last night was, seemingly, the first time in two weeks that there was little or no refereeing controversy in either of the matches, although there was another red card in the brasil-ghana match and a blatant offside missed on brasil’s second goal. finally, the focus in the aftermath is on the footie, not the decisions of the officials.
in brasil v. ghana, ronaldo sprung an offside trap to get 1-on-1 with the ghana ‘keeper, performed an act of magic to dance around said ‘keeper, and cooly buried his 15th goal in world cup competition, putting him all alone in first place for world cup goals scored.
congratulations, ronnie. for all the talk of ronaldo’s weight, his footwork still looks slick and he looks to be rounding into form, bad news for any opponents left in brasil’s path.
ghana certainly didn’t look overmatched on this night–the 3-0 scoreline is very harsh on the black stars–but, just as with cote d’ivoire in their group matches, ghana lacked the finishing class that separates the elite countries from everyone else. time and again, ghana opened huge holes in the brasilian defense, but, all too often, bad touches on passes, or bad control of passes, or taking too much time in the brasil box that allowed the defense time to recover, or bad decisions, or bad luck all conspired to leave the west africans empty-handed.
you knew it wasn’t going to be ghana’s night when their own john mensa, from point-blank range, headed a corner kick down to the turf and seemingly into goal for an equaliser, only to have the ball, shockingly, hit the brasil keeper’s shin and bounce away from the goal. it wasn’t until after it hit his own knee that ‘keeper dida even saw the ball.
still, the ghanaians did their nation, and their continent, proud and have a lot to look forward to in south africa 2010.
in the other fixture, matching european neighbours, spain and france, the spaniards had a great chance to try and begin ending the constant underachieving label that they seem to wear on their strips at every international tournament. so many “experts” seemed certain that this was the year for spain to shed its “choke” cloak. they had so many fine, young stars, they had romped through their group–even while playing a team of second-stringers in their final group fixture with saudi arabia–they had played with class and quality, and they were playing an ageing france team that had struggled to get out of the group stages. it was all set up for the spaniards to…
…do their usual. not content with dominating the first half and having a handful of chances, and having only one goal to show for it, they, just before the break, handed the french a lifeline and allowed france to level.
a 1-1 score at the break was not a reflection of first half events, yet it seemed typical for the spaniards. in a second half that would seem to have favoured the younger iberians, it was the french who seemed better suited to take honours and, so it was when patrick vieira headed les bleus in front seven minutes from time. zinedine zidane added confirmation in injury time and the resilient french went out as winners, 1-3.
perhaps next time for the spaniards, say, euro ‘08, for all the “experts” out there who keep saying that “this” is spain’s year?
now the quarterfinals are set and three of the four are rematches of some repute from the last decade or two (all times are korean):
11:59pm, friday–germany v. argentina: five stars combined on the two strips to represent the five world cups won between the two. a rematch of the ‘86 and ‘90 finals, with each nation winning once. arguably the two most consistently impressive teams of this year’s competition. fun, fun, fun, especially for a neutral.
4:00am, saturday–italy v. ukraine: a lack of sexy history between these two does not necessarily mean a boring, ugly affair. wait, it’s a match involving italy; yes, it does mean ugly. and it’s a match involving the ugliest kits left in the whole affair, ukraine’s pinwheel-like monstrosities. yep, this one will be ugly.
11:59pm, saturday–england v. portugal: a rematch of the euro ‘04 quarterfinal that saw a winning england goal late in regulation wrongfully disallowed. a match involving the ill-tempered teams, most especially, in recent years, portugal. england have thus far avoided any tussles with the refs or the opposing teams; with a stormy rematch with payback written all over it, look for this continued english avoidance of controversy to end.
4:00am, sunday–brasil v. france: a rematch of the ‘98 world cup final, won by les bleus. the spectacle of carefree, half-naked, and willing brasil fans v. snobby, half-naked, and haughty french fans. these two nations are beginning to play the football we expected, or hoped, they would play. a veritable feast of football talent will blanket the pitch, even if it some of it is ageing or out of shape.
as much as i usually like to see some wild cards or underdogs in the quarterfinals, even i’m impressed with the loaded quality of these quarterfinal fixtures. personally, i like the england-portugal matchup because of the very test euro ‘04 match and the possibility of over-the-edge footie, but, from a pure footballing standpoint, i’ve got to go with the glamour germany-argentina fixture because of the potential for some cracking football.
what are your thoughts?
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17 Comments
Ronaldo’s 1st goal was fantastic. The 3rd Brazil goal was cool, too. Beautiful.
Zidane had a nice goal against Spain in the end.
The Spanish looked pretty happy losing to the French. Zidane looked pretty happy, too.
Zidane only gets angry when he ties with a supposedly automatic win opponent like, say South Korea.
Europeans only bitch about the refs when they lose to non Europe or Latin teams. They do plenty of cheating and get ref calls themselves.
I don’t think Korea was helped by refs as much as some people think. Off sides is off sides, foul is foul, red card is red card. Only people discontent with Koreans from some other issue get fanatic about it.
As a Brasilian, my thoughts should be: “We MUST beat France and get the revenge from 98!” “Germany MUST beat Argentina!”
But as a sweet patient girl that I also am, my thoughts are: Let win the best on the field, in all matches.
Which will be Brazil, I hope.
PS: I have to say that dissidentdave is doing a fantastic job as world cup analyst here. You should be proud of your posts, they go straight to the point in many issues only known by soccer fanatics. Very well done.
I can’t help but feel the if had Korea suffered the same injustice Australia has suffered the refereeing would be a marked man and the KFA would officially declare war on Fifa by starting a rebel international organisation with big chaebol bucks. However, I will say, as an Aussie, that we didn’t score the goal that was needed to prevent our defeat. That is the fickle nature of the game and perhaps the reason why it plays bridesmaid to Rugby, League and AFL at home. Yeah, it hurts like hell that one awful decision could immediately terminate our cup. But many positives came out of our cup. We will be looking to win the Asian cup on debut and be top 20 ranked nation (not that the these rankings have much more cred than the refs). I too am glad the refereeing didn’t affect last nights results. I hope we can continue to say this about the quarters thru to the final. Let’s hope the players make the headlines form here on in.
Enjoy.
D’accord with your assessment of the Itlay-Ukraine match, Dave. Boring Italian Catenaccio against Ukranian robotic football and in the end Italy winning 1:0 - what could be more ugly?
Naturally, I want to see my German friends winning the match against Argentina. This could become a hot dance between a disciplined German team machinery and the geniality of Argentinian ball artists. But I want Germany to qualify for the semi-final and than reaping the 4th star for my Krauts!
Per aspera ad astra!
thank you, lucia, for your kind comments. i just wish my linguistic talents went so far as portuguese so i could understand your blog site.
*sigh* so many languages, so many countries, so little time to see them all if one continues to stay in one country…
sugar, i like ukraine, whom i picked before the start of the world cup to make the semifinals, but a match against italy pales in comparison to the other three quarterfinal fixtures. not that i wanted ukraine to lose to the swiss, but an italy-switzerland matchup would have at least pitted neighbours slugging it out.
What’s up with team France? Was it same squad that struggled in first round?
Wow. Allez Allez Les Bleus!
Could Les Bleus still crush the absolute power of Brazilian squad?
I personally want to see Argentina/England in the final, and to have that game turn on a controversial call. I’m sure the outburst of nationalistic soccer frenzy either nation can produce would put Korea to shame.
But that’s probably not to be. I still like Argentina more than Germany, but could really care less for most of the other teams, since the teams I was actually rooting for went out already.
“a rematch of the euro ‘04 quarterfinal that saw a winning england goal late in regulation wrongfully disallowed.”
So, charging the goalkeeper inside the goalkeepers area wasn’t a foul? FIFA must have changed the rules since then.
Yup. Slow starters. Spain’s only goal was a dubious penalty kick, but hey! that’s part of the game
I’m happy Vieira could score a goal similar to the one he scored against Korea. This time, no bad call possible…
Experience over youthful frenzy, baby… Whether it’ll be enough to retire the Brazilian team early is doubtful. Judging from France’s last two games, a second title is possible, if not probable.
As opposed to…? Koreans bitching all the time?
Fantastic batch of games coming up, and one good thing about being a Korea fan is that by the time the knockout stages arrive one’s usually free to root for whichever one of the major powers one feels like….
1) I’m pulling for England primarily, being an EPL fan and a huge fan of the likes of Stevie G, Lampard, heck even Becks. They’ve got loads of talent and may even be better than Brazil on paper.
2) Then again, Zidane’s the classiest player of his generation, and if he and the rest of his geriatric frog teammates continue to up their games gracefully, peaking at the very moment most youthful squads are totally spent after having run their brains out, well….I wouldn’t mind seeing another trophy go to Les Golden Boys of ‘98. They’d uh, have to beat Brazil first of course. But who knows? Brazil still isn’t looking very sharp up front, and their defense–usually the best in the world, or 2d depending on where Italy’s is at–really isn’t looking too airtight. Maybe les vieux bleus have it in them to pull of an upset for the history books?
I’d like to see England pull through, if for no other reason than not to be disappointed by them yet again. Collectively, they never seem to be able to live up to their individual abilities.
I am really looking forward to the Germany-Argentina game for the reasons mentioned above, but also because I’ve been a fan of the DFB for decades and can remember watching Beckenbauer on the field.
Go Ukraine! Or any other team playing Italy. The Italians are great ball players that demean their abilities by all the cheap shots they take and all the acting they do on the field. It gets even worse in Serie A matches. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll stick with the Bundesliga.
I think the Brazil-France game is going to be exciting, if France decides to play as well as they did yesterday. In the end, I don’t want to see Brazil get a sixth star, especially at the expense of the Germans, but until then, I’ll enjoy watching them play.
Dave, I second Lucia’s comments. I’ve really enjoyed your World Cup commentary.
Why do people always say Zidane is classy? I’d like to like him, but I remember him maliciously stomping a Saudi player in ‘98 and being suspended for a couple of games. He is a great player and the way he handles the ball amazes me. However, it’s hard to call him classy when he has such a big black mark on his record.
I second wjk that the first and third Brazilian goals were nothing short of art. How those guys can carry the ball, effortlessly skip around the goalie, then pick up the ball again like the goalie wasn’t even there and make the unopposed straight-on shot like that…wow.
It’s sheer delight watching Brazil, unless you’re supporting the opposing team. And the crowd has to have been even louder than any Korean crowd I’ve seen!
As for France, like JiMong said, what happened? Where were they in Round 1? If they were going to beat Korea anyhow, I would much rather have seen some more spellbinding spectacle from them like we saw yesterday.
Germany vs Argentina should be good, solid football. Hopefully we can see another goal from Maxi Rodriguez like his last one against Mexico.
Italy vs Ukraine: a bunch of primadonnas versus some pretty solid shooters (as seen in the penalty-kick shootout with Switzerland). Will Ukraine get undone by some strategic Italian diving?
England vs Portugal: could get ugly, eh? Can Beckham score on another penalty shot?
Brazil vs France: well, we saw stunning goals yesterday not only from Ronaldo and Ze Roberto, but also Zidane. I think of all 4 match-ups, this will be the most promising for some more classic moments.
Well, what do I know? I’ll admit I’m new to the whole football fandom thing, and yes, I’ll admit I only started following the World Cup in ‘02 because of Korea, but damn, I’m hooked now! Geez, two more weeks, then we have to wait 3 years and 11 months till the next fix….
Zonath wrote:
“I personally want to see Argentina/England in the final, and to have that game turn on a controversial call. I’m sure the outburst of nationalistic soccer frenzy either nation can produce would put Korea to shame.”
Man, that’s just sadistic!
D’oh! I wrote:
“If [France] were going to beat Korea anyhow, I would much rather have seen some more spellbinding spectacle from them like we saw yesterday.”
It was a draw, not a win/loss! I meant, as long as Korea was destined not go on to the next round, I would have liked to have seen some more entertaining play from the team that would go on to the next round.