DAN's world cup newsletter vol. 4
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We’re into the last week and I can assure you that the last three weeks have flown by! The quarter finals were a mixed bag of sublime quality and dull as ditchwater dross.
Germany Argentina promised much and delivered much. Both teams showed plenty of attacking intent and I must confess when the Argies scored I thought it was all over. However, the injury to the Argie keeper changed things in the Krauts favour. I suspect the plan was to introduce Messi for the last 20 minutes to wreak his usual havoc but as they’d had to replace the keeper they were unable to do so. This meant that as the game wore on the Argies lacked a cutting edge and Klaus was able to attack at will. When they got the equaliser and the game went into extra time and penalties it was always going to be Germany. The Bratwurst boys are the masters at penalty shootouts and it is remarkable that England missed more penalties against Portugal than Germany have ever missed in world cups!
Having predicted a dull low scoring affair for Italy Ukraine I went to a party and didn’t bother to watch it! The score line suggests that it was far from being dull so I was kicking myself when I arrived home at 2am and tried to read the Ceefax report through a drunken haze. Toni also scored twice thus contradicting my confident claim that he couldn’t hit a barn door!!
England flags were fluttering confidently all over Colwyn Bay as 4 pm approached on Saturday. This was it! England were going to finally turn up for the tournament. Bloody hell what a load of complete shite! As poor a game as I’ve seen in any world cup! Two teams determined not to risk anything by playing lone front men and deep midfields. When Rooney got sent off, nothing changed. Portugal showed that they don’t have a striker and England showed that they should have bought a few more. As I predicted the game went to penalties and England inevitably lost with arguably the weakest set of penalties they’ve produced yet. As a postscript to the game I have a little message for the players, fans and journalists who’ve been laying into Ronaldo for complaining to the referee. For starters Rooney got himself sent off. As for Ronaldo, Rooney can count himself lucky it wasn’t me on the pitch. If I’d have seen someone stamping on my mate’s nadgers I would have by-passed the ref and layed the bastard out cold!!
Thankfully France played Brazil after the England game so there was scope for restoring my faith in the beautiful game. And what a beautiful game it was. Brazil’s lack of organisation and muscle was exploited to the full by the Frogs. Makalele showed us all what a holding midfielder should do and was superb in breaking up Brazilian attacks and starting French ones. Vieira looked back to his best and rampaged purposefully around the park. However, it was another who grabbed all the attention. Zidane. Elegant, graceful, skillful Zidane. This is a man who realises his career is almost over and despite being below par for the last couple of seasons has summoned up one last effort. Sorry boys, but I’m finding it hard to find the right adjectives to describe his performance! As for Brazil, they never really got going and the likes of Kaka, Adriano, Cafu, Carlos and even Ronaldinho didn’t show us what we all know they’re capable of. Under Scoalri Brazil had flair but were organised and played to a system. The current squad has the flair but no organisation and as a result they’re going home earlier than expected. Shame really, because as far as I’m concerned the World Cup needs Brazil to reach at least the semi-finals.
On to the semi finals, and to two clear favourites. Germany and France have to be shoe-ins for the final, surely. Well maybe not! As it says in the Bible:
“The man who writes off the Italians is like an ill-tuned cymbal.”
Tonight we have the pick of the semis. Germany have exceeded all expectations and have played some great football. Their midfield has been dominant against all-comers and they have home advantage. Despite this I really fancy the Italians. Traditionally the Italians are slow burners, starting slowly and building up. When they won the world cup in 1982 they only really started in their quarter final against Brazil. The Golden Boot winner in 1982 was Paolo Rossi who scored his first goal in the quarter finals. Likewise Luca Toni started late in the quarter final against Ukraine. Germany have been allowed to dominate teams as they’ve mainly played teams who allow you to play football. Italy will slow everything down and will play a tight game thus negating much of Germany’s strengths. The only team who played it tight against the Krauts were the awful Poles. The Germans only just scraped past them with a goal in injury time! If Toni continues with the form shown against Ukraine I can see the Italians winning by the odd goal.
Tomorrow sees France take on the woeful Portuguese. For the sake of football fans everywhere I hope the Frogs win. I admire the way Scolari has taken a limited team to the world cup semis but surely this is far as they can go. I won’t write the Portuguese off but I’m of the opinion that in order to beat a team like France you need a striker on the field. Expect to see plenty of attempts to get French players booked or sent off and I sincerely hope we get a strong referee to keep a lid on any ugliness. In the final analysis I would be gob-smacked if Portugal got through to the final and I fancy the French will win fairly easily.
As a matter of interest the semi final line up is almost identical to that of 1982.
France, Germany and Italy were all there in 1982 with the shock semi-finalists being Poland rather than Portugal. Italy won in ’82 and I have a strong feeling that they’ll repeat the feat this time round!
Enjoy, and I’ll be in touch before the weekend.
Dan