cklablog

. . . both barrels, in his final World Cup column.

It was an amazingly negative final — Holland went old-school, clearly meaning to kick chunks out of Spain in order to gain the advantage, while Spain continued to flatter to deceive by passing, passing, passing . . . to no end other than more passing, passing, passing. Several pundits and authors have already suggested that Spain were the more “positive” side, but until the Oranje finally exhausted themselves, I didn’t see it.  This Spain is a fantastically negative side; other teams have used the possession game to craft chances, this one uses it defensively. It was an ugly final, and I still wish we could have seen a Holland-Germany or Brazil-Argentina game, to at least add some rivalry spice to the event.

The World Cup is the best month in sports for me, the NCAA tournament writ large (and minus the heartbreak at the end for a Kansas fan), and I love the sport, but it does seem like the world is in a negative swing tactically, a la the 90s again. The 4-5-1 that everyone and their mother plays right now can be so gummy and miserly.  It does make me wish that some of the brighter South American teams had a solution to unlock that system.  Hopefully The Smart Guys ™ are working on it now.

Spain looked much better once Fabregas came on, demonstrating that at Arsenal they teach you how to use possession to attack. Cesc: do not go to Barcelona. You sat behind the entire Barca team this World Cup — which of them do you think you will beat out for a spot next season? Stay with Arsenal, let them build around you and win things there, on your own terms.

Brian Phillips writes for Slate.com, musing on the new Holland, and how they’ve broken away from Total Football.  He states as clearly as I’ve ever heard it why (despite the win-at-all-costs sentiment that we all agree with so long as we’re winning) beautiful football matters:

From Slate.com:  
Compared with other major sports, soccer can easily become chaotic and incoherent. This is one reason unconverted fans find it boring: Watch a random passage of play, and you’re likely to see players booting the ball out of bounds or frantically kicking it nowhere in particular, so that what ensues looks as much like an accident as a series of intentional actions. Teams that play it safe tend to go along with this entropic tendency, disrupting their opponents’ play, creating long periods of stalemate, then haphazardly smashing the ball toward their own strikers in the hope of a lucky bounce. The teams that become beloved, on the other hand—Leo Messi’s FC Barcelona, Pelé’s Brazil, and Cruyff’s Holland—are the ones that bring order or clarity to the game, so that the randomness and dullness fade out and the play assumes the shape of perceptible intention.

I would add that a pragmatic approach can also be beautiful, and bring that order and clarity to the sport.  Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan dismantled FC Barcelona (the current Torch-Carriers for Total Football and the “beautiful game”), and did so with a ruthlessly pragmatic style that relied upon Holland’s Wesley Sneidjer to direct lethal counterattacks.  Inter defended calmly, surrendered possession without allowing chances, and then took advantage of the brief moments between Spain . . . uh, I mean Barcelona . . . losing the ball and gaining it back.

And so while Sneidjer has already beaten Spain (Spain will start 7 players from Barcelona today), he doesn’t have Inter Milan’s defense behind him.  I’m rooting for Holland, but think it will be Spain 2 -1 The Oranje Bridesmaids.

Edit: My post-match prediction is that I think it will be 0-0, go into extra time, with Heitinga getting sent off and Iniesta scoring the game’s only goal two minutes from time.

THis yeer I have bin reely gud at werk and at home and I always do what Emily sais and I almost never kcik peeches.

Can I has a striker who can finish and two fast, smert centrel defenders, plees? I dont care if they are hansome or uglee, aktually uglee pleese and tall would be gud too. Also, when we get them, can they not reck there car and smash there legs up?

Thank you,

Chris Kennedy

Okay, I don’t know who exactly sacrifieced the fatted (spoon?) lamb to the Football Gods, but this World Cup just dropped into place for the United States.  In the 90th minute against Algeria today, we were 0-0 and had one foot on the plane to go home.  We’d dominated the game, but another horrible referee call had disallowed a perfectly good goal, and we just couldn’t catch a break against an Algeria team inexplicably playing for a draw.

In a jaw-dropping reversal of fortune, we got a 91st minute goal and I’m not ashamed to say that I felt tears welling up in my eyes just minutes before I pointed and laughed at Landon Donovan crying on international television.  Bob Bradley nearly cried during his interview, too.

What a finish.  I’m still blissed out and hope to stay this way until Saturday.

I was glad to see Bill Clinton chatting amiably to Sepp Blatter in the stands, but I think based on how the referees have treated us this tournament, that they must be Machiavellian frienemies in the Bilderberg Group.

In our group, England finished second, and in group D both Germany and Ghana advanced 1 and 2 like I’d hoped.  This sets up for us like so:

USA vs. Ghana > Winner of S. Korea/Uruguay > Final Four.  This is a very nicely balanced quartet, four good teams but no great ones.  Ghana is the only thing resembling a home team right now, because they’re on their own continent, but if this tournament has proved anything, African teams don’t have a home field advantage.

Do you know why I think this is the case?  The Vuvuzela.  I hate them for what they are, but they are negating the home field advantage and absolutely shafting the African teams.  Usually, soccer players know whether the crowd is behind them or their opponent based on the crowd’s singing, chanting and cheering.  When you really need that extra energy, you get it from your home crowd, who are singing their lungs out for 90 minutes.  The best crowds can intimidate the visiting team, as well as bolster the home side.  At this tournament, all anyone can hear is BZZZZZZZZZZZZ*, and it is completely negating the home team’s advantage.   Hoisted by your own petard, South Africa.  Stupidest.  ”Tradition.”  Ever.

England get the buzzsaw quartet, pulling a round of 16 match against Germany and then most likely having to face Argentina if they are going to make it to the semifinals.  That path was the fate that we dodged today, and I’m on cloud 9 right now.  This is not to say we’ll cruise to the semifinals by any stretch of the imagination — with our defense as porous as it is, any opponent can beat us, but the USA won’t see a kinder path to a World Cup semifinal until my grandchildren are middleaged.

Things have really, really fallen perfectly for us.

For the neutral, Germany v. England will be a spicy, spicy affair.  Lots of mutual hate in that one.  I would love to see an England v. Argentina quarterfinal match to hotten it all up even further, but that’s almost as likely as Wayne Rooney pulling his prematurely balding head out of his ginger-haired ass.

Our rivals to the South (Mexico, not Texas) pulled Argentina, so this really can’t get any better for me.  Mexico will get destroyed, and we are so well positioned, I don’t even know what I can dare to dream anymore.

—–

* Except for when a Mexico opponent takes a goal kick, when you can hear the crowd scream “Puto!”

Thank you Wikipedia, for your neutrality and thoughtful, reasoned approach.

Click for larger image

That ref was having an awful game, but I wouldn’t have blamed him for our problems until he disallowed a perfectly good goal from Edu. There was no foul, not even the shadow of one.

ESPN have highlights.

What can I say? As bad as we were in the first half, Coulibaly stole the third goal from us. We won that game.

—--

And the Slovenians go wild:

I don’t think Em has tried to beat me to death even once for watching soccer. What a gem!

Via Soccernet:

JOHANNESBURG — Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match instead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family in the northeastern part of the country.

David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province, fought with his wife and two children for the remote control on Sunday because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show.

“He said, ‘No, I want to watch soccer,’” police spokesman Mothemane Malefo said Thursday. “That is when the argument came about.

“In that argument, they started assaulting him.”

Malefo said Makoeya got up to change the channel by hand after being refused the remote control and was attacked by his 68-year-old wife Francina and two children, 36-year-old son Collin and 23-year-old daughter Lebogang.

Malefo said he was not sure what the family used to kill Makoeya.

“It appears they banged his head against the wall,” Malefo said. “They phoned the police only after he was badly injured, but by the time the police arrived the man was already dead.”

I’m sure if she’d known there were going to be four goals in that game, she’d have relented. After all, what would Jesus do if someone was keeping Him from watching His favorite gospel show? Ok, He’d probably beat their head against the wall until they died too, but still.

… I mean, we all knew, but didn’t want to say anything. I hope soccer knows that we all love it just the way it is.

Notice: If you believe your flavor of God(s) ha(s/ve) the power to make this dream a reality, please let me know and I will personally make a donation of money, blood or animal entrails, as appropriate.  All wild-eyed, froth-mouthed true believers encouraged to apply — no superstition too implausible, no horribly flawed rationalization too transparent.

Thank you, and thank your [all-powerful/reasonably-powerful/capricious and emotive] God(s) in advance for making the World Cup what it should be — not completely fucking annoying.

It’s official.  I hate the Vuvuzela. How it became the “symbol of South African football” is beyond me.    Hopefully the ESPN sound guys will slowly pull the crowd down lower and lower in the mix, although that would normally be the exact opposite of how to mix a football match.  Guh.

Come on you Bfana Bfana!  Let’s send Mexico home.