Thus ends the opening stage of the World Cup. It’s been a pretty great experience. Sure, there were the concerns about the dearth of goals and the defensive nature of play. But things have mostly righted themselves. And if the play has been marginally less ‘exciting’ the rest of it has been gripping. Watching major nations get knocked out early, while smaller ones made their mark. Watching some great last minute frenetic action in a number of games. Watching teams with everything to play for leaving it all out on the pitch. And, perhaps most importantly, seeing Europe the weakest it’s ever been – with only six European sides entering the knockout phase. It’s a good day for everyone else in the world.
Portugal 0 – 0 Brazil
North Korea 0 – 3 Ivory Coast
I only watched the former game, and not all of it. Frankly, it was a bit of a snooze. Lots of passion and crunching tackles in the first half, but as time went on and Ivory Coast failed to accumulate any more goals, the passion seemed to fade. Bizarrely, a match between Brazil and Portugal featured two of the most defensively-minded teams at the tournament this year.
I heard lots of complaints about Cristiano Ronaldo being selfish and refusing to pass to his teammates, but I don’t see it. He was playing on his own as a forward – and was regularly pretty isolated. Given the lack of attacking desire and talent around him, and given his ability (probably the best in the world) to generate something out of nothing, I can see how it would make sense to let him loose and see if he can work some magic.
These games were mostly for show anyways. It’s really a testament to this tournament that these were probably the only games so far without really anything to play for.
Thanks to winning this group, and the results later in the day, Brazil has what looks to be a pretty easy route to the finals. Of course, ‘easy’ is a comparative term. It’s never actually easy. But compared to England (who might have to beat Germany, Argentina, and Spain to get that far), it looks a simpler task. Given that I picked Brazil to win, I’m not going to change my position now.
Chile 1 – 2 Spain
Switzerland 0 – 0 Honduras
The path was a bit strewn with rubble, and it took some peculiar happenings, but it’s hard to argue with Spain and Chile being the final teams to join the second round. Switzerland put in a heroic performance to hold Spain and then snatch a win, but they have not impressed apart from that. Meanwhile, Chile and Spain have each been great in their own way.
The Spain/Chile game was exceptionally strange. Chile were great to start things off, controlling the game and shutting down the Spanish offense. For most of the first half, it seemed like Spain was playing more of a counter-attacking offense–something antithetical to their usual style.
Once again, though, I think this demonstrates that they do in fact have the ability to play in different ways (a Plan B). They looked pretty deadly on the counter despite getting dominated in the midfield and could have scored several goals before the one they got. Speaking of which: in some ways I’d consider Spain’s opening effort to be the goal of the tournament. It wasn’t the ‘best’ goal by any stretch, but it might be the most fun. A long pass to Torres which posed some serious danger, with the hint that he might latch onto it and be one-on-one with the keeper. Given Chile’s high defensive line this is a constant danger (a point that I would not have processed if not for the always interesting and often brilliant Zonal Marking), making it necessary for the keeper to come out and end the danger.
The problem in this instance is that the keeper failed to effectively clear the ball. If you’re going to come 40 yards off your line you absolutely HAVE to knock it out of play or deep into the opponent’s half. Instead he only pinged it up around the halfway line where David Villa was waiting to stroke it first time coolly and cleanly right back into the back of the net. He made it look easy but the precision and calmness necessary to take that opportunity and waste zero time depositing it into the goal is astonishing.
A little later, Spain got their second, and it looked like the rout might be on. Iniesta was given an opportunity and slotted it nicely in–demonstrating the kind of finishing that would have put the US up by 6 or 7 goals the other day if they could match it. And on that play, Estrada was shown a second yellow. Now, there will be a lot of discussion about this as another refereeing mistake–and it absolutely was. There was no malice, certainly, and I’m not entirely convinced that he even clipped Torres at all–but I do think it’s worth mentioning that Chile were just begging to get a man sent off. They were jumping into rash challenges all day, and Estrada himself was lucky to still be on the pitch at all. They had only a few minutes before fouled Torres in the box and Spain could very easily have been given a penalty. There was a clear Beckham-esque stamp on Torres earlier in the game that only got a yellow.
It’s part of what is fascinating about Chile, actually. That they can play such beautiful and smooth attacking football seems to necessarily mean that they have to be vicious and a tiny bit reckless in order to recover on the other side.
All of which means both of these teams will find themselves in fascinating second round games. You’d have to favor Spain and Brazil to beat Portugal and Chile–but in their own way each offers something really amazing. Spain and Brazil are the favorites, but the latter two have put on shows in this tournament that the bigger kids haven’t really matched.
So that’s the end of the opening round. Now it’s win or go home all the way out. And of course, the biggest one for me is happening tomorrow, when the US takes on Ghana. Predictions for the two games tomorrow:
- Uruguay 2 – 0 South Korea
- USA 1 – 1 Ghana (US wins on penalties)
I have a hard time seeing South Korea beating Uruguay, though I’ve underestimated them so far. It’s not that I think Uruguay is that great–it’s just that they seem very good at dictating the tone of the game, which I think will really frustrate Korea and give Forlan and co. a chance to pick out a few choice opportunities to score, which they will take.
I have a very hard time calling the US game. I think it’s pretty evenly matched. Ghana with a full-strength Essien would be a clear favorite, but without him they’re not just missing a talisman, they’re missing the one guy with the individual skill to bust a game apart by himself. As it is, we’ve got two industrious moderately-skilled teams with some glaring weaknesses. So while I’m predicting a closely-fought draw, I wouldn’t be shocked if either team blew the other out of the water. I’m predicting a US win on penalties, but really, picking a team to win once it goes to penalties is even more of a fool’s game than the usual prediction business.
I’m a bit worried about running out a 4-4-2 against that Ghana midfield. They’re very good and I worry that Bradley will end up completely neutralized, and that we’ll lose control of the midfield right out of the gate. That said, Bradley has earned some credit in recent years. He doesn’t get out-managed often but also seems to recognize that messing around tactically too much isn’t worth the confusion that it can create.
A nice piece on the game can be found here, from Jonathan Wilson.
Final thought before sleep. Reading Mick McCarthy’s list of his favorite players of the tournament is a good demonstration of the problems with English managers. Evidence:
Central midfield: Juan Sebastian Veron (Argentina) The veteran Argentinean would be my sitter. He is 35 now but has dictated every game he has played. He keeps it, passes it and I think he’s given the ball away once in this tournament – a real collector’s item. He looks, moves and dominates like a man ten year’s younger.
Wow. Just wow. If by ‘dictated’ you mean ‘either gave up the ball under no pressure or skied it about 50 yards over the crossbar’ then sure.