The WC concluded with Spain playing in its first cup final winning it and sending all Spanish around the world in an unending celebrations. Celebration of ending the era which marked their underachievement in big tournaments. Though they actually ended it 2 years ago with their Euro cup victory but this victory will put to rest any doubts that their detractors may possess. The best thing about their victory was that though they weren’t in top form, in terms of scoring, and still they won the tournament does show they are true champions.
On the other hand it will be disheartening for the Dutch who playing in their 3r final couldn’t win their first WC. I, always admired the Dutch for their Total Football style of play and though they didn’t play that kind of game this WC, they still played beautifully and well enough to stand a chance to win the cup. Though watching the final they looked the more rough side but that credit goes to Spain who didn’t stray away from their attractive beautifull game. I also thought that in fairness to both teams the game should have headed to penalty shootout as though the Spanish dominated them for the most time, their defense was rock solid and didn’t allow to score a goal until they were reduced to 10 men. And had Robben scored on atleast one of the 3 chances that he created just on his superior speed.
Germany and Uruguay to needs to be praised here for dishing out an exciting 3rd place play off and nearly pulling even that game into extra time. The Germans were my personal favourites and though I thought they would be the clear dominating side, Uruguay didn’t let them dominate for the whole match. Uruguayans seemed the superior side from the moment they scored the equalizer until the Germans came back with their equaliser. That goal again changed the balance and suddenly Germans started to look more of a threatening side.
The Awards
Diego Forlan had rightfully won the golden ball award, with he inspiring the Uruguayans to near glory in both the semis and the 3rd place play off. Also not to forget it was he who started the goals for Uruguay in this WC with his wonderstrike against the hosts South Africa. I would always remember 3 of his 5 goals – the one against South Africa, then against the Dutch and against the Germans. All seemed better than the other. Rising German striker Muller too deserved his golden boot award with he clinching it with his higher number of assists. Wesley Sneijder and avid Villa too provided good competition for these two for both the awards. Muller also deservedly won the best young player award with his spectacular showing throughout the tournament. Iker Casillas was undoubtedly the best keeper in the tournament and Spain undoubtedly the fairest team without posing much of a problem to the FIFA in selecting the winners. (This also brings me to acknowledge my unawareness of the fact that there was a fair play award that was quite evident form my earlier post)
The Miss
Apart from goals from some great/good players (as you may envision them) I missed Klose playing in the 3rd place playoff and surpassing Ronaldo’s record and even a chance to bag the golden boot award for 2nd successive time. Though it was a wise decision on the German camp’s part not to play half fit/unfit Klose and putting their 3rd place prize in jeopardy.
The most entertaining team
Though FIFA doesn’t award any award for the most entertaining team, I felt that their should be one. And though I won’t award any trophy or prize money tot he winner 😉 😀 I would like to share the team that I like to watched. Though I had much difficulty in picking the most entertaining team between Spain and Germany, I decided on later as their 2 games prior to their semi final defeat were more of a treat to watch than any other games in the tournament. Their defense was great and their counterattacks were lightening fast catching nearly all teams off guard.
I had promised that I would deliver the my views on this WC in a series of 3 posts but somehow I cannot control and now I am adding another post in it. So this being the 3rd post I will end up on Monday with the 4th one.
Is it Cheating
There were 2 incidents where some people could claim that the particular player cheated. The first one when Manuel Neuer just pretended that Frank Lampard’s shot didn’t cross the goal line when he knew it did and the other most debated and most talked about Luis Suarez’s version of ‘Hand of God’. There was one more but that was in the qualifiers – Henry’s handball. I can’t just get to the conclusion whether it is cheating or not but I think it is against the sporstmanship spirit. Personally I feel FIFA should punish these people because football is suffering from this dishonesty for a long time. We see diving in almost every game. This is also against the spirit in which the game should be played. Step should be taken to stop this and if its not taken now then in few years we will be seeing a lot of such incidents in future. But these steps need not be additional officials or needless replays. For me it should be something like severe punishment for players who deliberately lies or a fair pay award like thing that would encourage players to play the game fairly. I would agree this won’t have effect on all the players but I hope atleast some would improve. At the same time the players should realise that they are the role model of the society and many youngsters look forward to become like them. Such dishonesty can even have a little bad effect on our society.
Goalless Messi
Moving towards the games, the one thing that dissapointed fans was Messi went gaolless in this WC and though he played a huge part in his teams run to quarters, it was really bad to see him struggling against the Germans. The Germans like other teams also didn’t give space to him but they also didn’t give much space to his teammates, the thing that other teams failed to do.
Maradona’s Fault?
There were many reports that the reason Argentina were ousted was Maradona’s obsession with attack that led to ignorance to their defense and the Germans ousting Argentina. I cannot agree with them as it was Germany’s excellent counterattacks that caught Argentina off-guard. To neutralise the Germans it was necessary to dominate them with superior possession and get the ball back from them immediately as Spain showed the other night. I would in fact like Argentina for playing the beautiful game and not boring us with winning at all cost attitude.
The Dutch and the Spanish charge
Its really great to see that we will be seeing a new champion this time around and Dutch and the Spanish breaking the shackles this time around. The best thing about these 2 teams is that they play the beautiful game. So it would be definitely an entertaining game to watch and the midfield battle would be definitely enthralling. The Dutch showed their class against Uruguay and Spanish against Germans with both enjoying the superiority over their opponents for major part of the game in their respective semifinals. But comparitively I think Spanish are a better team and would clinch the crown. Both the teams have good attack but the Spanish defense looks better to me than the Dutch defense and that could prove decisive. For the Dutch they had an excellent high-scoring semifinals that can be confidence boosting for them to break the Spanish defense.
3rd place game
Today Uruguay and Germany will fight for the 3rd place to bid adieu to the WC on a high. Both the teams playe some excellent football throughout the tournament and it would be really great opportunity to show they weren’t the 4th best. Again comparatively my vote goes to Germans with their excellent defense and equally excellent counterattacks. But Uruguay have the long range shots that Argentina missed in their match against the Germans. Many pundits, meanwhile had said that this match is of no use but I think its an excellent opportunity for the losing semifinalists to show that they are better than the other and acts as a consolation for them 🙂
Hope to see a good final and the 3rd-4th place play off game. 🙂
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 🙂
So the World Cup is going to be week old in a matter of couple of days. The opening week seemed really cautious to me with most teams with the exception of Germany and Argentina playing cautiously not wanting to take any real big chances. Most probably they didn’t wanted to start on a losing note.
This world cup it seems we are going to see the real Messi as was evident from their first match against Nigeria. The frequent run-ins through the defense great shots and some great dribbling – all those thing that a football fan would love to see was exhibited by this wonder kid. I am just hoping he just gets better as the tournament proceeds. And watching yesterdays game between Portugal and Ivory Coast I hope it would become exciting how Ronaldo and Messi shapes up. Talking about that game I think Ronaldo wasn’t certainly at his best but he idn’t missed a trick or two. With the curling 25 metre shot just hitting the goal post Ronaldo provided the best chance of the day to break the deadlock. But I got to admit that rather than Portugal (which I would have preferred), Ivory Coast seemed to be the better side to me. The best display of the tournament so far has been from the Germans; with their 4-0 routing of Australians they just had shown the attacking game that most of us like to watch.
Coming to the defensive part, the talk of the town has been England – USA game. The Clint Dempsey goal just has been on everyone’s lips. The goal which should have been easily collected by England keeper Rob Green.I didn’t watch that game so cannot comment on that but remarks on various forums just get me think how it would have been. Just have a look at this one
Rob greens disaster against USA is Englands worse spill since BP’s in the gulf of Mexico.With the gulf disaster the more likely of the two receive another cap.
Should England go with Hart, a promising talented youngster who lacks experience ?
Or stick with David James ?
Well this one is straight from a DB of a facebook game. Just fans losing faith in players are common but losing faith over 1 mistake is something very rare and it is the case this time around. So I won’t be surprised if he is dropped from the next game but personally I feel if everyone wants him to get over it he should start even the next game and the whole team should back him. The other goalkeeper in headlines is the Nigerian goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama who kept Messi away from hitting the score sheet. Time an again he denied Messi the goal he deserved an his effort even earned him some interests from European Clubs.
The Jabulani ball has also come for some criticism this world cup with many players still could not able to judge the bounce and pace of the ball which seems to be bit more than the balls previously used. I just hope the players adjusts sooner to it and play their best game enthralling us with entertaining football. The other thing that had been uner controversy has been the vuvuzela that the African fans are using to cheer. The bees like sound that these vuvzelas make has irritated many players and fans (except African fans for sure 😉 ) many even calling to ban these things. But as the matches progresses I think everyone are getting use to it and the criticism is reducing for sure.
Last but not the least, here in India its really heartwarming to see people not interested to watch the cricket games and follow the World Cup. (Not any offense toward cricket as I love cricket too) Its really scarce that Indians doesn’t watch the cricket matches going on and watch the football games. This just left me wondering how much crazy the Indian football fans would be had Indian team been playing out there. Bhaichung and Co. please make this happen as soon as you can to let us find out this crazyness 🙂
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