World Cup day one – the madness of Domenech

All in all, a good opening day for the World Cup.  The first match was awesome, with some riveting moves by Mexico and an absolutely brilliant goal from South Africa.  Yes, the France-Uruguay game was pretty agonizing to watch but a) you have to respect the work ethic it takes to shut a team down like that and b) it was still exciting to consider what two draws means for the next round of games in the group.  With everyone still tied on points, everything is wide open.  Any of these four teams could qualify – and we’re guaranteed that they’ll all have at least a shot on the third matchday for the group.

Going in, I predicted France to top the group. I figured that they would play up to their talent and all the stupid dressing room stuff and dumb managing decisions would fade into the background.  Based on the evidence today, I might have misjudged.  I still think they’re the favorites to win the group but…yikes.  You’d have to try pretty hard to get it more wrong than Domenech did, and some of the French players were just miserably bad.  Gourcuff in particular was absolutely terrible.  His two main moves were to 1) get the ball in a promising area and pick out an inch-perfect pass right to the feet of a Uruguayan defender and 2) to smash the ball about 300 feet high and wide.  Govou wasn’t much better.  I really wish he had scored the goal early on that he missed, because it would have forced Uruguay to actually attack a bit more.  As it was, they happily sat back and soaked up the pressure–while France appeared to have no clue how to make something happen.

Zonal Marking (a great, great site) says that Domenech got the tactics right, based on the theory that you don’t want to go 4-4-2 against a 3 man defense–because it will leave you lacking in both the midfield and the final third.  I’m going to respectfully disagree, though. For one thing, Uruguay was simply not even trying to play in the midfield.  It wasn’t really a 3 man defense–they pretty much always had at least six bodies back.  If a 4-4-2 had drawn them out to contest the midfield the superior skill of the French players probably would have been enough to make something happen.  For another thing, there’s tactics and then there’s basic strategy.  Those players looked lost and the overwhelming majority of them seemed to have no idea to play the role they had been assigned.  It would have been SO easy to just stick Henry and Anelka up front, put Malouda and Ribery on the wings, and go to town.  It might be tactically simplistic but sometimes simple works.

Anyways, I still do think their talent wins out, but if they don’t look any better in match 2, I’ll have to concede that the haters were right and that they’re complete pants.

In other news, John Oliver’s take on the US and the World Cup is awesome:

Finally, there’s a modestly obnoxious article from Daniel Gross at Slate about how it’s lonely to be a soccer fan in America.  You find countless articles like this whenever the World Cup rolls around, saying things like “when will the sport get big in America? It’s always being promised,” or citing a few anecdotal examples that make it sound like it’s some unique experience trying to love this sport in such a backwater country.

One example from this article:

Yes, pubs and sports bars will be showing the games. But how many people will leave work, or take the day off, or skip the Little League game or pool party, to sit indoors and watch a soccer match? My guess is that when the U.S. plays England, the bars in New York and Los Angeles will be like Condé Nast in the 1990s—overrun with Brits.

Well, four years ago I was in Boston and wanted to watch the matches.  I went to John Harvards in Cambridge, where each one of the approximately 30 TVs in the place was showing the World Cup.  In fact, there was one in the corner that had the Red Sox on–until some people came in, sat in front of it, and requested that it be changed so they could watch the Czech Republic and Ghana.  Later in the summer, I was in some little vacation town on the western coast of Michigan (it might have even been on the 4th of July?) and the first pub I went into was showing the semifinals.  The place was probably 2/3 full and most of the people were at least casually watching.

Clearly these are not a universal experiences.  It’s not like the major US sports which are ubiquitous.  But that’s fine.  It doesn’t need to be.  In a strange way, it’s a bizarre and frustratingly American phenomenon to think that something is sad or not really worthwhile unless it’s the absolute biggest and best.  I’m happy with the World Cup being something I can share with a lot of people…but I don’t need the whole country to shut down a la Brazil or something just because it’s on in order to feel validated.

Final thought: on my predictions for the matches.  I called Mexico – South Africa as a 1-1, but thought France would win 1-0.  So that’s 1/2 so far.  My guesses for tomorrow:

• South Korea 0 – 0 Greece
• Argentina 2 – 0 Nigeria
• England 4 – 1 USA

I can see the England-US game going very similar to a match we had against Argentina back at the Copa America a few years ago.  We take an early lead, feel on top of the world for a short while, and then get hideously exposed at the back and are hanging on for dear life at the end.  The reason why I’m predicting Slovenia to qualify ahead of us is pretty much based on the spanking I think we’re going to get tomorrow ruining our goal difference.  Still, I’m hoping for a little bit of magic from Dempsey, a glimpse of the Beasley of a couple years ago, and the bulldoggedness of Michael Bradley being enough to shut things down in the midfield.  Oh, and I’m hoping Cappelo goes for caution and picks Green (who I think is mediocre at best) rather than Hart (who is pretty clearly the best keeper they’ve got available).