The Marmot’s Hole

okay, i realise that the spain-ukraine game is already over–and commentary will follow on that a little later–and i know that commenting on last night’s three matches is a little late, but i was unexpectedly detained in the hours leading up to that ukrainian debacle. actually the following is what i wrote very early this morning on my own web site (no shameless plug of that, yet). while you read this, i’ll prepare to dissect tonight’s first game as well as spain had ukraine for dinner…

match 12: korea v. togo

i said a day or two ago that, from the beginning, back in december when the groups and fixtures were first set, that the match i’d been looking forward to the most was the angola-portugal clash. however, it dawned on me last week that THE match of the first week that i’d been anticipating the most was this one.

actually, it was weeks ago, when my togo strip arrived in the mail it actually became apparent without my realising it that this was the one match i wanted to see above all others. it was yellow, light, beautiful; such a sight to behold and i couldn’t believe i’d actually gotten my hands on one. the only thing that tempered my excitement was the knowledge that the money i’d spent on it hadn’t gone toward buying a new television for some poor togolese village so they could watch their team do their nation proud.

now, before i get a flood of angry emails from dumbasses saying i’m very anti-korean, let me just set the record straight: i’ve lived in this country for six years, i speak the language, the most beautiful woman in the world is korean, i cheered madly for korea in the ‘02 world cup, i cheered heartily for korean footie as recently as last summer (though i’ll never cheer for these myopians in baseball or short track), and have a large number of friends and “family” who happen to be korean.

and if you think i’m anti-korean, just get me started on americans or chinese…

anyway, my beef with korean football stems from these sources:

1) the celebration by korean players in the ‘02 cup during their match with the u.s. of their only goal of the game, a speed-skating mimicking as a tribute to the fallen korean speedskater who’d lost out on the gold to an american when the korean–who actually crossed the finish line first–got disqualified for some indiscretion or another. this set the entire country into paroxyms of anti-americanism and culminated in the footie celebration. all respect for koreans was mostly trashed at this spectacle.

2) last year’s sacking of jo bonfrere, the previous korean coach. while he was not the brightest gaffer in international footie history, he was treated unfairly by the KFA and the legions of over-demanding “red devil” netizens who were calling for his head. when he was sacked, it was at this point that i swore not to cheer for korea at any time in the forseeable future.

3) koreans’ complete unawareness that africa isn’t a single country, their sense of entitlement regarding their expectations of korea in the world cup (simply on the strength of a run to the semifinals four years ago–on home soil, at that), and their total lack of respect for togo in the runup to the match. some of the predictions on the outcome of this match i’d heard from koreans were outlandish and uninformed. when the korean TOEIC teacher who works for me at my school asked me why i was cheering for togo, i countered with the same question about why he was cheering for korea. he couldn’t even give a reason as to why he was cheering for korea, just that korea was good. when i asked him if he cheered for brasil, he said no. when i asked why, since they were the world’s best team, he just gave me that dumbass smile i see so often. he just couldn’t admit that he’s a patriotic git and that he was simply cheering for korea because he was korean. i may not like such reasoning–patriotism so often being as close to racism as one can get–but at least it’s honest. however, such wif-waffling (is that a word?) just gets my blood boiling.

so, i found myself on the eve of this match as nervous about the outcome as any other match i’d seen to date. i proudly wore my togo strip, though the ignorance of koreans didn’t fail to surprise when so many either ignored the strip because they didn’t know it was togo or they mistook it for being a brasil strip. i can guarantee you that in a REAL footballing nation, one that is aware that there are other countries participating in the tournament, not just their own, i would have been harassed incessantly, as i would have expected to.

anyway, the match itself: it was evident from the outset that togo were not outclassed, as so many in korea and around the world thought they would be. in fact, for much of the first half-hour, togo were not only not outclassed, it could be argued that they were more than marginally the better team. korea’s backline was (is) shaky, but the team is fortunate to have protecting the goal one of the better, more underrated keepers in the tournament in woo-jae lee. were it not for lee, korea might already have been down a goal in the first half hour. as it was, they did go down a goal in the 31st minute on a superbly-taken goal by togo’s mohamed kader when he got behind the korean defense and delivered a cool finish.

the silence in the bar where i was watching was golden as my buddy, carlos, and i were the only two celebrating the 0-1 korean deficit. whilst the bar was silent, the match heated up in the ensuing moments, as korea sought to level but kept wasting chances that could have been golden opportunities. it seems that other than korea’s backline shakiness, korea’s biggest problem is finishing. instead of well-placed shots that have precision, too many times, the korean players try to blast the ball, which invariably end of looking like a rugby kick. several times, the koreans had a chance to take a good goal to level the match only for the ball to end up in the upper tier of the stadium.

furthermore, korea were lucky not to be down at the break, 0-3, because of two excellent saves from goalkeeper lee in the final ten minutes of the first half.

halftime was a rather muted affair in the bar, as it wasn’t apparent who had been to the world cup six times consecutively and who were the world cup debutantes.

the 2nd half saw dick advocaat, korea’s coach, substitute jung-hwan ahn for jin-kyu lee, a move that elicited cheers from koreans the world over, i’m sure. at that point, i was also cheering because i thought it assured togo of victory. (see, i have a different viewpoint on the beautifully-tressed ahn). i, unlike koreans, and like the majority of people who actually understand footie, think ahn is shit. i don’t rate him for anything other than a pretty-boy player with a fancy hairdo. he is poor at ball control, he has no work ethic, he doesn’t realise that he has teammates, he never fails to eschew the easy shot for a flashier one, and he rarely hits more than the netting 30 yards behind the box. however, in a country that values outward appearance more than inward conviction, he is well-loved; in a country that knows nowt about footie, they love the flashy goal more than the simple one because it’s not widely understood that each goal, regardless of how it crosses the goal line, counts the same number of points (1); in a country where everyone watching, including the shamelessly homeristic play-by-play TV announcers, yells, “shoooooot!” once the midfield line is breached, ahn is the poster boy for shooting from anywhere on the pitch. admittedly, however, he is so popular here in korea, despite his lack of quality, because he has a penchant for scoring big goals–as he did on occasion in ‘02 during their run to the semifinals. his attention-drawing goals have usually been late in matches, to draw the game level or to give the koreans the lead, and he’s well-known for his heading goals, mostly, i guess, as a result of his flowing locks that give his head a wingspan of the size normally reserved for birds of prey.

so, when he was introduced, we all thought it was game, set, match–though for whom, carlos and i disagreed momentously from the majority watching. and, boy, oh, boy was one of us ever so wrong…

korea didn’t start the 2nd half looking any better than it had looked at any time in the first half. errant passes, poor work rate, lack of focus on or respect for togo, and general shitty play were the norm. granted, to be fair, togo didn’t look much better, but they were leading and were content to continue letting korea make mistakes.

then, it happened–lightning struck.

ji-sung park, perhaps the only korean player who was consistently good to that point, flashed like a jaguar toward the togo box only to be brought down cynically from a clumsy challenge by togo’s jean-paul abalo. it earned a well-deserved booking from the ref–and more. as it was abalo’s 2nd bookable offense in the match, he was shown his walking papers and for the remainder of the match–nearly 40 minutes–togo were relegated to ten men. to add to abalo’s indiscretion, he committed the foul just outside his own box, thus giving korea a free kick and a glorious chance to level the game.

up stepped chun-soo lee, who, up that point, had been as effective as treating AIDS with chocolate would be. he occasionally takes free kicks well, and this one was in a peach of a spot. he took this one beautifully and the ensuing kick was curved just so and found a nestling cradle in back of the net and just like that, korea were level, 1-1. the momentum had turned and all of korea was alight with palpatations of delight.

being up a man, korea began to force the issue and press the togolese. to togo’s credit, they battled gamely and, as the game wore on, it didn’t always look like togo were down a man. true, korea were now dominating possession, but they were having a hard time actually stamping their authority on the match.

the boys from the tiny african nation kept the taeguk warriors at bay for a good twenty minutes before the unthinkable happened: the aforementioned panty-waisted ahn stunned us all with the most sublime goal of his career, this time taken with his foot and launched without any flash or panache, just deftly lifted from the right corner of the togo box over a defender and then the keeper to settle softly in left back side of the netting. it was a goal of top-drawer quality and one to which i’d be inclined to give more praise had it come from another korean, say, ji-sung park, chu-young park, or jae-jin cho.

be that as it may, it truly was top-shelf and korea found themselves on the top side of the score, 2-1. the last fifteen minutes saw korean run the togolese around the pitch, but the west africans never quit and were still battling with fervour and effort to the very end. they never really looked threatening to score the levelling goal and the game wore down to a halt with the scoreline unchanged. finally, this korean team had done what no other korean footie squad had ever done: they had won a world cup match on a pitch not located on this peninsula. it was a heartbreaking defeat for the togolese, who should have won a lot of admirers for their spirit and determination in the face of being a man down for so long.

paradoxically, the koreans the world over were killing themselves in celebratory ecstacy, which i found odd, given how little respect they seemed to show togo in the runup to the start of the match. if you don’t fancy your opponents to be very strong, why celebrate a struggling victory over them–when they were a man down for nearly half the match–as if you’ve just beaten brasil? anyway, korea 2-1 togo.

match 13: france v. switzerland

one of the gripes about koreans from expats here is how blatantly patriotic and nationalistic koreans can be. one would have thought that in the euphoria of the win over togo that koreans would have stuck around to watch the other two teams in their group square off so that an assessment of korea’s next two opponents could be made. yet, when this match kicked off, an hour later, the theretofore-fully-packed bar was nearly deserted, save for our table of expats (and two koreans–one my wife and the other one of my best friends) and a foursome of korean guys who understood the implications of this french-swiss tete-a-tete.

this was one of those matches that, when the fixtures were first released, made anyone not french or swiss yawn with boredom. however, there were two subplots to this match: one boring and one just-less-than-scintillating.

the boring one was this: france and switzerland had been in the same group in the european qualifying for the world cup, had already played twice in the past year or so, and had each time played out two draws. was there any reason for this one not to be a draw, either?

the other subplot was this: france had scored exactly zero goals in this century’s world cup matches, having gone three-and-scoreless in ‘02. in fact, they hadn’t scored since late in their championship game demolition of brasil back in ‘98. would the french ever score another world cup goal? the oh-so-obvious predictions for this game all centered around–surprise!–a scoreless draw.

at our table in the pub, before this kickoff, there was a lot of ruminating as to whom to cheer for. carlos chose france because he hates the swiss even more than he hates the french; papa geno chose the french because he, too, detests the swiss; my wife and penny chose switzerland, though penny changed when she realised that a france win would help korea more; lee chose france, i think, because he’s canadian; my buddy, kyung-dong chose france because it would help korea; alexis chose france because she, too, is canadian.

as for me, i don’t like either team (though france does have the greatest national anthem on the planet) and only chose switzerland because they were wearing kits designed by puma. dumbass reason, but no less dumbass than any other reason, though in all reality, i was in agreement with carlos that the only real side to pull for here was the u.s. military, in hopes that they would just invade both countries and rid the world of these two nations.

this posting has begun to last as long as an american war in a third-world country, so i’ll make the rest short: both teams were evenly matched, both teams had very fair chances to score throughout the match, both teams had spells of unseemly play, and both teams had spells of sparkling play.

in the end, though, it was just what even a pile of broken bottles could have foreseen: a scoreless draw that left korea top of the table after one match.

oh, and france’s world cup goal drought is now at something like 356 minutes… nice going, les bleus…

match 14: brasil v. croatia

this was a match that everyone expected the brasilians to dominate, though croatia’s style is always one that gives the 5-time champs problems: rugged and diligent. not to mention croatia’s checkerboard strips always make it hard to watch–not because they’re necessary unsightly, but because, well, the checkerboards are moving and trying to follow the players running around on the pitch (especially against a team wearing yellow strips) is like trying to follow each gnat in a swarm around your head: it gives you a migraine.

brasil will be happy to have bagged the three points (from a–there’s that word again–sublime goal by kaka) and croatia will feel aggrieved not to have nicked at least a point from this. croatia had more than its fair share of chances. they exposed some cracks in the brasilian defense that should have been exploited more than they were. of course, the brasilians of ronaldhino and kaka were brilliant at times and should have had more than one tally.

if the champs don’t raise their game for oz this weekend, the aussies might pull the shock of a lifetime. and from the looks of this match, croatia and oz will have everything to play for when they get together in the last match from this group late next week. that is, if japan don’t have anything to say about it first. things i want to avoid today: listening to koreans’ bragging about how great their team is; reading any more news about ronaldo’s bulging waistline and lack of fitness; watching france and switzerland play at any time in the next 50 years; going to a pub to watch today’s footie…

things i hope to see today: tunisia break africa’s duck by beating saudi arabia; spain fall on their ass, yet again; shevchenko score a brace for ukraine; germany continue to play nice-looking football; my wife, who so wonderfully endures my 365-day-a-year obsession with football that actually gets more intense during world cup years.