Tag: sports

And Brazil v Colombia. Two big games. While I really like the way the French have been playing, the Germans regularly raise their game and I expect them to be able to hold off the very good French attack UNLESS they play the same high offsides-trap that they featured against the USA. That’s simply not going to work when France can throw three fast strikers against it, particularly given a French midfield that actually believes in providing its attackers with through balls.

I’m expecting the big upset in the later game. Brazil has not impressed me, not even a little bit. Fred has shown nothing, Hulk is a brute who tries hard and bears absolutely no resemblance to the Romarios and Ronaldos of World Cups past, and Neymar is clearly struggling with the weight of having to carry the nation’s expectations very nearly on his own. Colombia isn’t afraid of anyone and they are playing very well as a team. I think they’ll win and they won’t even need extra time or penalties to do it.

Germany 1 France 0. Frankly, a rather boring game. Germany scored early on a set piece, France never seemed to feel much sense of urgency, and I didn’t see a single through ball attacking Germany’s high defensive line. France had a chance or two, but nothing too crucial, and neither team seemed to have much in the way of energy. Rather disappointing from the same French team that crushed a good Swiss team 5-3.

FIRST HALF: Brazil 1 Colombia 0. This is the best Brazil has looked all tournament. The goal was a bit lucky, since Thiago Silva caught the Colombian defender sleeping on the far post, but Brazil has had most of the good chances. Colombia has a 4-on-2 that is so inept they don’t even manage to get a shot off. At this point, Brazil looks capable of winning by three.

The Swiss have never beaten Argentina, and Shaqiri is no Messi, the hat trick in the group stage notwithstanding. So an upset here would be even more unlikely than for the USA against Belgium.

Two serious underdogs, but both capable of pulling off an upset. Both games should be entertaining.

FIRST HALF 0-0. Switzerland could easily be up 2-0, but a great save and a poor shot leave it tied. Argentina definitely has the edge on talent, but the Swiss have been the better team so far. The defenders are living on the edge, however, by repeatedly attempting to dribble the ball out under pressure rather than simply clearing the ball from the top of the box.

SECOND HALF 0-0. Argentina took over the game and had several decent chances, but tough defending and a great pair of saves in succession by Bernaglio kept Switzerland in the game.

It’s interesting to be watching the game with little girls.

Little Girl 1: Who is the guy with the green shirt?

Me: He’s the assistant referee.

Little Girl 1: He runs up and down a lot.

Me: He has to stay even with the ball. It’s his job to watch for offsides.

Little Girl 1: What’s offsides?

Little Girl 2: It’s when the ball goes off the side of the TV.

Little Girl 1: Oh, okay. (In a tone indicating “that makes sense”)

Me: (nods

EXTRA TIME: Argentina 1 Switzerland 0. Looked like it was going to penalties, but Lichtsteiner got careless, Messi pulled the Swiss defense to him, and laid a perfect pass to Di Maria, who finished nicely. Di Maria deserved the goal, as he was the only player on either team that was actually trying to win the game for the second extra period. Switzerland then hit the post on a corner in extra injury time, but that was as close as they got.

USA v Belgium

FIRST HALF 0-0. Shaky start for Team USA, but they settle down and finally begin counterattacking. They gradually take control and start getting great runs down the right side, but just don’t have the technical ability to finish off the chances they’re creating. Belgium owns its own right side; DaMarcus Beasley is working hard but he’s a bit overmatched. Belgium is the more skilled side, but contra the pre-match reports, the US is more than matching their athleticism.

The challenge will be when the players start to tire; that’s when the more skilled team usually starts taking advantage of the extra time and space created. Johnson went out with a hamstring, but his replacement has been more than adequate, and remarkably, is even more attack-oriented.

SECOND HALF 0-0. Belgium wins 16 corners, but ferocious US defense and outstanding goaltending by Howard keeps the USA in the game. Yedlin, the right back, is somehow the entire US attack. Dempsey has two opportunities to send someone through, but he’s got tunnel vision and takes two nothing shots instead.

Belgium is controlling the game and the USA looks beat, but they manage to make it to extra time with a little help from the Belgian attackers shooting wide.

EXTRA TIME: Belgium scores once quickly, then again near the end to seemingly put the game away. But a great drop-in by Bradley puts the US back in it. USA wins a lot of respect for refusing to quit and go quietly, but they just don’t have the technical ability to match their spirit. 2-1 Belgium.

Two games of nominal interest. Neither France nor Germany should have to go to penalties to win. I think Algeria is the more likely upset, but it would be a huge shock to see either of the two European powers lose here.

Nigeria had a goal disallowed, but the midfielder was definitely a step off. Pogba has a brilliant side-volley, but hit it right at the keeper.

The two games going to penalties yesterday shows one of the core structural flaws of the rules. Just take off one man when it goes to extra time, and another man every five minutes. That will guarantee a winner and reduce the overall time it takes.

UPDATE: France wins and deservedly so. They’ve hit the post or the crossbar six times in four games!

UPDATE 2: Giorgio Chiellini accepts Luis Suarez’s apology in an admirably gracious manner:

Giorgio Chiellini @chiellini
@luis16suarez It’s all forgotten. I hope FIFA will reduce your suspension. 

GERMANY 2 ALGERIA 1: Really impressed with the Algerians, particularly the keeper. He probably earned himself $20 million+ tonight and a move to Seria A or La Liga. The German quality is too much in the end, but Algeria played harder than any team in the tournament to date.

I’m really looking forward to this one, which is the most interesting matchup of the first round of the Knockout Stage. Holland should win, but Mexico is playing very hard for Herrara and the Mexican keeper was easily the best in the Group Stage. A very good test for the Oranje if they are to flatter themselves with the idea that they are serious contenders for the title.

Costa Rica v Greece should actually be worth watching. Greece is, as always, an old, untalented, defensive-minded team, but they have a crazy ability to give much better teams a difficult time. Costa Rica was the shock winners of a group that literally no one gave them a chance to win, so one has to consider them the favorite here.

HOLLAND 2 MEXICO 1: Ugh. Great game and down to the wire, but even so, ugh. I was supporting Holland, but seeing Robben dive three times in the box, and on the third one draw the penalty that won the game, was truly ugly. Ochoa was awesome, but there was no stopping the cannon blast from Wesley Schneider that tied the game in the 88th minute.

FIFA is really going to have to give serious thought to replay on penalties.

FIRST HALF 1-1: The Brazilian goal was clearly an own goal. The Chilean goal, on the other hand, was the combination of laziness by the Brazilian midfielder and an opportunistic Chilean jumping on the chance. Brazil doesn’t seem to be fully in gear, but Neymar is blowing by the central defense at will, so I would think Brazil will score two more and put the game away without too much trouble.

SECOND HALF 1-1: Brazil will be crying about it, but there was no question that Hulk controlled the ball with his forearm. Good call by the official. The goalies are keeping both teams in the game; both had excellent saves. Chile is attacking more and actually looks the better team despite their obvious lack of quality in comparison with Brazil. Extra time!

EXTRA TIME 1-1: WOW! Chile hits the crossbar in the last two minutes of injury time after a desultory 30 minutes where Chile ran out of steam and wisely switched to a defensive orientation. Brazil then counterattacks, but Neymar unwisely passes right instead of left on a 3-on-2 break. And it’s penalties.

PENALTIES: 3-2 Brazil. Great game. Neymar coolly fires home, the Chilean 5th penalty taker hits the post, and Neymar visibly falls apart with the relief. I can’t even imagine the amount of pressure he must have been feeling. But, as Ender says, I’m going to miss the Chilean coach. He’s awesome, both in terms of his tactics and the way he stalks the sideline like a pitbull, which he rather resembles. I think he is now my third favorite manager after Arsene “please to enjoy my impromptu 30-minute lecture on subjects unrelated to football” Wenger and The Special One.

The Brazilians seem to like him too. Several of them go out of their way to pay their respects. Interesting, too, to see a number of apparent Christians among the Brazilian players, including Neymar and Willian.

That seems about right to me. Suarez is out of all football for the next four months, which means he’ll miss nine Premiership matches with Liverpool as well as nine international matches with Uruguay, including the remainder of the current World Cup. He was also fined about $110,000.

Luis Suarez has been banned from all football for four months and an additional nine Fifa international matches after biting an Italian defender. Fifa made the ruling after footage emerged of Uruguay striker Suarez biting down on the shoulder of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini in the 80th minute of their World Cup clash.

The ban will mean Suarez misses the rest of the international tournament, including Uruguay’s last 16 match against Colombia on Saturday, and the start of the Premier League next season.

I don’t see how anyone can complain that FIFA was soft on this one. A fast and fair decision.

I truly don’t see how the USA is going to be able to hold off Germany. It would have been better if Germany had not tied Ghana, because there would have been less incentive for Germany to win the game outright. We should know very early on if Germany decides to bring the noise or not; if Germany is sitting back and playing the possession game then the USA might have a shot at a draw with some judicious counterattacking.

The France v Ecuador game demonstrated how a team that doesn’t need to win often doesn’t concern itself with doing so. If the Germans decide to push forward, and I suspect they will, I just don’t think the US defense, which has been shaky at times, is going to be capable of withstanding the pressure. The USA has already acquitted itself very well, and with four points, has done better than expected. I thought three points was reasonable, although there were many who expected only one point from a draw with Ghana.

And even with a loss, a draw between Ghana and Portugal is far from impossible. Regardless, I hope Klinsman elects to come out with guns blazing, as clearly sitting back and defending is not a style with which the US team is comfortable.

FIRST HALF: Good start by the USA. Jones is being a bit of a drama queen and Bradley is still losing the ball more than he should, but the Germans have pressed several times and the defense has been up to the task. Only one particularly dangerous chance, and Howard stopped Otzil’s shot. Jones barely missed a beautiful shot from outside the box; other than that the USA doesn’t look like scoring but they don’t look particularly vulnerable either. And with Portugal up 1-0, this would be exactly the result they’re looking for.

FINAL: 1-0 Germany. A great result for the USA. One seldom sees a losing coach look happier than Jurgen Klinsman. No one expected the USA to make it to the Knockout Stage, but now they’re in, and against one of the weaker group winners too.

None of the matches today are particularly interesting, although I am curious to see if the Swiss can pull themselves together after the shellacking they received at the hands of France. As good as the Dutch have looked, no team has impressed me as much as Les Bleus. I’d be very surprised if Ecuador can stay within two goals of them… which, given the accuracy of my expectations this tournament, probably indicates a 0-0 draw.

Although I was skeptical of Spain’s chances of repeating and I did not, like many before the tournament, count out the Dutch. But let’s face it, absolutely no one in the entire world expected Spain to go out in the group stage or Costa Rica to win its group. But apparently someone did genuinely expect Luis Suarez to bite someone; I heard that a man won a 175-1 bet courtesy of his toothy attack on Chiellini.

One thing that has always confused me about those who don’t follow the Beautiful Game is the way they ludicrously insist it is a non-contact sport for wusses. There have been a few less games than one sees in three weeks of the NFL season, and yet there have been more horrific injuries in this “non-contact” World Cup than in the opening three weeks of last year’s NFL. Between the fractured eye sockets, broken legs, and KOs, it’s simply ludicrous to claim that the player are not physically tough when they are taking that kind of abuse while running up to 15k per game.

Even on the amateur level, the season can be a bit of a death march. I’ve mentioned before the season when my old team went from 33 to 10 healthy players over the course of the season. My current team lost its second captain in successive years to a blown-out knee, and as for the rest of the club, the first team lost a midfielder to a broken leg, a midfielder on Ender’s team broke his collarbone and the starting goalie broke his arm. I did full-contact martial arts for six years, and while we got considerably more banged up and bruised on a regular basis, the serious injury rate was fairly similar.

In six years of martial arts, I was KO’d once and broke a few bones, but I was never temporarily blinded or had my kneecap ripped open, both of which happened during the same season a few years ago.

That was both a disaster of incompetent strategy and a chaotic mess. Marchesio was sent off for nothing I could see, while Luis Suarez got away with BITING Chiellini in the shoulder.  With a 1-0 win, Uruguay goes through, but they may lose their best player if Suarez is, quite rightly, given a multi-game ban by FIFA on the basis of the video. FIFA won’t want to take one of the game’s best strikers out of the tournament… but he clearly BIT the guy!

I am a little bit nervous after watching the Oranje defeat Chile, 2-0. I’m not certain that Arjen Robben passing the ball while in shooting range is a definite sign of the Apocalypse, but it strikes me as an ominous harbinger indeed.. Other than that surreal moment, which was beautifully set up by a long ball from the left back, Holland was in charge without ever looking likely to score. But Schneider’s substitute put in a header for his first-ever touch of the ball in a World Cup match – not a bad start – and Holland finished with all 9 points.

While Croatia v Mexico is the more interesting game, I’m tempted to watch Brazil. They have really looked like nothing the first two games, and if they don’t kick it up a notch, they might very well lose, and lose handily, to European teams like Holland, France, and to a lesser extent, Germany, that are clicking on all cylinders. Perhaps the Brazilians are simply cruising, but it can’t be argued that with names like Fred, Hulk, Bernard, and Oscar, this team seems to lack more than a little of the traditional Brazilian magic.

UPDATE: 2-1 Brazil at halftime. They’re basically Neymar and everybody else. Two very nice goals by Neymar versus one unlucky bounce followed by a lazy defensive breakdown. Brazil may find it hard to score if one of the elite teams man-marks Neymar.

UPDATE 2: Switched to Mexico v Croatia after Brazil goes up 3-1 on Fred’s header. Mexico promptly scores twice; the second goal is an excellent ground cross and finish. Mexico ends up winning 3-1 and looks very good while doing so. Brazil wins the group on goal difference, but Mexico gave them a very good run for their money.