Now I am thinking of making a series of my World Cup posts. This being the 2nd in that series I will stop at 3rd which I will post at the end of this WC. Since I was out of town for some days after my last post I wasn’t able to follow the matches properly but nevermind as I watched some of them later as the repeat telecast 🙂
Brazil Ousted
I’ll start from the last match that I saw and thats Brazil vs Netherland QF match. Well I never write about any particular team ousted. But Brazil is special In 2002 it was my favourite team (won’t say about previous WC as then I didn’t follow football (or soccer whatever you would like to call it 🙂 ) But over the years I have drifted away from Brazil as they don’t play the same kind of football now. I know much have been debated on this so I won’t dwell on that. The game started with Brazil dominating the 1st half totally and an early lead trough Robinho in the 10th minute itself. In the 31st minute Kaka would have made it 2-0 but Stekelenburg pulled out the save of the match, just fingertipping the ball round the post. But just 7 minutes into the 2nd half and Melo’s own goal turned it all around for the dutch and when Sneijder headed Dutch ahead the Brazillians became desperate to score. However Melo’s red card in 73rd minute just sealed the match in the Dutch’s favour.The Dutch could have made it 3-1 in their favour as they had 2 chances to make it but nevertheless a win is a win and they are in the semis and will be facing Uruguay who booked the semis with penalty shootout win over Ghana.
Referee’s Blunders
There had been no WC without its share of controversy’s and this WC is no different. It started with Henry’s handball in the qualifiers and then in the 2nd round (i.e. round of 16) got 2 another bad decisions (the 1st being handball in the qualifier). The biggest of them all was turning down Lampard’s goal. That was an important jucture of the game with England trying to level and that thing just put the England’s shoulder down. . And as everyone can see it was clearly inside the line.Though it doesn’t take anything away from the Germans as they were at the top of the game for the most of the time. Klose just got close to a new landmark apart from the 100th cap that he is going to win today and that is the most goal scored in the WC. The other blunder was in Argnetina vs Mexico match where Tevez was clearly offside during their first goal of the match. and that set the tune for the rest of the game for the Argentines who were struggling somehow against the Mexicans till that moment. However that made me little happy more because I support the Argentines (also the Germans, Spainish and the Dutch but thats the different story altogether).
Misfiring Stars
A lot has been said in this WC bout all the misfiring stars in the WC. A lot of players came in this cup with lot of expectation from them but haven’t been seen in that kind of form as all the world expected them to. Lets start with Drogba. A lot depended on this African star on how far his team progressed. And he did score one goal 1st African to score against the Brazilians but still we didn’t see the Drogba we loved. I won’t blame him much as he was back after an injury and its always tough that way around. Though I admire his determination as I am sure many like me didn’t expect him to play in the 1st game even as a sub. Then there was one Rooney who was expected to send fear down the spines of oppositions defense but fail to score a single goal. England had lot of hope from this wonder kid but he hardly looked threatening this time around. Portugal had also lot of hopes on their captain Ronaldo who started on the bright note with a great hit from outside the box that hit the Ivory Coast post just in the 10th minute (if I am not wrong) but after that he couldn’t do something of note except the goal against the Koreans. Spain’s Torres hasn’t had the kind of tournament that he would have liked. But after a major surgery I guess its tough on him and also not fair on him to criticize him much. I would like him to score the way he score in Euro Cup final but it seems difficult for me as I don’t see the Torres we know in this tournament.
A Goalless Star
A lot has been said about Lionel Messi for he not scoring but I think he is doing a fine job. What do you want when the defenders give a lot of space in their mind to him and a lot of space to his other mates to score. I guess he is one of the reason why Higuan and Tevez had been scoring (not taking away the credit from these 2 they are no less than Messi) The most important thing is he oesn’t seem to be out of place. He is in touch and I guess it doesn’t matter whether he scores or not till the moment Argentina win; though I too would like some Messi goal.
The Stars
We have seen many stars in this WC so far. Villa has been good for Spain. So has been their midfield which had done a lot of great feeding work to Villa. The Uruaguan duo of Suarez and Forlan had been great too. As for Argentina as I said their 3 forwards are going great. Sneijder has done the trick for the Dutch while Robben influxed a different energy in their side when he returned (though I wonder where that energy was during the 1st half of their QF match). Germany has Klose, Mueller and Loew (yeah his tactics were superb against England) Brazil had their back 4 and their keeper Julio Caesar to thank them. Japan had Honda who did almost everything right in this WC.
Well I hope we see some interesting games ahead and Messi and Torres fire sooner 🙂
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