Italy 0 – 1 Costa Rica
Okay, I think it’s time to start taking them seriously. This was not in any way a fluke. Costa Rica were clearly the better team today. Italy had a couple periods of decent pressure, but that was just about it. For most of the game, Costa Rica were in control and posed more threats. Their strategy seemed to completely flummox Italy, which was the strangest thing about the game. They played the same formation as they had in the first game (with the 3/5 man defense), but pushed their back line up the field a lot and relied on the offside trap to protect themselves from Italy running into space.
It was a huge gamble but it paid off tremendously. Balotelli seemed to be completely lost about what to do, as did the attackers on the wings. They were repeatedly (and with ever-increasing frustrating) caught offside. And by condensing the midfield so much, Costa Rica were able to effectively play all nine of their ‘defensive’ players in a limited space around the halfway line. That allowed them to harry the Italian playmakers, who had no time or space to build forward.
It was truly, genuinely shocking how bereft of ideas they were in the face of this approach. If anyone in the world should be prepared to match up against a 3-man backline, and to spring the offside trap, you’d expect it to be Italy. But…they just had nothing. Compare this to the Spain-Chile game, which had everyone singing the death of Spanish football. But Spain, for all that they were imprecise, created a lot of chances in the second half. Italy, in this game, did very little. They weren’t done in by bad finishing; they were done in by an inability to create opportunities at all.
Balotelli is the sort of striker I would want to play against these tactics, but he seemed bewildered today. If I were in charge, I would have strongly considered replacing him with Immobile, who has the pace to burst into the space behind the defense and might have had a better effort of it than Balotelli.
Switzerland 2 – 5 France
After several chippy and relatively low-scoring games in a row, France brings back the spirit of the 2014 World Cup, tearing apart the Swiss defense and scoring goals for fun. This game shows why France could win the tournament, and also shows why France could get thumped out in the quarterfinals. Their attacking talent is fantastic, especially since they made several changes and everyone they brought in did pretty well. On the other hand, they seemed to switch off fairly regularly and could have very easily let Switzerland back into the game several times in the first half. And while they were never in danger of actually losing, they were torn apart several times in the final 10 minutes, and gave back two goals. If they fall behind against a good team, and the classic French dissension rears it’s head, they could easily switch off and start allowing dumb goals like these. That free kick, in particular, was just absurd. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a free kick travel on the ground the whole way from that distance and produce a goal.
Switzerland are still in decent shape to qualify, but they’ll need to do some serious work shoring up that defense. They weren’t just making mistakes on the final ball (though there were plenty of those, too). They were giving France tons of space all over the pitch. Luckily for them, their next game is against Honduras who are pretty unlikely to capitalize on the empty space in front of the back four.
Sidenote: La Marseillaise is the best anthem, hands down. Almost makes me want to support France. Not quite, though.
Honduras 1 – 2 Ecuador
Ah yes, the classic lower-division question. Which are better, long balls or crosses? Based on the evidence of this match, crosses win 2-1. Honduras were much less offensive to the eye than they were against France, but still don’t have much about them except long kicks up the middle. And Ecuador aren’t much more complicated. They get the ball to the wings and then dump in cross after cross. By far the biggest difference-maker was Ecuador’s Enner Valencia who seemed to be pretty much everywhere, was instrumental in most of their attacks, and picked up both their goals. But for the first half, Honduras might just have been the better team. Yes, they conceded a lot of the ball. No, they didn’t complete many useful passes. But they mostly kept Ecuador contained and hit them for a goal on the most Route 1 goal you’re likely to see. Long kick, and then BAM, it’s in the net. The second half was a bit better, with Ecuador working things in slightly more intricate ways. But honestly, there wasn’t much complexity here. Ecuador were the better team and got the three points they needed. They still have a big hill to climb, needing to match whatever result Switzerland get, but having to do so against France.
Predictions for tomorrow:
- Argentina 3 – 0 Iran
- Germany 2 – 0 Ghana
- Nigeria 1 – 2 Bosnia and Herzegovina
Argentina and Germany are excellent teams. Iran is not very good. Ghana is certainly a solid team and it wouldn’t shock me at all to see them get a result here. But my simple rule is to always bet on the Germans winning unless there’s a strong reason to think otherwise. I hope the third game is good. It’s another one of those that I could see going all kinds of ways. Nigeria looked really poor in their last game – and in their warmup games. But they won the Africa Cup of Nations with basically this group of players and there is quite a bit of talent in there. They pretty much need a win here if they hope to qualify, but I think B&H will have too much for them.