the following have now become official, if they hadn’t been already:
- when it comes to predicting this world cup, i suck like a contestant at the world cup of fellatio.
- wayne rooney can be suckered into putting a huge dent in his team’s chances to win.
- cristiano ronaldo is such a pretty-boy, pansy-assed, gutless wanker drama queen that i can’t even finish…
- i will not watch a world cup final between italy and portugal, the first world cup final, should it happen, that i will have missed since ‘78, when i was too young to know better
- brasil’s back line is suspect
- zinedine zidane is good
- england’s penalty kick skills are not good
- fifa’s selection process for officials in this world cup needs to revamped
i hope none of you readers has been harmed by my disastrous predictions for the bulk of this world cup. though i set a record in going 0-for-the-quaterfinals, i think i qualified my picks from yesterday with this very sentence: “…don’t believe anything I say. I chose Argentina and Ukraine in last night’s matches…”
brasil 0-1 france:
how wrong was i about france’s fitness and the ability of their old guys to play like ‘98?
my god, zidane was heroically superhuman last night for france. it must be his new gold boots or something because he’s been given a tonic of youth. he looked 25 years old last night–spry, lively, and as difficult for brasil to handle as a provoked viper. if i weren’t so bad at predicting, my money would be on france to fetch their second star now because of how resurgently young they look. apparently, that second half against spain in the round of 16 was no fluke.
together with zidane, thierry henry and franck ribery tortured brasil all night long. robert carlos and cafu at the back for brasil were made to look the fools and, on france’s goal, brasil’s marking was abysmal. two things stick out in my mind from zidane’s free kick that henry buried in the 57th minute:
- how, on that kick, do six frenchmen end up in brasil’s box against only three (3!!) defenders?
- how do brasil leave the most dangerous of those six frenchmen, henry, COMPLETELY UNMARKED??!?!
france’s strong midfield play strangled the sputtering brasil attack and les bleus’s shutdown defense never gave much space to brasil’s men upfront. france truly have brasil’s number and looked more brasil than did the south americans. france ran out an impressive and well-deserved win.
england 0-0 portugal (portugal win PSO, 2-4):
as for this one, what is there to say? to be honest, portugal are shit and make me sick. they are completely undeserving semifinalists. in the first hour, before wayne rooney’s sending off, portugal rarely looked threatening. it seemed that they really did miss deco and costinha in the middle. england were better in the first hour, but, as was their wont in this competition, they couldn’t take advantage.
david beckham re-suffered an injury to his right leg just six minutes after the restart and was benched, tearfully, and replaced by the ever-so-much-more effective aaron lennon. england were the much more dangerous team after this (un)lucky subsitution.
and, then, dodgy officiating and a foul scouser temper changed the day.
that rooney was sent off was mindboggling. he may have stamped on carvalho’s figs, but it was not as blatant as i’ve seen other unpunished acts go. then, he may have pushed cristiano ronaldo in the chest, but neither, taken separately, warranted an expulsion and, even when taken together, only warranted a caution, at the most. what i don’t understand is how, in the action that led to the push and the stamp, rooney was called for the foul to begin with. he was being wrestled to the ground by two defenders, yet was forced to conceded the foul.
and while rooney’s sending off was diabolical, so, too, was ronaldo’s wink at his coach after the expulsion: proud, obnoxious, a smug look of pleasure on his face. rooney deserves blame for letting ronaldo get under his skin, but neither he nor the ref is to blame for england’s loss; england are to blame.
i feel portugal are unworthy semifinalists at this 2006 european championships world cup for this reason: they were still the inferior team after rooney’s sending off. they had no creativity, no character, no determination; they seemed content to get it to penalty kicks, where it’s a well-known fact that england are shambolic.
this is why the blame for the loss cannot be pinned on the ref or on rooney for being daft: england were, by far, the better side when they were a man down. lennon was fantastic, crouch was impressive with his ball-handling and efforts to help on defense, and owen hargreaves–england’s man of the tournament–was otherworldly in his play, his effort, his passion; in short, he would gladly have given his life for the england cause.
in the end, england didn’t deserve to win because, even with all of their chances, they were unable to make them count. portugal were so poor that they had very few chances, but they made count what they needed to make count: successfully converting penalties in the shootout.
so, the world cup semifinals resemble more of a european championships semifinal: germany v. italy in semifinal I and portugal v. france in semifinal II. check back later for those previews…
18 Comments
“that rooney was sent off was mindboggling. he may have stamped on carvalho’s figs, but it was not as blatant as i’ve seen other unpunished acts go. ”
Just because other more blatant acts may have gone unpunished doesn’t mean this one should have. Violent conduct=expulsion. The referee was 100% correct. But, is Ronaldo a prick? You betcha ya.
PS: Portugal really did play like shit. But England? Weren’t much better. Even when they were with 11 they weren’t able to create that many dangerous chances. In the end the luckier side (and the one with the most inspired goalkeeper) won it. Though luck England, see you in 2010.
“creativity, no character, no determination; they seemed content to get it to penalty kicks”
oh, and i have to disagree with you here too. Character and determination? They had plenty. That’s why they were on the attack for close to one hour. Creativity? ZERO. Without Figo and Deco and with the worthless Postiga in the field, that’s just how it is.
Perhaps under McLaren, the lads will practice PKs a little more diligently. Of course it’s a nerve-racking situation for anyone, but the English players were so ridiculously tight that it was inevitable they would lose. Did you see Lampard’s face? Gerrard’s? These guys weren’t shooting to win, but shooting *not* to lose. (And Carragher… uh, wait for the whistle? Have you shot a penalty before?) Even their one conversion, from Hargreaves, was pussy-footed into the net. At least Becks wasn’t around to sky it over.
Rooney’s sending-off seemed harsh to me as well—where else was his foot to go? It wasn’t a violent stamping motion, more of a “step,” which would’ve been innocuous had it not been directly on Carvalho’s family jewels. And if Rooney was sent off for pushing Crissy Ronaldo, then that’s truly a shame.
I will certainly root for France over Portugal, who I despise… Figo’s arrogance, Ronaldo’s floppiness, and Mourinho’s fingerprints (Tiago, Deco, Maniche, etc.).
And on another note… who said Henry never scores in big games?
Also… dime to a dollar that C. Ronaldo plays in the Bernabeu next season. His EPL days are over.
I am sure a regular
commenterpolluter will tell us that the French team had bought thereferee, er… Braziliancoach, er…team, er… whatever.France will now avenge England – at least you can see it this way
– and send the bacalhau eaters packing. 
C. Ronaldo doesn’t deserve to go to the finals. Nor does Rooney, but this part has already been taken care of… Gonna be a lot of disappointed people in my town – lotsa Brits and Portuguese here…
I want Germany vs France in the finals with Germany winning. In the 3rd place game, I want to take an upset, I pick Portugal to beat Italy.
Dave,
I actually thought both Roberto Carlos and Cafu looked pretty bad in 2002 as well–they had no mobility even back then. So I can’t for the life of me understand why Parreira continued to start them, even after it was demonstrated in the group stage that Brazil is more dangerous without them.
If anything good comes out of this, I hope it’s the reverse of what resulted from Brazil’s defeat in 1982. Brazil became disillusioned with fancy ball after the scintillating, Zico-led team lost to a more pedestrian and opportunistic Italian side. I hope Brazil now becomes disillusioned with boring ball and return to its stylistic roots.
If it is portugal vs italy in the final then it won’t be football it will be a diving championship.
BTW with regard to Wayne, Becks and co, I think this sums it all up beautifully
World Cup Commentator Apologizes for Biased Comments
2006-06-28 08:58:38 Xinhua
Chinese soccer commentator Huang Jianxiang apologized on Tuesday to TV viewers for his biased comments in World Cup game between Italy and Australia.
http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/28.....107643.htm
“1. how, on that kick, do six frenchmen end up in brasil’s box against only three (3!!) defenders?
2. how do brasil leave the most dangerous of those six frenchmen, henry, COMPLETELY UNMARKED??!?!”
Answering your questions:
1. Bad strategy. Parreira showed us he can be the worst coach ever. He’s been slauhgtered in the Brazilian press right now, and has nothing to redeem. Parreira is over.
2. Because one of the men chose to mark Henry (Roberto Carlos) was allegedly arranging his socks (!!!!!!!!!!) while Zidane was kicking. That’s what RC said to the press, believe it or not. Isn’t it amazing the absence of professionalism of these guys?
Dda, unfortunately for your conspiracy theory, the Brazilians at this time are not blaming anyone else except the bad soccer and the bad coach they had. The whole media in Brazil is fingerpointing all the mistakes the players and Parreira, everybody knows how great Zidane is right now, nobody thinks the ref or FIFA or whatever was responsible, and we definitely know the soccer we played this World Cup was ridiculous counting we allegedly had “the best players on Earth”. These players should swallow their arrogance and learn to play as a team, not as Nike individuals.
Dissidentdave, I wish you could read portuguese… There are amazing articles on Brazilian press analysing all these dream-not-come-true story with lots of example of bad management of the team. Parreira should be ashamed of such a bad job.
And one more thing: for real soccer fanatics (including me) World Cup is not over despite the loss of my hearty team…
Deutschland uber alles!
Lucia,
Great hear from an actual Brazilian fan.
I do wonder, however, if the Brazilian team was a tad bit over-rated in the first place.
To paraphrase what Marco Van Basten said in a different context, Brazil seemed to have “great names,” not “great players,” this time around. I grant that Ronaldinho is great and in his prime. Perhaps Kaka as well. But Ronaldo is clearly past his prime and perhaps way past his prime. Cafu and Roberto Carlos–neither of whom I thought that great even in their primes–couldn’t have started for any elite team in their current senescence.
So I don’t see how this team was so heavily favored to begin with. And I certainly think it is lunatic to compare this team in talent to the ‘82 team that had Zico, Falcao, and Socrates (sure, they didn’t have a scintillating striker, but neither did this team!).
So while it is easy to blame Parreira, how talented was this Brazilian squad?
And perhaps more important, what is the future of Brazilian soccer? It seems to me that the Argentines and the Spaniards have the superior young talent as far as 2010 and beyond is concerned. Or is there someone down the pipe that we don’t know about of a Messi-type of quality in Brazil?
Lucia,
By the way, I don’t think Dda was implying that the Brazilians are prone to making lame, Korea-like excuses after losing football games. He was probably referring to our infamous commentor: “Baduk” and his penchant for outlandish conspiracy theories.
Won Joon Choe, glad to hear your perspective - it goes exactly as mine from the beggining. I think if we had great names that effectively TRAINED for the World Cup, we could have done better. The press is blaming Parreira because he thought having “great names” equals having “great team” or “great players” (which is not true), so he waived the team of training seriously together. It’s like a concert: you don’t put an oboe to play with a flute on different scales unless you practice that very well and with a clear purpose on the theme. And who is responsible to feel this? The conductor. Parreira was the conductor of the team, but he didn’t feel the absence of groove.
But I should also say that all the blame now on Parreira goes back to politics inside CBF (the brazilian soccer association). There’s more under the rug than the international midia is actually showing. Brazilians are fed up with Parreira for a long time and the world cup loss (at least I feel) is now the chance we have to be heard: we don’t want him anymore as a coach.
But who knows about the future…? Brazil is always Brazil, the last-minute great-player showing-up kingdom. Maybe the next one is just around the corner playing in some tiny soccer field in the countryside, waiting to be discovered.
http://english.donga.com/srv/s.....6070339238
This takes my prize for worst football news article ever. Even read in Korean it is really bad. I mean 11 metres and 9 yards is very different. Perhaps if the shoot outs (or shoots as is translated in said article) were taken from the 18 yard line the expectation on strikers to score would be less and the skill would be more of a factor for both keeper and striker.
Also, I’d like to get some opinion on the past idea of increasing the size of goalpost by the diameter of ball in width and height. Therefore any shot that hit the post would resultingly end up in the net. There be less propensity for referees to ‘decide’ matches and the skill of the goalkeeper would become more criticl.
Oh God, that article was not articulated in any way!! Terrible…”The soccer ball is a living organism that moves endlessly.”
Rooney’s red card seemed legitimate to me for this reason. I think he would have gotten a yellow for the ’stamp’, because really, that hurts! and his second yellow probably came from shoving C.Ronaldo.(I’m not a referee but thats just my opinion)
England played well, with 10 men too, they did a good job countering the Portuguese unfortunately without Rooney they can’t seem to get someone to score. They definitely deserved to win.
Give credit to Ricardo for 3 saves, absolutely brilliant! I’m a long time Portuguese supporter, so that was a thrilling game for me!
Forca Portugal!
Yeah, but then you’d just have shots that (now) inch over the bars hitting the bars after the change, and further calls to enlarge the goal. So rather than enlarging the goal, we should just have a goal ‘zone’, where if the ball comes anywhere into the zone, it will be considered a score. And we should also allow the players to pick up and carry the ball…
Naww… I say leave it like it is. Sure, lots of balls hit the posts, but that will happen no matter how large you make the goals.
That’s what are for, after all