The 2006 World Cup is down to four nations and three meaningful fixtures left (I refuse to count the abhorrently meaningless “3rd-place” match that’s played the night before the final; can anyone honestly remember ANY of the 3rd-place finishers from the past 20 years? Does anyone really care about this meaningless match? It’s just an excuse for FIFA to gouge the paying public an additional time).
It’s been an entertaining overall competition, to say the least, but one in which the officials and abysmal quality of refereeing have stolen too much of the spotlight. FIFA need to overhaul their precepts regarding what the officials deem booking and expulsion offences. The fact that nearly 350 cautions and almost 30 expulsions have been meted out is madness. The focus by FIFA on cleaning up the game has resulted in their missing the point and in interrupting the flow of the game.
Eliminate diving, flopping, players begging the officials or linesmen for red/yellow cards, grabbing one’s face in agony when it was the stomach that was hit, rolling around on the pitch like a drunken pirate on a ship listing in a typhoon, and other pussyfoot indiscretions and we might be getting somewhere.
When players such as Thierry Henry and Gary Neville–neither of whom have a history of such antics; Henry’s constant look of haughty indignation when flagged for offside or a foul are not antics to which I’m referring–start insinuating that they’ll have to begin resorting to licentious tactics in order to level a playing field full of thespians, it’s time for FIFA to get its collective head out of its collective arse and become aware of the game’s current course.
Anyway, on to the remaining matches…
Semifinal I: Germany v. Italy (4:00a, Wednesday morning, Korea)
Many of my friends who are German, or who have lived in Germany, or who drink Beck’s or St. Pauli’s Girl or Jaegermeister, or who just plain like German footie have been begging me since last weekend’s quarterfinals finished not to predict a German victory for fear I will hex the red, gold, and black.
Okay. I get it. I won’t.
However, even in the spirit of cooperation and good taste, I still can’t bring myself to type or utter the unthinkable: that a certain squad that wears not a kit resembling any part of its national flag will advance past the hosts and into next Monday morning’s (Korea time) final.
I can’t do it, so I’m not predicting a winner.
What I can say is this: I’m very suspicious of Torsten Frings’s being suspended for this fixture because of his alleged punching of an Argentine player in the after-match aftermath of their quarterfinal PSO.
That he was suspended is not the issue; punching a player while on the pitch or in the tunnel after the match is a deserved suspension. That it took an Italian crew of announcers and cameramen to bring this to light, and then for FIFA to act upon it as they did reeks to me. Am I the only one who sees a conflict of interest here?
Regardless, what’s done is done, which brings us to this: there are several tangents hovering above this match:
- Several months ago, when Germany were playing shite football and hearing whistles of disapproval from all sectors of the nation, the Azzurri blasted them, 4-1, in Florence.
- Germany have never beaten Italy in a World Cup fixture
- Italy have not lost a match since 2004, to Slovenia in a World Cup qualifier
- The site of the match, Dortmund, is a good-luck charm of sorts for the Germans: they’ve never lost an international match there
With the influential Frings out for Germany, expect coach Jurgen Klinsmann to insert Tim Borowski in his slot alongside Michael Ballack, who cheekily proffers that Germany “have no chance” against Italy, given the history between the two national squads.
For Italy, there is good and bad news regarding players fit or eligible to play: bad) defensive stalwart, Alessandro Nesta, is still unfit to play because of a leg injury; good) defender Marco Materazzi will return from suspension to shore up the defence in Nesta’s stead.
Italy have not conceded a goal scored by an opponent in their five matches thus far while Germany have the two leaders for the Golden Boot, Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski. Germany’s defence hasn’t been bad, but it’s not been its usual stout brick wall, either; meanwhile, until the quarterfinal match with Ukraine, Italy had been struggling to score goals since their opening match with Ghana.
In addition to the suspicious circumstances surrounding Frings’s suspension, the two nations have been trading potshots in the press since the tournament started and then throughout the competition itself. Let’s hope we have an official overseeing the match who will let the players play and will be invisible until necessary to make a call. It will be not be good if this one comes down to an Italian dive or a bad red card for either team.
With all this having been said, this should be an excellent match between two of the top teams in the world–there are six stars between the two nations, with each having won the Cup three times in their respective histories. The winner of this match will have a good shot at affixing a fourth star to their strip in the final at the weekend. Dortmund will be in a frenzy, the players prepared.
But I still won’t predict the winner, out of deference to what the first paragraph of this Match Preview mentioned…
Enjoy and may your team be triumphant!!
16 Comments
Can’t remember where I read it, but the best summary of this entire abortion of a competition comes down to three words:
Flop-N-Bawl.
Not only are the sport’s biggest stars some of the worst perpetrators of the FNB, but they actually remain popular and are somehow not subject to ceaseless grilling about their bullshit fakery. Why in hell don’t soccer writers and broadcasters hammer the preening primadonnas when they’re caught faking red-handed, as they ALWAYS are?
I’ve seen Figo no less than 3 different times get barely nudged in the shoulder or midsection by an opposing player, and he immediately falls to the ground clutching his head like he’s just taken an uppercut from Mike Tyson. He flails around for a few minutes, pretends like he’s got a concussion, cries to the ref, and then gets back up and assists on a goal. And he’s not the exception, he’s the rule. Henry, Zidane, C Ronaldo, Totti, Ronaldhino…the biggest names are among the worst offenders.
So why do I not see video of an interviewer confronting them with evidence of their repeated chicanery? Why have I never seen a single video clip of a soccer reporter calling a player a pussy when there’s clear and irrefutable evidence to back it up? Why is it that the people that cover the sport are deathly afraid of confronting the very people that are ruining the sport they love? Figo should be a laughingstock, and instead he’s an icon. That’s what the fuck is wrong with the World Cup.
Unfortunately, the articles being written by American pundits which are using the widespread use and acceptance of the flop-n-bawl as one of the primary reasons Americans don’t get into the sport are absolutely correct. Until FIFA, soccer journalists, and soccer fans start holding players accountable for turning the beautiful game into a cheap-ass high school drama audition, it doesn’t deserve any respect from anyone, regardless of nationality.
I don’t really think that’s why soccer remains unpopular in the USA. After all, pro wrestling has almost as much fakery and acting as soccer, and it’s still popular here.
i agree the flopping has to stop and to make that happen is start suspending for excessive over dramatic flops and dives
futbol, football, or soccer whatever you want to call it is the only sport where players are taking off in stretchers only to return a few minutes later
its ridiculous
in the NFL if you are taken off in a stretcher you might be a vegtable the rest of your life
A man the size of Figo doesn’t flail, clutch or else when hit by Myke Tyson. He goes down without a sound and stays down…
That’s when they play against a rugby team [/bares teeth]. Which reminds me, Rugby World Cup is next year, in France! Now that’s a sport worth watching…
much agreed, dda, about watching rugby and its world cup next year. i wonder if robert will let us have a “world cup of rugby” forum here next year, too…!!
I’d like to see a Germany-France final.
I do recall that Turkey was the 3rd-place finisher in ‘02 (defeating South Korea); the 3rd-place match may or may not be an audience cash grab on the part of FIFA, but they’ve had 3rd-place matches in every tournament since 1934 (except for 1950, when bizarrely there was a 4-team, 6-game round robin Final Round to determine the winner).
…For what it’s worth, (West) Germany, Brazil, France, Sweden, and Poland have each placed third twice (Sweden winning the 3rd-place award the first time in 1950 based on points after the round robin). Austria, Chile, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, and Turkey have each placed third once. This page gives the US the third-place spot for the first match in Uruguay in 1930, but the FIFA page for the tournament doesn’t list a third-place award winner.
No, I agree that it is admittedly a pretty depressing result if your side just manages to win third-place, since just a few days earlier, it was defeated by one of the two teams to make to the final—in the end, the only match anyone really cares about. It’s the dream that almost was, but shatteringly, ultimately, wasn’t. It’s one last ultimately unsatisfying consolation victory to send you on your way, while everyone else is getting ready for the big game.
My prediction:
Germany 2-1 italy
Germany 0 - Italy 2
ugh… 5 minutes left. this has been quite an enjoyable game.
But common German!…
Less than 2 minutes! Grosso’s goal was in the 119th minute and Del Piero scored in the 120th minute. Absolutely incredible. I was going to go and see the last few minutes of the game on the TV, knowing that the score was 0-0 and it was going to go to penalty kicks. Next thing I see is the Italians congratulating themselves, and finding out it’s suddenly 2-0 at the end of extra time. It happened so quickly, everyone was still standing around stunned, watching the game like it was still going on.
How much added time was there at the end of extra time? Looks like Del Piero’s goal was actually at 120+1′ = 121′, according to the match report. So maybe it is more like the last 5 mins of play, as JiMong said….
Yup, Sewing,,,
anyting can happen in 2 min.
That’s why I was hoping to see some counter strike by German w/in last 5 min…but nothing happened..
Italy simply outplayed Germany and deserved to win. Lehmann was very busy, and Grosso finally broke thru.
Germany played 120 minutes of grueling soccer with Argentina. I predicted Germany will lose in the next round.
Germany ran out of gas at the end of another 120 minutes. They are only humans.
Tomorrow, I expect France to win against Poltugal, 2-1.
1. Pro wrestling knows it’s entertainment and it knows the fans know it’s entertainment. Soccer, on the other hand, takes itself deathly seriously as a competitive sport.
2. The acting in pro-wrestling is entertaining, the acting in soccer is embarassing.
3. Pro wrestlers actually do get injured. Unlike soccer players, they are not faking that aspect.