coast. Although they did make some effort to equalise for a third time Nigeria knew that it seemed unlikely that Iran would come back so were also happy to sit back and rest. As a result it finished 3-2 to Argentina but both sides went through anyway.
The situation in Group E which made up today's second bloc of games was more complicated. Here France topped the group with 6 points, Ecuador and Switzerland sat in the middle both with 3 points and Honduras were in last place with 0 points. As a result if Ecuador beat France and Switzerland beat Honduras it was possible that Ecuador and France would go through provided that Switzerland didn't win by a lot of goals and France lost by a lot of goals in which case Ecuador and Switzerland would go through. Alternatively if Switzerland beat Honduras and Ecuador drew with France then France and Switzerland would go through.
As a consequence it wasn't really possible to say which game was the most important because it was a combination of the results that would decide the group. However I decided to watch the Ecuador V France game because based on their previous performances they seemed to be the most attacking teams in the group creating the highest chance of goals. Boy did I get that wrong because the action came from the Honduras V Switzerland game with Switzerland really going for it.
Xherdan Shaqiri opened the scoring for Switzerland after just five minutes with a screamer of a shot from 25-30 yards out which has to be a contender for the goal of the tournament. Shaqiri doubled Switzerland's lead in the 31st minute and scored his and Switzerland's third in the 71st minute giving him the second hat-trick of the tournament and the 50th hat-trick ever scored in a World Cup finals. With Honduras averaging a World Cup goal roughly once every 30 years it goes without saying that they never seemed to threaten Switzerland who went on to win 3-0.
By contrast the Ecuador V France game was something of a dull affair with France making five changes in order to rest their key players and possibly to give Ecuador a better chance of qualifying over France's neighbour Switzerland. Although both sides created half-decent chances it ended 0-0. The only key incident of note came in the 50th minute when Ecuador's Antonio Valencia was shown a straight red card for a foul on Lucas Digne. Essentially what happened is that both Valencia and Digne lunged for a loose ball. Valenica got there first coming in on top of the ball with his studs showing. Unfortunately as he made contact with the ball his foot bounced onto Digne's leg raking up his shin and eventually smashing into his knee no doubt causing him a lot of pain. There was no malicious intent on Valencia's part so I personally would have only shown him a yellow card. However it was a reckless challenge and referees are under instructions from FIFA to clamp down on challenges where studs are showing. So although harsh neither Valencia nor Ecuador have anything to complain about really.
As a result of these games the winners of Group E (France) will take on the runner-up from Group F (Nigeria) while the winners of Group F (Argentina) will take on the runner-up from Group E (Switzerland) in the last 16 knock-out phase.
Another day of excellent football has though been marred by the continuing fall-out from yesterday's game (if you wish to call it that) between Uruguay and Italy and the conduct of Luis Suarez in particular. Following his biting of Italy's Giorgio Chiellini FIFA have charged Suarez with violent conduct although they have yet to make a statement regarding the conduct of Uruguay's Edinson Cavani or the referee Marco Rodríguez. If Uruguay wish to contest the allegation they should have done so by 20:00 (GMT) today meaning that sentence is likely to be passed on Suarez at some point tomorrow.
Given the severity of the offence and the fact this is now the third time Suarez has committed the same offence it is highly likely that he will face the maximum penalty of being banned from international football for the next two years (24 games). The problem is that Uruguay are scheduled to play Columbia on Saturday (28/6/14) meaning that if either Suarez or Uruguay wish to appeal the punishment it will all have to be done on Friday (27/6/14).
This is where I think FIFA have made a huge mess of the situation because they should have immediately suspended the result of the Uruguay V Italy game while they investigate the conduct of the referee and a number of Uruguay players. They then could have annulled the result today allowing for Uruguay's appeal to be heard on Friday morning. Instead this nasty business is going to drag on until Saturday and a match that should leave any football fan furious for simple reason that Uruguay have no right to be playing in it. Even if Columbia knock Uruguay out there will still be a long shadow cast over their quarter-final because the question will remain of whether Columbia would have been able to beat Italy?
23:15 on 25/6/14 (UK date).
Tuesday 24 June 2014
Well FIFA Have Let Themselves Down There.
In the roughly 1 hour and 25 minutes since the proposed end of the Uruguay Versus Italy match in Group D I have been to the pub for a steak dinner, brought some cider and come back home with no problems to report. However - as far as I can tell - FIFA have yet to put out a statement suspending the result of the match pending an investigation into the conduct of Marco Rodríguez - the alleged referee.
In the absence of such a statement I feel I'm forced to give a quick review of the 'match' before the Group C games kick off.
Basically needing nothing more than a draw Italy's game plan was to play a downright sexy game made up of pinpoint passing and careful positioning. Obviously Uruguay had no response to this so instead decided to spend the next 90 minutes trying to get Italian players sent off in the hope they could thieve a late goal. Honestly I could give a long list of all the Uruguayans who stepped onto the pitch along with a minute by minute break down of every foul they committed. However the edited highlights are;
Around 10 minutes Uruguay's number 21 Cavani challenged an Italian player in the air for the ball. This prompted Cavani to fall to the ground and roll around clutching his lower back as if he'd been mortally wounded by the Italian player. However slow motion replays confirmed that Cavani had in fact struck the Italian player in the head before bruising his bum as he fell to the ground. Obviously with Uruguay being a South American nation there was no suggestion that Cavani would even be warned by the referee let shown a yellow card. To their credit the Italian defence dealt with this so well that eventually Cavani was left wandering around the pitch grabbing his bumhole like he was trying to pretend that he'd been raped.
At around 40 minutes Cavani again found himself challenging an Italian defender in the air following a Uruguayan corner. On this occasion Cavani threw the Italian defender to the ground and proceeded to stamp on his head. Now I'm not saying that this was definitely a red card offence but if I'd done it to someone in the pub I would expect to spend the next six months in prison for assault.
Obviously though having seen the way that referees in this tournament have been doing everything in their power to keep the Hispanic South American sides in the contest we weren't expecting anyone to receive any cards.
However things took a surprising turn in the 69th minute when Italy's Claudio Marchisio was fouled by a Uruguayan player. In riding out this foul Marchisio might have slightly kicked the Uruguayan player in the shin which seemed acceptable given the previous 68 minutes. However Marchisio was suddenly shown a red card and sent straight off.
Despite being reduced to 10 men the Italians were still having the best of the game when the most talked about incident of the match occurred. Here Uruguay's Luis Suarez headbutted Italy's Giorgio Chiellini - a clear red card offence. Chiellini then instinctively threw up his arm in defence. This prompted Suarez to roll around on the floor clutching his face in an effort to get Chiellini sent off. However as replays and online discussions progress it appears that not only did Suarez head-butt Chiellini but he also bit him on the shoulder constituting another red card offence and a possible prison sentence. The referee of course saw nothing.
As a result the only outcome from this match that I can consider in any way fair is for it to be replayed with an actual referee or for it to be annulled due to the conduct of Marco Rodríguez so the group ends as if the match had never been played.
19:45 on 24/6/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 22:20 on 24/6/14 (UK date) to add:
Well if FIFA agreed - in advance - that Mexico's Marco Rodríguez should 'referee' the Uruguay V Italy game in the hope that he would produce a scandal big enough to keep us all captivated by the World Cup now that England have opted to leave the tournament they have been failed. After all I was that p*ssed off that the competition was allowed to continue with the Group C games I have absolutely no idea what happened.
However I gather that Columbia beat Japan (I have a lot of love for them on my left ankle) 4-1 while Cote d'Ivorie (there was a small war) first suffered the insult of Greece going 1-0 up only to equalise (Bony) before suffering the further insult of watching Greece scoring a last-minute, soft penalty to go through as runner's up. As such Greece will go on to face Costa Rica in the last 16 while the debate rages over who Columbia will face.
If FIFA acknowledge the suggested result of the Uruguay V Italy game then Columbia will face - I can't bring myself to say it. This strikes me as mistake because it will pose the question of whether any Hispanic South American team actually deserves to still be in the competition. However I think the question whomever bribed Marco Rodríguez was hoping to pose was whether he'd been bribed by "South American drug cartels." After all I've heard a lot of those cartels move their cocaine across the Atlantic to west-African nations such Cote d'Ivorie before it goes up across the Mediterranean to EU nations such as Greece (and now apparently Ukraine). I understand that Columbia brought on their #22 to highlight just this sort of Escobar related incident.
As a football fan though I will robbed if Italy are not allowed to progress in the competition so my above advice remains valid. However I think FIFA should also impose a substantial penalty against the Mexican Football Association (FA) for certifying Marco Rodríguez as a referee. Ideally they to should be expelled from the competition meaning that The Netherlands go on to face Croatia but that would probably be a little unfair on the team so I think a (large) fine's fine.
In the absence of such a statement I feel I'm forced to give a quick review of the 'match' before the Group C games kick off.
Basically needing nothing more than a draw Italy's game plan was to play a downright sexy game made up of pinpoint passing and careful positioning. Obviously Uruguay had no response to this so instead decided to spend the next 90 minutes trying to get Italian players sent off in the hope they could thieve a late goal. Honestly I could give a long list of all the Uruguayans who stepped onto the pitch along with a minute by minute break down of every foul they committed. However the edited highlights are;
Around 10 minutes Uruguay's number 21 Cavani challenged an Italian player in the air for the ball. This prompted Cavani to fall to the ground and roll around clutching his lower back as if he'd been mortally wounded by the Italian player. However slow motion replays confirmed that Cavani had in fact struck the Italian player in the head before bruising his bum as he fell to the ground. Obviously with Uruguay being a South American nation there was no suggestion that Cavani would even be warned by the referee let shown a yellow card. To their credit the Italian defence dealt with this so well that eventually Cavani was left wandering around the pitch grabbing his bumhole like he was trying to pretend that he'd been raped.
At around 40 minutes Cavani again found himself challenging an Italian defender in the air following a Uruguayan corner. On this occasion Cavani threw the Italian defender to the ground and proceeded to stamp on his head. Now I'm not saying that this was definitely a red card offence but if I'd done it to someone in the pub I would expect to spend the next six months in prison for assault.
Obviously though having seen the way that referees in this tournament have been doing everything in their power to keep the Hispanic South American sides in the contest we weren't expecting anyone to receive any cards.
However things took a surprising turn in the 69th minute when Italy's Claudio Marchisio was fouled by a Uruguayan player. In riding out this foul Marchisio might have slightly kicked the Uruguayan player in the shin which seemed acceptable given the previous 68 minutes. However Marchisio was suddenly shown a red card and sent straight off.
Despite being reduced to 10 men the Italians were still having the best of the game when the most talked about incident of the match occurred. Here Uruguay's Luis Suarez headbutted Italy's Giorgio Chiellini - a clear red card offence. Chiellini then instinctively threw up his arm in defence. This prompted Suarez to roll around on the floor clutching his face in an effort to get Chiellini sent off. However as replays and online discussions progress it appears that not only did Suarez head-butt Chiellini but he also bit him on the shoulder constituting another red card offence and a possible prison sentence. The referee of course saw nothing.
As a result the only outcome from this match that I can consider in any way fair is for it to be replayed with an actual referee or for it to be annulled due to the conduct of Marco Rodríguez so the group ends as if the match had never been played.
19:45 on 24/6/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 22:20 on 24/6/14 (UK date) to add:
Well if FIFA agreed - in advance - that Mexico's Marco Rodríguez should 'referee' the Uruguay V Italy game in the hope that he would produce a scandal big enough to keep us all captivated by the World Cup now that England have opted to leave the tournament they have been failed. After all I was that p*ssed off that the competition was allowed to continue with the Group C games I have absolutely no idea what happened.
However I gather that Columbia beat Japan (I have a lot of love for them on my left ankle) 4-1 while Cote d'Ivorie (there was a small war) first suffered the insult of Greece going 1-0 up only to equalise (Bony) before suffering the further insult of watching Greece scoring a last-minute, soft penalty to go through as runner's up. As such Greece will go on to face Costa Rica in the last 16 while the debate rages over who Columbia will face.
If FIFA acknowledge the suggested result of the Uruguay V Italy game then Columbia will face - I can't bring myself to say it. This strikes me as mistake because it will pose the question of whether any Hispanic South American team actually deserves to still be in the competition. However I think the question whomever bribed Marco Rodríguez was hoping to pose was whether he'd been bribed by "South American drug cartels." After all I've heard a lot of those cartels move their cocaine across the Atlantic to west-African nations such Cote d'Ivorie before it goes up across the Mediterranean to EU nations such as Greece (and now apparently Ukraine). I understand that Columbia brought on their #22 to highlight just this sort of Escobar related incident.
As a football fan though I will robbed if Italy are not allowed to progress in the competition so my above advice remains valid. However I think FIFA should also impose a substantial penalty against the Mexican Football Association (FA) for certifying Marco Rodríguez as a referee. Ideally they to should be expelled from the competition meaning that The Netherlands go on to face Croatia but that would probably be a little unfair on the team so I think a (large) fine's fine.
Booooooo!
Later today England will face up against Costa Rica in their final Group D game. However following the defeats to Italy and Uruguay we already ready know that straight after the match England will be going home from the World Cup. As such I think it's a good time to start the post-mortem.
The main problem is a systemic hatred of football. I know it almost sounds silly in this day and age to blame the British class system but the upper class don't really do sport. On the rare occasions they do indulge it's only in genteel games such lawn tennis croquet. As far as they're concerned football is merely something the working classes have made up as an excuse to shut down the factories on Saturday afternoons.
However the upper classes have manged to observe - as Socrates pointed out - that football is a team game in which a group of talented individuals working as one for a common cause can achieve great things together. Unfortunately a nation made up of individuals only out for themselves and clambering over each other for every little scrap is much easier to control. So when the ruling classes do allow the masses to engage in sport they prefer them to follow ones that place great emphasis on the individual such as tennis or athletics.
Then there is the small matter of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Back when Britain first bid to host the 2018 tournament they did so almost entirely safe in the knowledge that Russia would win because they had the best bid. However a little bit of friendly competition helps raise standards and should have won Britain allies for future bids. Unfortunately during the bidding process the UK had a coup and the new regime took bidding for the 2018 World Cup to mean that they had a divine right to host the 2018 World Cup. So ever since Russia was awarded the 2018 tournament the UK has pretty much been at open war with football's governing body FIFA and the entire concept of football.
Finally this World Cup clashes with the Wimbledon Tennis fortnight which for Britain's wannabe upper classes is the pinnacle of the sporting calender. It is also an event that Britain's ruling classes get to entirely control. As such they are deeply jealous that the World Cup would steal their moment in the spotlight.
The problem is that not even the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) formally boycott the World Cup. So since early 2012 Britain has been going to great efforts first to make sure that England failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup and then when they did (under duress) make sure that they got knocked out at the earliest possible opportunity.
The main part of this effort was the appointment of Roy Hodgson as England manager. Hodgson is a man who has had an unremarkable career both as a professional player and as a manager. In fact his sole achievement in the game appears to be helping Switzerland get out of the group stage of the 1994 World Cup on goal difference before being knocked out in the first knock-out game by Spain who were still firmly out in the long footballing wilderness before they first won a major trophy in 2008. I suppose you could even go so far to say that Hodgson's sole qualification for the England job was that he was born in my native Croydon and started his career Crystal Palace- the local club. Hodgson has even spent most of his time in Brazil wandering around the training camp looking lost in the hope that someone will mistake him for my father.
Either as part of this great master plan of failure or as a result of his own lack of ability Hodgson completely screwed up picking the squad of players to go to the tournament. Although the England squad has some undoubtedly talented players its average age is 26 and most of that is made up of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. The rest of them are aged around 21-22 and some like Luke Shaw and Raheem Sterling are under 20. Although football is certainly a young man's game players often don't fully mature until their mid-20's and Tim Cahill who plays centre-forward for Australia and regularly turns out for Everton is 34.
This lack of maturity and experience is a particular problem for defensive players for whom the game is less about their ability to sprint up and down the pitch and much more their ability to read the game and the opposing players in order to be able to predict what is going to happen next. As such the critical mistake Hodgson made was to drop Ashley Cole (33) in favour of Phil Jones (22). This created a massive defensive hole down England's left side and robbed the team of a potential spine made up of older, more experienced players such as Cole, Rooney (28) and Frank Lampard (36) or Steven Gerrard (34).
This defensive hole then totally limited the potential formations that England could play because they had to play at least four mid-fielders in order to protect the gap. However Hodgson then went on to completely screw up the classic and basic 4-4-2 formation. What he should have done is play Adam Lallana (26) on the left side of mid-field in his natural position. Either Lampard or Gerrard would then have played in the centre alongside one of the young attacking players - of which there are many - with Sterling (18) playing on the right.
However it seemed more important to Hodgson to ruin Wayne Rooney's reputation by playing him totally out of position on the left-wing with Daniel Sturridge (24) and Danny Welbeck (23) cancelling each other out in the centre forward positions. After being challenged on this following the Italy game Hodgson simply decided to ruin Welbeck's reputation instead by playing him on the left and moving Rooney to the centre. This massively improved England's attack but Welbeck kept refusing to play in position meaning that the team structure collapsed and the England were left charging around all chasing the ball in the attacking half of the pitch like some junior school playground match.
Of course if Hodgson was desperate for Rooney, Sturridge and Welbeck all to play he could have picked a 4-5-1 formation that would have added extra cover to the defensive hole on the left. Lallana would have lined up on the left with say Barkley on the inside left, Gerrard in the centre, Sturridge on the inside right and Sterling on the outside right. This would have put Rooney and Welbeck as centre-forwards with Sturridge and Barkley charging in as the flow of the game allowed. Sterling is of course one of those players who is so annoyingl young and so annoyingly talented that he hasn't yet established a prime position and really can play pretty much anywhere.
If Hodgson had taken some of these basic steps while I doubt England could have won the World Cup with that group of players they were certainaly able to qualify from the group and possibly make it to the quarter or even semi-finals. From there you can just get away with being a bit lucky.
Unfortunately the World Cup is a time when football is discussed by a lot of people who know absolutely nothing about football so sadly people in England are starting to believe Hodgson's bulls*t and talking about him continuing as manager until 2016. That will probably happen because Britain is planning to play the will they/won't they qualify game before Euro 2016 and we'll certainly need an excuse not to go to Russia in 2018.
Personally I just want to go back to the days when we used to burn effigies of England managers simply for trying and failing. After all this one has certainly tried to fail.
15:15 on 24/6/14 (UK date).
The main problem is a systemic hatred of football. I know it almost sounds silly in this day and age to blame the British class system but the upper class don't really do sport. On the rare occasions they do indulge it's only in genteel games such lawn tennis croquet. As far as they're concerned football is merely something the working classes have made up as an excuse to shut down the factories on Saturday afternoons.
However the upper classes have manged to observe - as Socrates pointed out - that football is a team game in which a group of talented individuals working as one for a common cause can achieve great things together. Unfortunately a nation made up of individuals only out for themselves and clambering over each other for every little scrap is much easier to control. So when the ruling classes do allow the masses to engage in sport they prefer them to follow ones that place great emphasis on the individual such as tennis or athletics.
Then there is the small matter of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Back when Britain first bid to host the 2018 tournament they did so almost entirely safe in the knowledge that Russia would win because they had the best bid. However a little bit of friendly competition helps raise standards and should have won Britain allies for future bids. Unfortunately during the bidding process the UK had a coup and the new regime took bidding for the 2018 World Cup to mean that they had a divine right to host the 2018 World Cup. So ever since Russia was awarded the 2018 tournament the UK has pretty much been at open war with football's governing body FIFA and the entire concept of football.
Finally this World Cup clashes with the Wimbledon Tennis fortnight which for Britain's wannabe upper classes is the pinnacle of the sporting calender. It is also an event that Britain's ruling classes get to entirely control. As such they are deeply jealous that the World Cup would steal their moment in the spotlight.
The problem is that not even the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) formally boycott the World Cup. So since early 2012 Britain has been going to great efforts first to make sure that England failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup and then when they did (under duress) make sure that they got knocked out at the earliest possible opportunity.
The main part of this effort was the appointment of Roy Hodgson as England manager. Hodgson is a man who has had an unremarkable career both as a professional player and as a manager. In fact his sole achievement in the game appears to be helping Switzerland get out of the group stage of the 1994 World Cup on goal difference before being knocked out in the first knock-out game by Spain who were still firmly out in the long footballing wilderness before they first won a major trophy in 2008. I suppose you could even go so far to say that Hodgson's sole qualification for the England job was that he was born in my native Croydon and started his career Crystal Palace- the local club. Hodgson has even spent most of his time in Brazil wandering around the training camp looking lost in the hope that someone will mistake him for my father.
Either as part of this great master plan of failure or as a result of his own lack of ability Hodgson completely screwed up picking the squad of players to go to the tournament. Although the England squad has some undoubtedly talented players its average age is 26 and most of that is made up of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. The rest of them are aged around 21-22 and some like Luke Shaw and Raheem Sterling are under 20. Although football is certainly a young man's game players often don't fully mature until their mid-20's and Tim Cahill who plays centre-forward for Australia and regularly turns out for Everton is 34.
This lack of maturity and experience is a particular problem for defensive players for whom the game is less about their ability to sprint up and down the pitch and much more their ability to read the game and the opposing players in order to be able to predict what is going to happen next. As such the critical mistake Hodgson made was to drop Ashley Cole (33) in favour of Phil Jones (22). This created a massive defensive hole down England's left side and robbed the team of a potential spine made up of older, more experienced players such as Cole, Rooney (28) and Frank Lampard (36) or Steven Gerrard (34).
This defensive hole then totally limited the potential formations that England could play because they had to play at least four mid-fielders in order to protect the gap. However Hodgson then went on to completely screw up the classic and basic 4-4-2 formation. What he should have done is play Adam Lallana (26) on the left side of mid-field in his natural position. Either Lampard or Gerrard would then have played in the centre alongside one of the young attacking players - of which there are many - with Sterling (18) playing on the right.
However it seemed more important to Hodgson to ruin Wayne Rooney's reputation by playing him totally out of position on the left-wing with Daniel Sturridge (24) and Danny Welbeck (23) cancelling each other out in the centre forward positions. After being challenged on this following the Italy game Hodgson simply decided to ruin Welbeck's reputation instead by playing him on the left and moving Rooney to the centre. This massively improved England's attack but Welbeck kept refusing to play in position meaning that the team structure collapsed and the England were left charging around all chasing the ball in the attacking half of the pitch like some junior school playground match.
Of course if Hodgson was desperate for Rooney, Sturridge and Welbeck all to play he could have picked a 4-5-1 formation that would have added extra cover to the defensive hole on the left. Lallana would have lined up on the left with say Barkley on the inside left, Gerrard in the centre, Sturridge on the inside right and Sterling on the outside right. This would have put Rooney and Welbeck as centre-forwards with Sturridge and Barkley charging in as the flow of the game allowed. Sterling is of course one of those players who is so annoyingl young and so annoyingly talented that he hasn't yet established a prime position and really can play pretty much anywhere.
If Hodgson had taken some of these basic steps while I doubt England could have won the World Cup with that group of players they were certainaly able to qualify from the group and possibly make it to the quarter or even semi-finals. From there you can just get away with being a bit lucky.
Unfortunately the World Cup is a time when football is discussed by a lot of people who know absolutely nothing about football so sadly people in England are starting to believe Hodgson's bulls*t and talking about him continuing as manager until 2016. That will probably happen because Britain is planning to play the will they/won't they qualify game before Euro 2016 and we'll certainly need an excuse not to go to Russia in 2018.
Personally I just want to go back to the days when we used to burn effigies of England managers simply for trying and failing. After all this one has certainly tried to fail.
15:15 on 24/6/14 (UK date).
Monday 23 June 2014
Now Isn't This Much More Civilised.
Today at the World Cup has seen the start of the final group games. Although this means that the number of games being played a day has risen from three to four both games in each group are played concurrently. This is to avoid any team gaining any advantage by knowing the outcome of the other game in the group before they start playing. For example in Group G it is entirely possible that any two of Germany, The USA, Portugal or Ghana could go through to the last 16 based on the outcome of the final games.
This is a massive relief for me because it means I only have to watch two blocs of games a day rather than three and there's about three hours between the first bloc of games ending and the second bloc of game starting. This gives me plenty of time not only to write up each bloc of matches but do other things such as eating and breathing.
It does though create a massive problem in choosing which match to watch. In some groups it is an easy decision with often the two teams engaged in a straight fight to see who goes through and who goes out. In other groups - such as Group G - there is a huge variety of possibilities of what can happen with results in one match affecting the importance of the other meaning that you have to try and watch both. Things get even more complicated when teams are tied on points so the final group placings goes down to Goal Difference (GD) - the number of goals scored by a team in the group stage minus the goals conceded. If GD is tied it is the team with the most goals scored that goes through. So for example in Group G if Germany were to draw 0-0 with the USA while Ghana beat Portugal 2-0 Ghana and the USA would go through while Germany and Portugal go home.
However in Group B which saw the first bloc of matches played today none of this applied because prior to kick-off the Group table looked like this;
The Netherlands 6pts +5GD
Chile 6pts +4GD
Australia 0pts -3GD
Spain 0pts -6GD
So it didn't matter who won, lost or drew either match because it was impossible for either Australia or Spain to beat Chile or The Netherlands. As a result I tried watching bits of both matches and ended up not really seeing either of them.
I started out watching the Netherlands V Chile match. Although a casual viewer would have found this incredibly boring it was actually something of a tactical master class. Both sides spent most of the match perfectly putting together passes and carefully choosing their positions on the pitch in order to control the game and gently coax their opponents into periods of attacking and defending. However while this was going on in the other match Spain scored with a David Villa goal in the 36th minute and then again with a Fernando Torres goal in the 69th minute. So I turned over and watched this instead. From the 10 minutes I watched it was clear that Spain were keen to show that they can still play football and restore some pride to what has been a disastrous campaign for them while Australia were clearly missing the influence Tim Cahill.
I then turned back to the Netherlands V Chile game just in time to miss Leroy Fer putting the Dutch 1-0 up in the 77th minute. I did though get to see Chile's penalty call on roughly 80 minutes when Nigel De Jong handled the ball in the area. I think that this was clearly a penalty but the reason the referee will probably give for not awarding it is that if the ball hadn't hit De Jong's arm it would have hit a Chilean player in the chest meaning the result would have been the same. However this raises the question why the referee didn't award a penalty because De Jong had his arm around the Chilean player's chest physically impeding him against the rules. Therefore I think the real reason was that - like most South American teams - the Chilean team had falsely appealed for a penalty every time one to their players had been dispossessed of the ball in the penalty box. So by that point the referee clearly wasn't in the mood to do them any favours.
Meanwhile Juan Mata got a third for Spain on 82 minutes and Memphis Depay scored a second for the Netherlands in the 91st minute (90+3 minutes stoppage). As a result the Netherlands topped the group with a maximum 9 points while Spain managed to lift themselves off the bottom of the group with 3 consolation points.
Group A which provided the second bloc of today's matches was more interesting because at kick-off things looked like this;
Brazil 4pts +2
Mexico 4pts +1
Croatia 3pts +0
Cameroon 0pts -5
As a result the only thing that was clear was that Cameroon could not progress. However if they beat Brazil 2-0 and Croatia beat Mexico by any score then Croatia and Mexico would go through while Brazil would go exit the tournament. However the real action was in the Croatia V Mexico match because provided Brazil at least drew then Croatia needed to beat Mexico to go through while Mexico would have gone through will a simple draw although I don't think the phrase "Just play for the draw" exists in the Mexican language. So I watched the Croatia V Mexico game.
Again this was a very tense and technical affair with Mexico clearly having the tactical plan of frustrating Croatia in the early stages of the game in the hope of forcing them to get reckless as they chased the win allowing Mexico to score a couple of late goals. This plan involved passing the ball around to keep possession while making occasional attacks to to tire out the Croatian team and never allowing them to establish a rhythm. Unfortunately this also involved a lot of attempts to intimidate the Croatians physically while trying to get them booked or sent off. So whenever the players were jostling for the ball or jumping in the box to win the ball the Mexicans where making lots of little shoves, elbows and little kicks. However whenever a Croatian player pushed back or attempted a tackle the Mexicans would feign injury and call for the referee to get either a red or yellow card out.
That final element of the plan nearly back-fired on Mexico around 65 minutes when a Croatian player handled the ball in the penalty area. However the referee turned down what was clearly a penalty. Although he may have been unsighted and it was certainly a skillful hand-ball I think the referee didn't award the penalty partly to punish Mexico for their - what is in fact - cheating. This strikes me a quite a sensible way to address the issue because the alternative is that the referees start booking players every time they simulate a foul. That would have resulted in Mexico forfeiting the game 2-0 after having six of their players sent off in the first 30-40 minutes.
I must say though that Mexico executed their tactical plan superbly with Rafael Márquez breaking through to put Mexico 1-0 up with a header on 72 minutes. This was rapidly followed by a Andrés Guardado goal on 75 minutes with Javier Hernández adding a third on 82 minutes. Croatia scored a consolation goal on 87 minutes with an impressive left-footed shot by Ivan Perisic. However I think their fans will feel most proud of Ante Rebic's straight red card in the 89th minute because realising that the game was lost he just gave the Mexican player that good, hard kick to the shin that all the Croatian players had wanted to give to all of the Mexican players throughout the game.
Obviously I didn't watch any of the Brazil V Cameroon match but things got off to a predictable start when Neymar put Brazil ahead in the 18th minute. Then the almost unthinkable happened and Joel Matip levelled the score in the 26th minute scoring Cameroon's first goal of the tournament in the process. Normal service was resumed though when Neymar scored for the second time in the 36th minute before Fred put Brazil 3-1 up in the in the 49th minute.
The interaction between the two matches became really important though when Mexico went 3-0 up in the 82 minute (of both matches). With Brazil leading 3-1 this meant that if Mexico could score a fourth goal they would have won the group with 7 pts and a GD of +5 while Brazil would have finished second with 7pts but a GD of +4. Brazil clearly worked this one out for themselves and Fernandinho promptly responded by scoring a fourth for Brazil in the 84th minute.
So the first two games of the knock-out stage of the competition have been decided with the winner of Group A (Brazil) playing the runner up in Group B (Chile) and the Winner of Group B (The Netherlands) playing the runner up in Group A (Mexico).
In a bit of tedious housekeeping I should point out that I got my broken computer back from the repair shop. It turns out it was the motherboard not the hard disc that had failed. So with a new motherboard this is the machine I'm using for the time being.
23:30 on 23/6/14 (UK date).
This is a massive relief for me because it means I only have to watch two blocs of games a day rather than three and there's about three hours between the first bloc of games ending and the second bloc of game starting. This gives me plenty of time not only to write up each bloc of matches but do other things such as eating and breathing.
It does though create a massive problem in choosing which match to watch. In some groups it is an easy decision with often the two teams engaged in a straight fight to see who goes through and who goes out. In other groups - such as Group G - there is a huge variety of possibilities of what can happen with results in one match affecting the importance of the other meaning that you have to try and watch both. Things get even more complicated when teams are tied on points so the final group placings goes down to Goal Difference (GD) - the number of goals scored by a team in the group stage minus the goals conceded. If GD is tied it is the team with the most goals scored that goes through. So for example in Group G if Germany were to draw 0-0 with the USA while Ghana beat Portugal 2-0 Ghana and the USA would go through while Germany and Portugal go home.
However in Group B which saw the first bloc of matches played today none of this applied because prior to kick-off the Group table looked like this;
The Netherlands 6pts +5GD
Chile 6pts +4GD
Australia 0pts -3GD
Spain 0pts -6GD
So it didn't matter who won, lost or drew either match because it was impossible for either Australia or Spain to beat Chile or The Netherlands. As a result I tried watching bits of both matches and ended up not really seeing either of them.
I started out watching the Netherlands V Chile match. Although a casual viewer would have found this incredibly boring it was actually something of a tactical master class. Both sides spent most of the match perfectly putting together passes and carefully choosing their positions on the pitch in order to control the game and gently coax their opponents into periods of attacking and defending. However while this was going on in the other match Spain scored with a David Villa goal in the 36th minute and then again with a Fernando Torres goal in the 69th minute. So I turned over and watched this instead. From the 10 minutes I watched it was clear that Spain were keen to show that they can still play football and restore some pride to what has been a disastrous campaign for them while Australia were clearly missing the influence Tim Cahill.
I then turned back to the Netherlands V Chile game just in time to miss Leroy Fer putting the Dutch 1-0 up in the 77th minute. I did though get to see Chile's penalty call on roughly 80 minutes when Nigel De Jong handled the ball in the area. I think that this was clearly a penalty but the reason the referee will probably give for not awarding it is that if the ball hadn't hit De Jong's arm it would have hit a Chilean player in the chest meaning the result would have been the same. However this raises the question why the referee didn't award a penalty because De Jong had his arm around the Chilean player's chest physically impeding him against the rules. Therefore I think the real reason was that - like most South American teams - the Chilean team had falsely appealed for a penalty every time one to their players had been dispossessed of the ball in the penalty box. So by that point the referee clearly wasn't in the mood to do them any favours.
Meanwhile Juan Mata got a third for Spain on 82 minutes and Memphis Depay scored a second for the Netherlands in the 91st minute (90+3 minutes stoppage). As a result the Netherlands topped the group with a maximum 9 points while Spain managed to lift themselves off the bottom of the group with 3 consolation points.
Group A which provided the second bloc of today's matches was more interesting because at kick-off things looked like this;
Brazil 4pts +2
Mexico 4pts +1
Croatia 3pts +0
Cameroon 0pts -5
As a result the only thing that was clear was that Cameroon could not progress. However if they beat Brazil 2-0 and Croatia beat Mexico by any score then Croatia and Mexico would go through while Brazil would go exit the tournament. However the real action was in the Croatia V Mexico match because provided Brazil at least drew then Croatia needed to beat Mexico to go through while Mexico would have gone through will a simple draw although I don't think the phrase "Just play for the draw" exists in the Mexican language. So I watched the Croatia V Mexico game.
Again this was a very tense and technical affair with Mexico clearly having the tactical plan of frustrating Croatia in the early stages of the game in the hope of forcing them to get reckless as they chased the win allowing Mexico to score a couple of late goals. This plan involved passing the ball around to keep possession while making occasional attacks to to tire out the Croatian team and never allowing them to establish a rhythm. Unfortunately this also involved a lot of attempts to intimidate the Croatians physically while trying to get them booked or sent off. So whenever the players were jostling for the ball or jumping in the box to win the ball the Mexicans where making lots of little shoves, elbows and little kicks. However whenever a Croatian player pushed back or attempted a tackle the Mexicans would feign injury and call for the referee to get either a red or yellow card out.
That final element of the plan nearly back-fired on Mexico around 65 minutes when a Croatian player handled the ball in the penalty area. However the referee turned down what was clearly a penalty. Although he may have been unsighted and it was certainly a skillful hand-ball I think the referee didn't award the penalty partly to punish Mexico for their - what is in fact - cheating. This strikes me a quite a sensible way to address the issue because the alternative is that the referees start booking players every time they simulate a foul. That would have resulted in Mexico forfeiting the game 2-0 after having six of their players sent off in the first 30-40 minutes.
I must say though that Mexico executed their tactical plan superbly with Rafael Márquez breaking through to put Mexico 1-0 up with a header on 72 minutes. This was rapidly followed by a Andrés Guardado goal on 75 minutes with Javier Hernández adding a third on 82 minutes. Croatia scored a consolation goal on 87 minutes with an impressive left-footed shot by Ivan Perisic. However I think their fans will feel most proud of Ante Rebic's straight red card in the 89th minute because realising that the game was lost he just gave the Mexican player that good, hard kick to the shin that all the Croatian players had wanted to give to all of the Mexican players throughout the game.
Obviously I didn't watch any of the Brazil V Cameroon match but things got off to a predictable start when Neymar put Brazil ahead in the 18th minute. Then the almost unthinkable happened and Joel Matip levelled the score in the 26th minute scoring Cameroon's first goal of the tournament in the process. Normal service was resumed though when Neymar scored for the second time in the 36th minute before Fred put Brazil 3-1 up in the in the 49th minute.
The interaction between the two matches became really important though when Mexico went 3-0 up in the 82 minute (of both matches). With Brazil leading 3-1 this meant that if Mexico could score a fourth goal they would have won the group with 7 pts and a GD of +5 while Brazil would have finished second with 7pts but a GD of +4. Brazil clearly worked this one out for themselves and Fernandinho promptly responded by scoring a fourth for Brazil in the 84th minute.
So the first two games of the knock-out stage of the competition have been decided with the winner of Group A (Brazil) playing the runner up in Group B (Chile) and the Winner of Group B (The Netherlands) playing the runner up in Group A (Mexico).
In a bit of tedious housekeeping I should point out that I got my broken computer back from the repair shop. It turns out it was the motherboard not the hard disc that had failed. So with a new motherboard this is the machine I'm using for the time being.
23:30 on 23/6/14 (UK date).
Sunday 22 June 2014
It's Hitler's Moment.
As I think I explain every time the Olympics is primarily a political event that those in power desperately try to pretend has something to do with sport. By contrast the World Cup is all about sport but being watched by roughly 1 in every 2 people on the planet and seriously followed by roughly 1 in every 7 it can't help but attract the attention of those in power. So while the Olympics is a rather intellectual affair where nobody cares who wins or loses provided lots of political points are scored the World Cup is all about passion.
Unfortunately we saw absolutely none of that in today's first game in Group H between Belgium and Russia. This was almost entirely Belgium's fault. As I explained following their match against Algeria Belgium have been making a big thing about the issue of racism in football. Rather then being an attempt to eliminate racism from football this was all about putting pressure on football's World governing body FIFA and Russia who will host the 2018 World Cup. A significant part of the reason why FIFA awarded the 2018 tournament to Russia is that there is a significant problem with racism and neo-Nazism amongst football fans in that part of the World as you would know if you've paid even the slightest bit of attention to the current unrest in Russia's neighbour Ukraine. So by awarding the 2018 tournament to Russia FIFA was hoping to tackle racism and neo-Nazism in the same way that Russia was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics in an effort to tackle homophobia.
The problem is that - for reasons known only to them - Belgium's long-term ally Britain got it into their heads that they were going to be awarded the 2018 World Cup. The UK Queen even went so far as to record a Christmas message in which she basically boasted about hosting the 2018 World Cup. Since then Britain has been throwing one of the longest tantrums in sporting history. So Belgium was bringing up racism in football to put pressure on FIFA to strip Russia of the 2018 World Cup and award it to the UK instead by going; "Russia can't have the World Cup - that's racist!"
With the head of FIFA - Sepp Blatter - sitting side by side with the Belgian King throughout the game at that high temple of football - the Maracana stadium neither the Russian players nor the Belgium players wanted to do anything worth commenting on. This lead to 90 minutes of what was effectively just standing. Things got so bad that I'm pretty sure that Russia's Glushakov intentionally put the ball wide of the goal in the 74th minute specifically to avoid scoring the winning goal.
Possibly the only action of the match occurred when Belgium's Hazard walked through Russia's defence before passing it to Origi who slotted it into the net for the winning goal. This all happened in the 88th minute. The 8th letter of the Latin alphabet which is used in English and other European languages is "H." As such "88" as often used as code for "HH" which is the initials for the famous German phrase "Heil Hitler" which essentially means salvation and good health to Adolf Hitler the leader of Nazi Germany. As such neo-Nazis will use "88" as a way to covertly celebrate Hitler. Some of the more extreme neo-Nazi football gangs have even been known to spontaneously burst into a standing ovation during the 88th minute of football matches for no apparent reason.
So rather then being a fantastic Belgian achievement this struck me more as Russia sending Belgium into the last 16 in a very Olympic fashion. It may have also have been an act of charity for the other two teams in the group giving them both a chance of making it through to the last 16.
Much like the USA the Republic of Korea (South Korea/RoK) are very new to football and are still learning how to play at the top level. In contrast Algeria is a nation with a long and passionate footballing tradition. Unfortunately like most other North African nations their domestic league is poorly funded and France keeps stealing all their best players. As a result Algeria have never really achieved the international success their fans so desperately crave. Having both lost their opening games neither South Korea nor Algeria have a single point in this World Cup. So by losing to Belgium Russia stayed on 1 point giving both Algeria and RoK a chance of going through if they drew this game and then won their final games against Russia and Belgium respectively.
However it is clear that Algeria didn't want to risk drawing with Russia so set about the second Group H game of the day with all the gusto and passion that was missing from the days first. Attacking from the outset Algeria's Slimani banged a left-footed shot into the bottom corner of the net to put his team 1-0 up in the 26th minute. Two minutes later Halliche put Algeria with a header from a corner-kick. Defending set pieces are one of the areas of their game that RoK need to develop. In the 38th minute Djabou put Algeria 3-0 up with a left-footed shot into the bottom corner of the goal.
Having established a 3-0 lead by half-time Algeria were prepared to sit back in the second. This allowed RoK to get one back with Son getting on the end of a through ball from Ki to slot home in the 50th minute. Proving that they were resting not giving up Algeria got a fourth when Brahimi put home a right-footed shot from the centre of the penalty area in the 62nd minute. It was at this point that I stopped watching and started writing this because trying to write up three hours of football in 45 minutes is killing me. However I gather Koo got a second for RoK in the 72nd minute and that's how it ended.
As such Belgium are all ready through to the last 16 with 6 points while any one of Algeria (3 points), Russia (1 point) or RoK (1 point) could also still go through. However Algeria now look the most likely only needing to draw with Russia and hope that RoK don't secure an unlikely win against Belgium by a very high goal margin.
21:20 on 22/6/14 (UK date).
Edited around 00:05 on 23/6/14 (UK date) to add;
The final match of the day saw the USA take on Portugal in Group G. This match was played in Manaus which is deep in the Amazon rain forest. So although temperatures are on average 10-15C lower then they are in Qatar it is still brutally hot. As a result it is pretty much impossible to play high-tempo football which even the fittest South American players often being more interested in finding an excuse to have a little lie down then scoring goals.
Hope for an exciting game pretty much died then on 5 minutes when Portugal's Nani blasted a right-footed shot past the USA 'keeper who was already having a little bit of a lie down. With this one goal lead Portugal then proceeded to rest their players for their final game against Ghana thinking that there was no way the US could get back into the match. So there was lots of slow, neat passing and Ronaldo got plenty of opportunity to show off his ball skills.
As such I thought most of my write up of this game would be about the fact that Portugal's Christiano Ronaldo always plays in the number 7 shirt so has trademarked the phrase "CR7." I think this is a little unfair because CR7 is also the start of my Croydon postal/ZIP code. Therefore if there was to be political gossip about the match most of it would have centred on how effective the US had been at containing the threat presented by CR7. After all although he's not as good as he likes to think he is and Portugal are certainly not a one man team Ronaldo is certainly a player capable of causing the USA (and most others) a fair few problems. Meanwhile the UK have certainly been trying to portray my local area as the most dangerous place on earth. As such I have to say that for the most part this was largely a moot point because Ronaldo - along with most of his teammates - did most of the work containing themselves.
Then in the 72nd (while I was in the bathroom) the USA's Jermaine Jones equalised with a curling right-foot shot from around 20 yards out. Although this wasn't quite as good as Lionel Messi's goal for Argentina against Iran that inspired it it was certainly worthy of the comparison and most people were just shocked that the USA had scored at all.
We got even more surprised in the 82nd minute when the USA took the lead with the goal that really showed off the composure of Clint Dempsey. Basically Zusi stuck a low cross into the 6 yard box. Although this picked out Dempsey who was in space it was a little too high to kick but a little too low to head. So Dempsey rather calmly took it on the belly and scored anyway.
As we entered the 95th minute (90+ 5 minutes stoppage time) we were all starting to entertain the almost unbelievable idea that the USA could win and go top of the group with 6 points while Portugal could be knocked out with 0 points. Then Ronaldo made a long run down the right-wing before crossing into the box to Varela who stuck his head on it and equalised with what was the last meaningful kick of the game.
Having come so close to victory the USA fans in the stadium looked despondent but they'll do well to remember that with 4 points they are joint top of the group with Germany. This means that in order to qualify for the last 16 both Ghana and Portugal will have to win their final game against each other and hope that the USA will lose to Germany. Although they may want to punish them for their impudence the USA could even beat a Germany that's already resting up for the last 16 and win the group.
Before I go though it is the law that I have to say; "Gee America - I bet you wish you'd better controlled the threat from CR7!"
Unfortunately we saw absolutely none of that in today's first game in Group H between Belgium and Russia. This was almost entirely Belgium's fault. As I explained following their match against Algeria Belgium have been making a big thing about the issue of racism in football. Rather then being an attempt to eliminate racism from football this was all about putting pressure on football's World governing body FIFA and Russia who will host the 2018 World Cup. A significant part of the reason why FIFA awarded the 2018 tournament to Russia is that there is a significant problem with racism and neo-Nazism amongst football fans in that part of the World as you would know if you've paid even the slightest bit of attention to the current unrest in Russia's neighbour Ukraine. So by awarding the 2018 tournament to Russia FIFA was hoping to tackle racism and neo-Nazism in the same way that Russia was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics in an effort to tackle homophobia.
The problem is that - for reasons known only to them - Belgium's long-term ally Britain got it into their heads that they were going to be awarded the 2018 World Cup. The UK Queen even went so far as to record a Christmas message in which she basically boasted about hosting the 2018 World Cup. Since then Britain has been throwing one of the longest tantrums in sporting history. So Belgium was bringing up racism in football to put pressure on FIFA to strip Russia of the 2018 World Cup and award it to the UK instead by going; "Russia can't have the World Cup - that's racist!"
With the head of FIFA - Sepp Blatter - sitting side by side with the Belgian King throughout the game at that high temple of football - the Maracana stadium neither the Russian players nor the Belgium players wanted to do anything worth commenting on. This lead to 90 minutes of what was effectively just standing. Things got so bad that I'm pretty sure that Russia's Glushakov intentionally put the ball wide of the goal in the 74th minute specifically to avoid scoring the winning goal.
Possibly the only action of the match occurred when Belgium's Hazard walked through Russia's defence before passing it to Origi who slotted it into the net for the winning goal. This all happened in the 88th minute. The 8th letter of the Latin alphabet which is used in English and other European languages is "H." As such "88" as often used as code for "HH" which is the initials for the famous German phrase "Heil Hitler" which essentially means salvation and good health to Adolf Hitler the leader of Nazi Germany. As such neo-Nazis will use "88" as a way to covertly celebrate Hitler. Some of the more extreme neo-Nazi football gangs have even been known to spontaneously burst into a standing ovation during the 88th minute of football matches for no apparent reason.
So rather then being a fantastic Belgian achievement this struck me more as Russia sending Belgium into the last 16 in a very Olympic fashion. It may have also have been an act of charity for the other two teams in the group giving them both a chance of making it through to the last 16.
Much like the USA the Republic of Korea (South Korea/RoK) are very new to football and are still learning how to play at the top level. In contrast Algeria is a nation with a long and passionate footballing tradition. Unfortunately like most other North African nations their domestic league is poorly funded and France keeps stealing all their best players. As a result Algeria have never really achieved the international success their fans so desperately crave. Having both lost their opening games neither South Korea nor Algeria have a single point in this World Cup. So by losing to Belgium Russia stayed on 1 point giving both Algeria and RoK a chance of going through if they drew this game and then won their final games against Russia and Belgium respectively.
However it is clear that Algeria didn't want to risk drawing with Russia so set about the second Group H game of the day with all the gusto and passion that was missing from the days first. Attacking from the outset Algeria's Slimani banged a left-footed shot into the bottom corner of the net to put his team 1-0 up in the 26th minute. Two minutes later Halliche put Algeria with a header from a corner-kick. Defending set pieces are one of the areas of their game that RoK need to develop. In the 38th minute Djabou put Algeria 3-0 up with a left-footed shot into the bottom corner of the goal.
Having established a 3-0 lead by half-time Algeria were prepared to sit back in the second. This allowed RoK to get one back with Son getting on the end of a through ball from Ki to slot home in the 50th minute. Proving that they were resting not giving up Algeria got a fourth when Brahimi put home a right-footed shot from the centre of the penalty area in the 62nd minute. It was at this point that I stopped watching and started writing this because trying to write up three hours of football in 45 minutes is killing me. However I gather Koo got a second for RoK in the 72nd minute and that's how it ended.
As such Belgium are all ready through to the last 16 with 6 points while any one of Algeria (3 points), Russia (1 point) or RoK (1 point) could also still go through. However Algeria now look the most likely only needing to draw with Russia and hope that RoK don't secure an unlikely win against Belgium by a very high goal margin.
21:20 on 22/6/14 (UK date).
Edited around 00:05 on 23/6/14 (UK date) to add;
The final match of the day saw the USA take on Portugal in Group G. This match was played in Manaus which is deep in the Amazon rain forest. So although temperatures are on average 10-15C lower then they are in Qatar it is still brutally hot. As a result it is pretty much impossible to play high-tempo football which even the fittest South American players often being more interested in finding an excuse to have a little lie down then scoring goals.
Hope for an exciting game pretty much died then on 5 minutes when Portugal's Nani blasted a right-footed shot past the USA 'keeper who was already having a little bit of a lie down. With this one goal lead Portugal then proceeded to rest their players for their final game against Ghana thinking that there was no way the US could get back into the match. So there was lots of slow, neat passing and Ronaldo got plenty of opportunity to show off his ball skills.
As such I thought most of my write up of this game would be about the fact that Portugal's Christiano Ronaldo always plays in the number 7 shirt so has trademarked the phrase "CR7." I think this is a little unfair because CR7 is also the start of my Croydon postal/ZIP code. Therefore if there was to be political gossip about the match most of it would have centred on how effective the US had been at containing the threat presented by CR7. After all although he's not as good as he likes to think he is and Portugal are certainly not a one man team Ronaldo is certainly a player capable of causing the USA (and most others) a fair few problems. Meanwhile the UK have certainly been trying to portray my local area as the most dangerous place on earth. As such I have to say that for the most part this was largely a moot point because Ronaldo - along with most of his teammates - did most of the work containing themselves.
Then in the 72nd (while I was in the bathroom) the USA's Jermaine Jones equalised with a curling right-foot shot from around 20 yards out. Although this wasn't quite as good as Lionel Messi's goal for Argentina against Iran that inspired it it was certainly worthy of the comparison and most people were just shocked that the USA had scored at all.
We got even more surprised in the 82nd minute when the USA took the lead with the goal that really showed off the composure of Clint Dempsey. Basically Zusi stuck a low cross into the 6 yard box. Although this picked out Dempsey who was in space it was a little too high to kick but a little too low to head. So Dempsey rather calmly took it on the belly and scored anyway.
As we entered the 95th minute (90+ 5 minutes stoppage time) we were all starting to entertain the almost unbelievable idea that the USA could win and go top of the group with 6 points while Portugal could be knocked out with 0 points. Then Ronaldo made a long run down the right-wing before crossing into the box to Varela who stuck his head on it and equalised with what was the last meaningful kick of the game.
Having come so close to victory the USA fans in the stadium looked despondent but they'll do well to remember that with 4 points they are joint top of the group with Germany. This means that in order to qualify for the last 16 both Ghana and Portugal will have to win their final game against each other and hope that the USA will lose to Germany. Although they may want to punish them for their impudence the USA could even beat a Germany that's already resting up for the last 16 and win the group.
Before I go though it is the law that I have to say; "Gee America - I bet you wish you'd better controlled the threat from CR7!"
Saturday 21 June 2014
More Points Then England,
More Points Then England, We've all got more points then England!
Today at the World Cup started with the Group F match between Argentina and Iran. Argentina have been tipped (by supporters of Roy Hodgson) as potential tournament winners. The bulk of Iran's squad is made up of amateur players and sadly politics means that they have been denied the opportunity to warm-up for the tournament against World class opposition As a result this fixture had many people thinking back to that time Hungary defeated 10-1 in the 1982 World Cup and caused a few to suggest that long standing record could soon fall.
As it turns out the Iranian team absolutely covered themselves in glory playing very tight, very disciplined football. This meant that for much of the first half they literally did not get out of their own half with them playing such a defensive formation that their two centre-forwards spent most of the 45 minutes hanging about 10-15 yards inside the Iranian half of the pitch without even thinking about attacking let alone scoring. However it also meant that they did not concede a goal even if the way they were constantly being forced to soak up Argentine attacking pressure left you feeling it was only a matter of time before Argentina took the lead.
In the second-half Iran maintained their shape and discipline but also started putting some attacks together. Although I wouldn't go so far to say that Iran were creating the best chances of the game they certainly created some real chances. For example on 52 minutes Reza Ghoochanneijhad (Gucci) got his head on the end of a Montazeri cross forcing a save out of Romero - the Argentina 'keeper. On 66 minutes Ashkan Dejagah also got his head on a long diagonal cross from Montazeri forcing a finger-tip save from Romero that was millimetres from a goal that would have rivalled Van Persie's header against Spain.
Iran's best chance though came after 55 minutes when Mohammad Reza Khalatbari (Reza) was brought down in the penalty area by Pablo Zabaleta in an incident that has already been expunged from the BBC's match coverage. Viewed from the front this was a clear penalty with Zabaleta not only taking Reza's legs out from under him but also failing to make contact with the ball. As this denied Reza a clear goal scoring opportunity this should have also earned Zabaleta an immediate red-card.
The problem was that the referee viewed all this from behind from where it must have looked like a very skilled challenge by Zabaleta so he didn't award it. In making this mistake the Serbian referee seems to have shown a slight bias towards South American teams that we have seen throughout this tournament. Again I'm not making accusations of match-fixing or cheating but when there's an incident where the referee isn't sure they all tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the South American side.
However what also often happens is football is that when a referee makes a mistake like this he will have it quickly pointed out to him by his assistants, the coaches, the players and large sections of the crowd. Again while they won't cheat the referee will then often try to correct their mistake by erring on the side of the team that lost out the next time there's a 50/50 call. On this occasion though the referee continue to hammer Iran picking them up on every potential foul and even seeming to make an effort to award Argentina free-kicks in areas where their star player Lionel Messi is known to be so dangerous.
Rather then being an anti-Iranian plot by Serbia I think this had more to do with the fact that when the referee turned down Reza's penalty call Reza responded by charging up to the referee screaming and then lunging as if he was going to head-but him in the chest. This is obviously not the way to get a referee to do you a favour.
Despite the falling out with the referee and growing Argentine pressure Iran held firm until the 92nd minutes (2 minutes into 4 minutes of stoppage time) when Messi did what he is famous for and curled the ball in from about 25 yards winning the match.
Next up was the Germany versus Ghana match in Group G which I will cover in more detail after the imminent Group F match between Nigeria and Bosnia. However I do need to point out that this match was marred by a lone pitch invader.
Having worked in football stewarding/security for the best part of 10 years I should explain that the procedure is normally that stewards/police do not chase lone pitch invaders/streakers onto the pitch. That is because rather then being malicious these people are simply attention seekers so chasing them merely gives them what they want. However the protocol I'm used to working under is that the referee will gather the players together in one area of the pitch and a couple of stewards will go on to protect them should the need arise. That said my old boss once had to go into the crowd to stop Eric Cantona attacking a fan so its fair to say that a lot of players can look after themselves. Another area the Brazilians might want to look at is doubling up the number of stewards at the gates/stair-cases that provide access to the pitch.
21:45 on 21/6/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 23:55 on 21/6/14 (UK date) to add: Of course the main rule of football is;
Don't Bring Your Missus to the Match!! I don't care if they're male or female you simply do not do it!
As I mentioned above the next match of the day was Germany versus Ghana in Group G. Having lost to the USA Ghana needed the one point they'd get from a draw to stay in the tournament. Having thrashed Portugal Germany would also have been happy with a draw. As such following the excitement of the Argentina V Iran game I was looking forward to a nice, calm 0-0 draw.
This would have given me time to explain that the USA have very much modelled their football team on the Germany's. So not only are they managed by German legend Jurgen Klinsmann but many of their players are more German than American. For example John Brooks who scored the winner against Ghana is the son of a US serviceman and was born in Germany. As such the Germany V USA match is shaping up to be something of a master V apprentice grudge match.
Unfortunately the big story of the match turned out to be the pop-star Rihanna. As some of you may have heard Rihanna has not only been watching a lot of this World Cup she has taken to providing a live commentary on Twitter. Given the problems caused by the silent treatment Rihanna gave the World during the recent Winter Olympics I think this is generally a good thing. The problem is that despite being celebrity friends with professional footballers who are playing in this World Cup and people who are effectively married to professional footballers who are playing in this World Cup (Shakira etc) Rihanna seems to know very little about football. For example she today congratulated Messi on going past defenders to score his goal although that seemed more like a question to me. As a result three of the five teams that Rihanna has backed to win in this tournament have immediately gone on to lose earning Rihanna a reputation as a jinx.
This began at the Ghana V USA game when about 20 minutes before Rihanna posted a picture of Ghana's Kevin-Prince Boateng saying something along the lines of him being that handsome that it made her switch allegiance from her adopted home of America. The problem was that in the photograph Boateng bore a passing resemblance to Chris Brown. As a result no-one was quite sure if Rihanna was being serious, getting into the spirit of things by playing it for laughs or secretly indicating that she was getting back with Chris Brown. Combined with Clint Dempsey's goal after 29 seconds this completely psyched out the Ghanaian team and they were useless for about the next 70 minutes. As such it has been suggested that Rihanna has been engaging in mind games to help the USA win although in my experience Rihanna tends to be the victim rather then the perpetrator of such dirty tricks.
So when in the second half of the Germany V Ghana match Rihanna declared she was backing Germany the Germans in the crowd instantly burst into song in in order to spur their team on to win and avoid the curse. Moments later Germany went 1-0 up.
As the players lined up to kick-off following the game our pitch invader appeared. Although as is standard and reasonable (legal issues, denying them attention etc) the TV coverage cut away I understand Ghana's Muntari had a quiet word with him and he quickly left the pitch. Obviously I cannot comment on what I have not seen but I suspect that the pitch invader was pre-screened and allowed onto the pitch to provide a discussion point about Rihanna's role. Alternatively it was just a drunk fan getting over excited and unilaterally deciding to promote discussion about Rihanna's role. Either way my above assessment remains valid.
Once the match did kick-off again Ghana almost immediately equalised causing me to completely lose track of what was going on and focus almost entirely on Twitter. However I gather that Ghana went on to take the lead before Klose equalised for Germany and in the process equaled Brazil's Ronaldo (the fat one who was good in the late-1990's) record of 16 World Cup goals. As a result both teams got their point and the group is heating up nicely.
By the time the final match between Nigeria and Bosnia & Herzegovina in Group F began I'd become over-excited and needed to sit down quietly in a darkened room. However I gather that Nigeria really raised their game and won 1-0. This means that Nigeria can still qualify for the last 16 but Bosnia are out having not scored a single point. This is a bit of a shock because of the outside bets (Belgium, Switzerland etc) Bosnia seemed - to me - the most likely to make it through to the last 16 and then pull off a shock by getting to the final and even winning the whole thing.
If anything their problem was arrogance because in their opening game against Argentina they scored a own goal after about 10 minutes. Although I was massively drunk by that point this struck me as having an air of "Go on, we'll let you start with a 1 goal advantage. You'll need it!" Bosnia then went on to equalise before Messi once again dug Argentina out of the hole. Now Bosnia are going home and even I'm disappointed.
Now where is that darkened room because I'm loving this World Cup but I'm pretty sure that writing up every match is going to kill me.
Today at the World Cup started with the Group F match between Argentina and Iran. Argentina have been tipped (by supporters of Roy Hodgson) as potential tournament winners. The bulk of Iran's squad is made up of amateur players and sadly politics means that they have been denied the opportunity to warm-up for the tournament against World class opposition As a result this fixture had many people thinking back to that time Hungary defeated 10-1 in the 1982 World Cup and caused a few to suggest that long standing record could soon fall.
As it turns out the Iranian team absolutely covered themselves in glory playing very tight, very disciplined football. This meant that for much of the first half they literally did not get out of their own half with them playing such a defensive formation that their two centre-forwards spent most of the 45 minutes hanging about 10-15 yards inside the Iranian half of the pitch without even thinking about attacking let alone scoring. However it also meant that they did not concede a goal even if the way they were constantly being forced to soak up Argentine attacking pressure left you feeling it was only a matter of time before Argentina took the lead.
In the second-half Iran maintained their shape and discipline but also started putting some attacks together. Although I wouldn't go so far to say that Iran were creating the best chances of the game they certainly created some real chances. For example on 52 minutes Reza Ghoochanneijhad (Gucci) got his head on the end of a Montazeri cross forcing a save out of Romero - the Argentina 'keeper. On 66 minutes Ashkan Dejagah also got his head on a long diagonal cross from Montazeri forcing a finger-tip save from Romero that was millimetres from a goal that would have rivalled Van Persie's header against Spain.
Iran's best chance though came after 55 minutes when Mohammad Reza Khalatbari (Reza) was brought down in the penalty area by Pablo Zabaleta in an incident that has already been expunged from the BBC's match coverage. Viewed from the front this was a clear penalty with Zabaleta not only taking Reza's legs out from under him but also failing to make contact with the ball. As this denied Reza a clear goal scoring opportunity this should have also earned Zabaleta an immediate red-card.
The problem was that the referee viewed all this from behind from where it must have looked like a very skilled challenge by Zabaleta so he didn't award it. In making this mistake the Serbian referee seems to have shown a slight bias towards South American teams that we have seen throughout this tournament. Again I'm not making accusations of match-fixing or cheating but when there's an incident where the referee isn't sure they all tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the South American side.
However what also often happens is football is that when a referee makes a mistake like this he will have it quickly pointed out to him by his assistants, the coaches, the players and large sections of the crowd. Again while they won't cheat the referee will then often try to correct their mistake by erring on the side of the team that lost out the next time there's a 50/50 call. On this occasion though the referee continue to hammer Iran picking them up on every potential foul and even seeming to make an effort to award Argentina free-kicks in areas where their star player Lionel Messi is known to be so dangerous.
Rather then being an anti-Iranian plot by Serbia I think this had more to do with the fact that when the referee turned down Reza's penalty call Reza responded by charging up to the referee screaming and then lunging as if he was going to head-but him in the chest. This is obviously not the way to get a referee to do you a favour.
Despite the falling out with the referee and growing Argentine pressure Iran held firm until the 92nd minutes (2 minutes into 4 minutes of stoppage time) when Messi did what he is famous for and curled the ball in from about 25 yards winning the match.
Next up was the Germany versus Ghana match in Group G which I will cover in more detail after the imminent Group F match between Nigeria and Bosnia. However I do need to point out that this match was marred by a lone pitch invader.
Having worked in football stewarding/security for the best part of 10 years I should explain that the procedure is normally that stewards/police do not chase lone pitch invaders/streakers onto the pitch. That is because rather then being malicious these people are simply attention seekers so chasing them merely gives them what they want. However the protocol I'm used to working under is that the referee will gather the players together in one area of the pitch and a couple of stewards will go on to protect them should the need arise. That said my old boss once had to go into the crowd to stop Eric Cantona attacking a fan so its fair to say that a lot of players can look after themselves. Another area the Brazilians might want to look at is doubling up the number of stewards at the gates/stair-cases that provide access to the pitch.
21:45 on 21/6/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 23:55 on 21/6/14 (UK date) to add: Of course the main rule of football is;
Don't Bring Your Missus to the Match!! I don't care if they're male or female you simply do not do it!
As I mentioned above the next match of the day was Germany versus Ghana in Group G. Having lost to the USA Ghana needed the one point they'd get from a draw to stay in the tournament. Having thrashed Portugal Germany would also have been happy with a draw. As such following the excitement of the Argentina V Iran game I was looking forward to a nice, calm 0-0 draw.
This would have given me time to explain that the USA have very much modelled their football team on the Germany's. So not only are they managed by German legend Jurgen Klinsmann but many of their players are more German than American. For example John Brooks who scored the winner against Ghana is the son of a US serviceman and was born in Germany. As such the Germany V USA match is shaping up to be something of a master V apprentice grudge match.
Unfortunately the big story of the match turned out to be the pop-star Rihanna. As some of you may have heard Rihanna has not only been watching a lot of this World Cup she has taken to providing a live commentary on Twitter. Given the problems caused by the silent treatment Rihanna gave the World during the recent Winter Olympics I think this is generally a good thing. The problem is that despite being celebrity friends with professional footballers who are playing in this World Cup and people who are effectively married to professional footballers who are playing in this World Cup (Shakira etc) Rihanna seems to know very little about football. For example she today congratulated Messi on going past defenders to score his goal although that seemed more like a question to me. As a result three of the five teams that Rihanna has backed to win in this tournament have immediately gone on to lose earning Rihanna a reputation as a jinx.
This began at the Ghana V USA game when about 20 minutes before Rihanna posted a picture of Ghana's Kevin-Prince Boateng saying something along the lines of him being that handsome that it made her switch allegiance from her adopted home of America. The problem was that in the photograph Boateng bore a passing resemblance to Chris Brown. As a result no-one was quite sure if Rihanna was being serious, getting into the spirit of things by playing it for laughs or secretly indicating that she was getting back with Chris Brown. Combined with Clint Dempsey's goal after 29 seconds this completely psyched out the Ghanaian team and they were useless for about the next 70 minutes. As such it has been suggested that Rihanna has been engaging in mind games to help the USA win although in my experience Rihanna tends to be the victim rather then the perpetrator of such dirty tricks.
So when in the second half of the Germany V Ghana match Rihanna declared she was backing Germany the Germans in the crowd instantly burst into song in in order to spur their team on to win and avoid the curse. Moments later Germany went 1-0 up.
As the players lined up to kick-off following the game our pitch invader appeared. Although as is standard and reasonable (legal issues, denying them attention etc) the TV coverage cut away I understand Ghana's Muntari had a quiet word with him and he quickly left the pitch. Obviously I cannot comment on what I have not seen but I suspect that the pitch invader was pre-screened and allowed onto the pitch to provide a discussion point about Rihanna's role. Alternatively it was just a drunk fan getting over excited and unilaterally deciding to promote discussion about Rihanna's role. Either way my above assessment remains valid.
Once the match did kick-off again Ghana almost immediately equalised causing me to completely lose track of what was going on and focus almost entirely on Twitter. However I gather that Ghana went on to take the lead before Klose equalised for Germany and in the process equaled Brazil's Ronaldo (the fat one who was good in the late-1990's) record of 16 World Cup goals. As a result both teams got their point and the group is heating up nicely.
By the time the final match between Nigeria and Bosnia & Herzegovina in Group F began I'd become over-excited and needed to sit down quietly in a darkened room. However I gather that Nigeria really raised their game and won 1-0. This means that Nigeria can still qualify for the last 16 but Bosnia are out having not scored a single point. This is a bit of a shock because of the outside bets (Belgium, Switzerland etc) Bosnia seemed - to me - the most likely to make it through to the last 16 and then pull off a shock by getting to the final and even winning the whole thing.
If anything their problem was arrogance because in their opening game against Argentina they scored a own goal after about 10 minutes. Although I was massively drunk by that point this struck me as having an air of "Go on, we'll let you start with a 1 goal advantage. You'll need it!" Bosnia then went on to equalise before Messi once again dug Argentina out of the hole. Now Bosnia are going home and even I'm disappointed.
Now where is that darkened room because I'm loving this World Cup but I'm pretty sure that writing up every match is going to kill me.
Thursday 19 June 2014
Here Comes the Quagmire.
The Uruguay V England match begins at 19:00 so you'll excuse me if I'm brief.
As I think we all know in 2012 US President Obama arbitrarily withdrew US troops from Iraq in order to help boost his re-election chances. In December 2013 the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIL) who have been thrown out of Al Qaeda for holding views that are far too extreme seized control of Iraq's larger, western province of Anbar. In the week beginning June 9th (9/6/14) ISIL seized further territory in the north and the east. This put them some 100 km outside of the gates of the capital Baghdad create a very real risk that Iraq's democratically elected government could fall triggering a sectarian civil war so vicious that ISIL hope it will bring about the end of the World.
What Obama should have done was immediately order US airstrikes against ISIL positions in order to impose a no drive zone denying ISIL the ability to move and consolidate their offencive. This would have allowed the Iraqi government to re-group and conduct a counter-offencive. Although no military action is without risk ISIL's air-defences are essentially nil meaning that the risk to American pilots would be extremely low.
Unfortunately this would have required Obama to (a) make a decision and (b) admit that the 2012 withdrawal was a mistake. So instead Obama delayed, procrastinated and evaded. This included a promise that he would not put American boots on the ground even though no-one could see any reason why he would have to.
Funnily enough as Obama has done nothing the situation has not changed so Obama was today forced to announce some form of action. Although done in a nuanced way he has decided to embed up to 300 Special Forces soldiers with Iraqi military. Although they have been labelled as "advisers" it is extremely likely that the will undertake combat operations even if the US will not admit to it. Crucially these troops will not be given any form of air-support to take on the tanks and armoured vehicles that ISIL now have at their disposal.
While it is clear that Obama has not yet come to terms with it to most people it is quite obvious that these Special Forces will eventually be used to identify ISIL targets for US air-strikes. However while Obama continues to procrastinate civilians who had fled ISIL held areas are beginning to return home making air-strikes even more difficult.
So in summary through his dithering Obama has exchanged Low-Risk : High-Reward for High-Risk : Low-Reward.
Of course a large part of Obama's attempts to avoid making a decision have centred on increasing the pressure on the Iraqi government. Today he went so far to describe them as "sect" equivalent to ISIL. As such Obama appears to legitimised the most the most extreme Islamist terrorist group the World has even seen.
18:50 on 19/6/14 (UK date).
As I think we all know in 2012 US President Obama arbitrarily withdrew US troops from Iraq in order to help boost his re-election chances. In December 2013 the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIL) who have been thrown out of Al Qaeda for holding views that are far too extreme seized control of Iraq's larger, western province of Anbar. In the week beginning June 9th (9/6/14) ISIL seized further territory in the north and the east. This put them some 100 km outside of the gates of the capital Baghdad create a very real risk that Iraq's democratically elected government could fall triggering a sectarian civil war so vicious that ISIL hope it will bring about the end of the World.
What Obama should have done was immediately order US airstrikes against ISIL positions in order to impose a no drive zone denying ISIL the ability to move and consolidate their offencive. This would have allowed the Iraqi government to re-group and conduct a counter-offencive. Although no military action is without risk ISIL's air-defences are essentially nil meaning that the risk to American pilots would be extremely low.
Unfortunately this would have required Obama to (a) make a decision and (b) admit that the 2012 withdrawal was a mistake. So instead Obama delayed, procrastinated and evaded. This included a promise that he would not put American boots on the ground even though no-one could see any reason why he would have to.
Funnily enough as Obama has done nothing the situation has not changed so Obama was today forced to announce some form of action. Although done in a nuanced way he has decided to embed up to 300 Special Forces soldiers with Iraqi military. Although they have been labelled as "advisers" it is extremely likely that the will undertake combat operations even if the US will not admit to it. Crucially these troops will not be given any form of air-support to take on the tanks and armoured vehicles that ISIL now have at their disposal.
While it is clear that Obama has not yet come to terms with it to most people it is quite obvious that these Special Forces will eventually be used to identify ISIL targets for US air-strikes. However while Obama continues to procrastinate civilians who had fled ISIL held areas are beginning to return home making air-strikes even more difficult.
So in summary through his dithering Obama has exchanged Low-Risk : High-Reward for High-Risk : Low-Reward.
Of course a large part of Obama's attempts to avoid making a decision have centred on increasing the pressure on the Iraqi government. Today he went so far to describe them as "sect" equivalent to ISIL. As such Obama appears to legitimised the most the most extreme Islamist terrorist group the World has even seen.
18:50 on 19/6/14 (UK date).
Wednesday 18 June 2014
Spain Who?!
Today at the World Cup has seen the second round of matches in Group B. Containing both the finalists from the 2010 competition this was meant to be the easiest to predict group with both Spain and the Netherlands expected to go through to the last 16. That is not what happened.
The day began with the match between Australia who statistically the worst team in the tournament and the Netherlands who thrashed reigning champions Spain 5-1 in their opening match. As such even the Australian fans expected to be slaughtered. They were in for a pleasant surprise though with the Australian team coming out to play some amazing football. Far from being intimidated they pressed the Dutch constantly pretty much preventing them from putting together a meaningful attack and even managing to create some chances of their own.
It looked like their early pluck would count for nothing when Robben put the Dutch 1-0 up after 20 minutes. With the Dutch having a long history of never losing a game in which Robben has scored this looked the start of an Australian massacre. However the Australians were having none of it and within all of 72 seconds Cahill had levelled the score with an amazing volley from a long cross field ball that is an early contender for goal of the tournament. With the deficit quickly overturned Australia continued pressing the Dutch every step of the way.
This perseverance paid off in the 52nd minute when the Dutch defender Janmaat conceded a penalty. This was seen as slightly controversial because although he handled the ball in the area Janmaat didn't seem to do so intentionally. However his arm was stretched out quite a way from his body and did stop the ball going through to an Australian player for a possible goal scoring opportunity. As such is was a fair penalty and one that Jedinak converted to put Australia 2-1 up.
However demonstrating what an absolutely end to end game this was Van Persie then got on the end of a through ball to smash into the net for a Dutch equaliser. There are some though that say Van Persie shouldn't have even been on the pitch at this point because moments before he'd made a crunching foul which hit Jedinak right in the knee. Although Jedinak was uninjured in the slow motion replay you could see his knee bend in the opposite direction as Van Persie made contact. As such this was exactly the sort of dangerous challenge that people are trying to get banned from the game and should have earned Van Persie a yellow card which would have been his second of the game meaning that he was sent off.
A very clear example of why this type of challenge is considered so dangerous came in the other match in the group when Chile's Aránguiz appeared to damage his medial ligament and had to be stretchered off and substituted. That type of injury can take anywhere between 10 days and six weeks to heal. If the injury is severe enough it can permanently impair the movement of the knee joint enough to end a football players career. Fortunately Aránguiz appears to have only sustained a minor injury meaning that he's only likely to miss the next game.
Australia still weren't going to be intimidated though and not only did they soak up the Dutch pressure they managed to put together a potentially match winning chance when in the 57th minute Oar found himself one on one with the Dutch keeper with Leckie in support. Unfortunately rather then taking the shot himself Oar decided to cross to Leckie who clearly wasn't expecting it. So much so that he seemed unable to decide between volleying it or heading it and ended up doing a bit of both with the ball sort of bouncing off his chest.
All of 40 seconds later it was the Dutch who were on the attack with Depay blasting the ball goal-wards from 50 -60 yards out. Initially Ryan the Australian 'keeper looked like he had it covered but as the ball skimmed the ground it swerved slightly taking it just beyond Ryan's reach and into the back of the net putting the Netherlands 3-2 up. Despite continuing to press and press throughout the remaining 20 minutes the Australians couldn't find a way through and 3-2 to the Netherlands was how it ended.
The other game between Spain and Chile couldn't have been more different. Despite needing a point to stay in the competition Spain lacked drive, control, speed and initiative. With their almost suicidal commitment to fast, attacking football Chile were causing them problems from the start. Vargas put them ahead after 19 minutes and Aránguiz put them 2-0 up after 43 minutes. This meant all they had to do was sit back and absorb Spain's pressure in order to protect their lead. As it turns out there wasn't much pressure for them to absorb and they went on creating chances and could have won 4-0.
In the end it finished 2-0 though meaning that although they both have a final group game to play - against each other - both Spain and Australia are now out of the competition and based on today's performances I can see the reigning champions leave the competition without any points and only scoring a single goal.
Apart from Spain's performance tonight's game was marred by the behaviour of some 300 ticket-less Chilean fans who broke into the stadium through a security fence, smashed their way through a glass door and tore down a temporary wall inside the stadium in order get into the game. Some 30 of them have already been arrested and I can see FIFA imposing a harsh penalty on the Chilean FA over the incident because post-Hillsborough ticket-less fans forcing their way into a stadium is simply not acceptable.
21:45 on 18/6/14 (UK date).
The day began with the match between Australia who statistically the worst team in the tournament and the Netherlands who thrashed reigning champions Spain 5-1 in their opening match. As such even the Australian fans expected to be slaughtered. They were in for a pleasant surprise though with the Australian team coming out to play some amazing football. Far from being intimidated they pressed the Dutch constantly pretty much preventing them from putting together a meaningful attack and even managing to create some chances of their own.
It looked like their early pluck would count for nothing when Robben put the Dutch 1-0 up after 20 minutes. With the Dutch having a long history of never losing a game in which Robben has scored this looked the start of an Australian massacre. However the Australians were having none of it and within all of 72 seconds Cahill had levelled the score with an amazing volley from a long cross field ball that is an early contender for goal of the tournament. With the deficit quickly overturned Australia continued pressing the Dutch every step of the way.
This perseverance paid off in the 52nd minute when the Dutch defender Janmaat conceded a penalty. This was seen as slightly controversial because although he handled the ball in the area Janmaat didn't seem to do so intentionally. However his arm was stretched out quite a way from his body and did stop the ball going through to an Australian player for a possible goal scoring opportunity. As such is was a fair penalty and one that Jedinak converted to put Australia 2-1 up.
However demonstrating what an absolutely end to end game this was Van Persie then got on the end of a through ball to smash into the net for a Dutch equaliser. There are some though that say Van Persie shouldn't have even been on the pitch at this point because moments before he'd made a crunching foul which hit Jedinak right in the knee. Although Jedinak was uninjured in the slow motion replay you could see his knee bend in the opposite direction as Van Persie made contact. As such this was exactly the sort of dangerous challenge that people are trying to get banned from the game and should have earned Van Persie a yellow card which would have been his second of the game meaning that he was sent off.
A very clear example of why this type of challenge is considered so dangerous came in the other match in the group when Chile's Aránguiz appeared to damage his medial ligament and had to be stretchered off and substituted. That type of injury can take anywhere between 10 days and six weeks to heal. If the injury is severe enough it can permanently impair the movement of the knee joint enough to end a football players career. Fortunately Aránguiz appears to have only sustained a minor injury meaning that he's only likely to miss the next game.
Australia still weren't going to be intimidated though and not only did they soak up the Dutch pressure they managed to put together a potentially match winning chance when in the 57th minute Oar found himself one on one with the Dutch keeper with Leckie in support. Unfortunately rather then taking the shot himself Oar decided to cross to Leckie who clearly wasn't expecting it. So much so that he seemed unable to decide between volleying it or heading it and ended up doing a bit of both with the ball sort of bouncing off his chest.
All of 40 seconds later it was the Dutch who were on the attack with Depay blasting the ball goal-wards from 50 -60 yards out. Initially Ryan the Australian 'keeper looked like he had it covered but as the ball skimmed the ground it swerved slightly taking it just beyond Ryan's reach and into the back of the net putting the Netherlands 3-2 up. Despite continuing to press and press throughout the remaining 20 minutes the Australians couldn't find a way through and 3-2 to the Netherlands was how it ended.
The other game between Spain and Chile couldn't have been more different. Despite needing a point to stay in the competition Spain lacked drive, control, speed and initiative. With their almost suicidal commitment to fast, attacking football Chile were causing them problems from the start. Vargas put them ahead after 19 minutes and Aránguiz put them 2-0 up after 43 minutes. This meant all they had to do was sit back and absorb Spain's pressure in order to protect their lead. As it turns out there wasn't much pressure for them to absorb and they went on creating chances and could have won 4-0.
In the end it finished 2-0 though meaning that although they both have a final group game to play - against each other - both Spain and Australia are now out of the competition and based on today's performances I can see the reigning champions leave the competition without any points and only scoring a single goal.
Apart from Spain's performance tonight's game was marred by the behaviour of some 300 ticket-less Chilean fans who broke into the stadium through a security fence, smashed their way through a glass door and tore down a temporary wall inside the stadium in order get into the game. Some 30 of them have already been arrested and I can see FIFA imposing a harsh penalty on the Chilean FA over the incident because post-Hillsborough ticket-less fans forcing their way into a stadium is simply not acceptable.
21:45 on 18/6/14 (UK date).
Tuesday 17 June 2014
Well I Enjoyed Myself.
And I suppose that's the main thing.
Today the 2014 World Cup saw the opening of Group H - for "f' Hell, that's going to be difficult to get out of." Proceedings began with Belgium versus Algeria. Prior to the start of the tournament Belgium had been widely tipped as "The Dark Horse" meaning that while there's no good reason why they should be winners a lot of people thought they might be extraordinarily lucky and eventually lift the trophy. This made me immediately hate them so imagine my joy when Algeria went ahead when Ferghouli was pulled over in the box at around 20 minutes and a penalty was fairly awarded. Ferghouli duly converted said penalty. Unfortunately after almost a whole game of struggle Fellaini equalised for Belgium on 70 minutes and Mertens netted the winner on 80 minutes.
However my important realisation following the equaliser is that Felliani's celebration revealed that at least two white Belgian fans had decided to paint their faces entirely black before attending the game. Added to multiple Belgian fans - both at the game and on Twitter - who had painted their faces with the Tricolour of the Belgian flag only to leave the yellow stripe blank in favour of their white skin this gave me the impression that Belgian fans are extremely racist. After all by putting white skin at the centre of the Belgian flag they seem to be saying that only whites can be true Belgians. I'm sure they will try to argue this away as an attempt to promote discussion about immigration from Belgium's former colonies in Africa. However as a resident of the European Union (EU) I remain confident that the upper echelons of the Belgium Establishment are indeed extremely racist.
Then - for no apparent reason - the World Cup decided to move onto the first, second game of Group A which saw Brazil take on Mexico. Obviously being something of a local derby between two of the best teams in South America this was something of a tight affair. So much so that at one point I was debating whether I could explain the difference between metatarsals and naviculars on Twitter - after all being South Americans they do enjoy making a meal of a tackle. I think the excuse for scheduling the game at this time was that everybody would be on a siesta. The players certainly looked like they were and it finished in a 0-0 draw. This is massive news for Mexico who now lead the group with 4 points hugely increasing both their chances of getting out of the group and avoiding the Netherlands in the last 16.
Eventually we got back to Group H with the game between Russia and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Played in high humidity the first half of this game was useless. In part I think this was probably my fault along with alleged 2016 US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton taking part in a 1 hour live "Town Hall Meeting" on CNN international. This was followed by an hour long recorded interview with FOX News domestic with the intention being to confuse people which was recorded and which was live.
Fortunately the game came alive on 68 minutes when South Korea's Lee Keun-ho blasted the ball at the Russian goal keeper from about 30 yards out. Initially Akinfeev parried the ball up only for it to gradually and slowly make its way over his head before he bundled it over the line for goal so humiliating that everyone assumed it must have been a fix. However showing the kind of passion that suggests Akinfeev may well be getting beaten up by his teammates Kerzhakov reacted first from a spill by the Korean 'keeper to level it for Russia on 80 minutes.
Sadly neither team were able to push home a winner in the last 10 minutes so 1-1 it ended.
00:35 on 18/6/14 (UK date).
Today the 2014 World Cup saw the opening of Group H - for "f' Hell, that's going to be difficult to get out of." Proceedings began with Belgium versus Algeria. Prior to the start of the tournament Belgium had been widely tipped as "The Dark Horse" meaning that while there's no good reason why they should be winners a lot of people thought they might be extraordinarily lucky and eventually lift the trophy. This made me immediately hate them so imagine my joy when Algeria went ahead when Ferghouli was pulled over in the box at around 20 minutes and a penalty was fairly awarded. Ferghouli duly converted said penalty. Unfortunately after almost a whole game of struggle Fellaini equalised for Belgium on 70 minutes and Mertens netted the winner on 80 minutes.
However my important realisation following the equaliser is that Felliani's celebration revealed that at least two white Belgian fans had decided to paint their faces entirely black before attending the game. Added to multiple Belgian fans - both at the game and on Twitter - who had painted their faces with the Tricolour of the Belgian flag only to leave the yellow stripe blank in favour of their white skin this gave me the impression that Belgian fans are extremely racist. After all by putting white skin at the centre of the Belgian flag they seem to be saying that only whites can be true Belgians. I'm sure they will try to argue this away as an attempt to promote discussion about immigration from Belgium's former colonies in Africa. However as a resident of the European Union (EU) I remain confident that the upper echelons of the Belgium Establishment are indeed extremely racist.
Then - for no apparent reason - the World Cup decided to move onto the first, second game of Group A which saw Brazil take on Mexico. Obviously being something of a local derby between two of the best teams in South America this was something of a tight affair. So much so that at one point I was debating whether I could explain the difference between metatarsals and naviculars on Twitter - after all being South Americans they do enjoy making a meal of a tackle. I think the excuse for scheduling the game at this time was that everybody would be on a siesta. The players certainly looked like they were and it finished in a 0-0 draw. This is massive news for Mexico who now lead the group with 4 points hugely increasing both their chances of getting out of the group and avoiding the Netherlands in the last 16.
Eventually we got back to Group H with the game between Russia and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Played in high humidity the first half of this game was useless. In part I think this was probably my fault along with alleged 2016 US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton taking part in a 1 hour live "Town Hall Meeting" on CNN international. This was followed by an hour long recorded interview with FOX News domestic with the intention being to confuse people which was recorded and which was live.
Fortunately the game came alive on 68 minutes when South Korea's Lee Keun-ho blasted the ball at the Russian goal keeper from about 30 yards out. Initially Akinfeev parried the ball up only for it to gradually and slowly make its way over his head before he bundled it over the line for goal so humiliating that everyone assumed it must have been a fix. However showing the kind of passion that suggests Akinfeev may well be getting beaten up by his teammates Kerzhakov reacted first from a spill by the Korean 'keeper to level it for Russia on 80 minutes.
Sadly neither team were able to push home a winner in the last 10 minutes so 1-1 it ended.
00:35 on 18/6/14 (UK date).
The USA Has Beaten Ghana.
In the 2006 World Cup the USA played Ghana and lost 2-1. In the 2010 World Cup the USA played Ghana and lost 2-1. So when the USA was drawn against Ghana in their opening Group G game at the 2014 World Cup everyone kind of knew what to expect.
The USA's problem is that despite knowing all the rules and how the game is played they still don't quite get football. Having been raised on a steady diet of American Football they still seem to think that you have a rigid defencive line, a rigid mid-field line and a rigid attacking line. Those lines then move up and down the pitch almost as if they were held together on steel bars like on a Foosball table. This is a perfectly serviceable way to play the game and is certainly good at helping to avoid defeat. However it means that the USA tend to lack the creative flair needed to win games.
The relatively young Ghanaian side are almost the exact opposite with tons of pace and lots of individual flair although they tend to lack the sort of coherent shape needed to win games. As such the USA's approach to the game was clearly to try and score an early goal before sitting back to defend the one nil lead.
Last night the first part of that strategy worked extremely well with Clint Dempsey scoring the fifth quickest goal in a World Cup finals after just 29 seconds. If anything that worked too well knocking the Ghanaians off balance meaning that they struggled to put together a coherent attack to force the USA to defend. Although this left the USA able to attempt some attacks of their own it meant that I spent most of the game trying to identify incidents to talk about.
One of the first of these occurred after about 20 minutes when Jozy Altidore pulled up with a hamstring injury and had to be substituted. This type of injury makes it difficult to walk let alone run around controlling a ball with your feet. They also normally take about 6-8 weeks to fully heal so Altidore might be lucky but it looks like his World Cup is already over and the USA will have to apply to FIFA for permission to bring in a replacement.
The next interesting incident occurred after about 30 minutes when Dempsey and Ghanaian player whose name I missed both jumped up to head the ball. As is allowed this involved them both jostling each other with their shoulders. Dempsey won the challenge but as the Ghanaian player fell back his leg came up smashing Dempsey right on the nose. Despite the fact he was able to continue this either broke or came very close to breaking Dempsey's nose and there was blood everywhere the referee rightly took no action against either player because there was no malicious intent meaning that it was just part of the rough and tumble of the game.
An incident where the referee perhaps should have taken more action occurred late in the first half when Jermaine Jones tackled Sulley Muntari. This involved Jones kicking Muntari in the head not once but twice with the second kick seeming somewhat intentional. As such Jones should probably have been booked for a reckless challenge. What perhaps saved him was Muntari's reaction which involved him lunging forward towards Jones and only stopping himself punching Jones full in the face at the very last moment.
After the break the USA continued to be happy to defend and Ghana continued to struggle to put an attack together. This changed a little when Kevin-Prince Boateng which sort inspired Ghana to start playing the way everybody knew they could. This increased pressure paid of after 82 minutes when Andre Ayew drew Ghana level. Unfortunately for Ghana for minutes later they gave a way a corner kick when the USA were really just trying to run down the clock. This led to a pretty typical American goal with John Brooks rising above the players in the penalty area to head the ball into the net for - I think - his first every goal.
That's how it finished so although the victors have changed the scoreline remains the same.
Although I suspect no-one in America is listening to me right now I can't help feel that this is a bit of a bad result for the group. That's because in the other group game Germany demolished Portugal 4-0. Many will say that the turning point in the match came when Pepe was sent off for violent conduct after head-butting Muller right in front of the referee whilst the referee was already considering booking him over another incident. However by that point Portugal were already 2-0 down and were looking very vulnerable.
As such I can just about see the USA being able to grind out a draw with Portugal if they can contain the threat of Ronaldo especially with Pepe being banned. However I can also see Ghana outscoring Portugal to secure a win. So if Ghana had won or even drawn against the USA they could go through with 6 or even 4 points ending the almost certainty that Germany and Portugal will progress from the group.
In the other game of the day a mis-firing Nigeria secured the first 0-0 draw of the tournament against Iran and that's all I can say about that game even if the Iranians did celebrate their point as if they'd won the trophy.
15:55 on 17/6/14 (UK date).
The USA's problem is that despite knowing all the rules and how the game is played they still don't quite get football. Having been raised on a steady diet of American Football they still seem to think that you have a rigid defencive line, a rigid mid-field line and a rigid attacking line. Those lines then move up and down the pitch almost as if they were held together on steel bars like on a Foosball table. This is a perfectly serviceable way to play the game and is certainly good at helping to avoid defeat. However it means that the USA tend to lack the creative flair needed to win games.
The relatively young Ghanaian side are almost the exact opposite with tons of pace and lots of individual flair although they tend to lack the sort of coherent shape needed to win games. As such the USA's approach to the game was clearly to try and score an early goal before sitting back to defend the one nil lead.
Last night the first part of that strategy worked extremely well with Clint Dempsey scoring the fifth quickest goal in a World Cup finals after just 29 seconds. If anything that worked too well knocking the Ghanaians off balance meaning that they struggled to put together a coherent attack to force the USA to defend. Although this left the USA able to attempt some attacks of their own it meant that I spent most of the game trying to identify incidents to talk about.
One of the first of these occurred after about 20 minutes when Jozy Altidore pulled up with a hamstring injury and had to be substituted. This type of injury makes it difficult to walk let alone run around controlling a ball with your feet. They also normally take about 6-8 weeks to fully heal so Altidore might be lucky but it looks like his World Cup is already over and the USA will have to apply to FIFA for permission to bring in a replacement.
The next interesting incident occurred after about 30 minutes when Dempsey and Ghanaian player whose name I missed both jumped up to head the ball. As is allowed this involved them both jostling each other with their shoulders. Dempsey won the challenge but as the Ghanaian player fell back his leg came up smashing Dempsey right on the nose. Despite the fact he was able to continue this either broke or came very close to breaking Dempsey's nose and there was blood everywhere the referee rightly took no action against either player because there was no malicious intent meaning that it was just part of the rough and tumble of the game.
An incident where the referee perhaps should have taken more action occurred late in the first half when Jermaine Jones tackled Sulley Muntari. This involved Jones kicking Muntari in the head not once but twice with the second kick seeming somewhat intentional. As such Jones should probably have been booked for a reckless challenge. What perhaps saved him was Muntari's reaction which involved him lunging forward towards Jones and only stopping himself punching Jones full in the face at the very last moment.
After the break the USA continued to be happy to defend and Ghana continued to struggle to put an attack together. This changed a little when Kevin-Prince Boateng which sort inspired Ghana to start playing the way everybody knew they could. This increased pressure paid of after 82 minutes when Andre Ayew drew Ghana level. Unfortunately for Ghana for minutes later they gave a way a corner kick when the USA were really just trying to run down the clock. This led to a pretty typical American goal with John Brooks rising above the players in the penalty area to head the ball into the net for - I think - his first every goal.
That's how it finished so although the victors have changed the scoreline remains the same.
Although I suspect no-one in America is listening to me right now I can't help feel that this is a bit of a bad result for the group. That's because in the other group game Germany demolished Portugal 4-0. Many will say that the turning point in the match came when Pepe was sent off for violent conduct after head-butting Muller right in front of the referee whilst the referee was already considering booking him over another incident. However by that point Portugal were already 2-0 down and were looking very vulnerable.
As such I can just about see the USA being able to grind out a draw with Portugal if they can contain the threat of Ronaldo especially with Pepe being banned. However I can also see Ghana outscoring Portugal to secure a win. So if Ghana had won or even drawn against the USA they could go through with 6 or even 4 points ending the almost certainty that Germany and Portugal will progress from the group.
In the other game of the day a mis-firing Nigeria secured the first 0-0 draw of the tournament against Iran and that's all I can say about that game even if the Iranians did celebrate their point as if they'd won the trophy.
15:55 on 17/6/14 (UK date).
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