An American speaking knowledgably about the game of football (soccer to those of you in the U.S.). Expect discussion of the 2006 World Cup on a daily basis, including predictions, match analysis, and statistics. Updated at least once a day around Noon Eastern time.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
EPL Previews Have Begun!
For those who missed the earlier memos, there is football writing going on, but it has moved to http://football-knuts.livejournal.com/ My previews of all the English Premier League teams are officially under way and will be updated every week day right up until the start of the season. Those interested can find the first two linked below.
Arsenal: http://football-knuts.livejournal.com/1067.html Aston Villa: http://football-knuts.livejournal.com/1326.html
5 Reasons Why World Cup '06 Was Terrible for Casual Fans
(Last update over here.)
An interesting dichotomy appeared in the aftermath of this most recent World Cup, one that was not surprising but deserves to be noted. While most hardcore football pundits stated they enjoyed the World Cup as a whole, and most ratings were up in households across Europe and the United States (a misleading statistic, since World Cup 2002 was at difficult times for Europeans and impossible times for Americans), most casual fans walked away from the event scratching their heads. This was not only the result of Zinedine Zidane's actions (though those certainly did not help), but was more the fault of the proceedings as a whole. Countless Americans I talked to and even numerous non-sports-fanatic Euros found themselves asking, "What the hell do people see in this game?"
Considering the product churned out at the World Cup, in spite of the fact that most of the world's stars were on display, I find that to be a fair question. Therefore I decided to look into reasons why this World Cup was not only far below the standards we usually set for great football, but was actually a terrible tournament to deliver to the casual fan.
Reason #5 - Zinedine Zidane and the headbutt. Tell me exactly how you are supposed to explain the headbutt to anyone, let alone someone who doesn't watch the game regularly? "Why did he do that?" I have no idea. I mean, I can show them youtube links providing evidence that Materazzi is as dirty as they come, but in that moment there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to Zidane's actions. He was sent off, his team lost, and Italy took home the trophy. That was nearly the end of it, until...
The writers gave Zidane the award for best player. Yes, Cannavarro likely should have won, but Cannavarro didn't almost singlehandedly destroy Brazil, while Zidane did. In fact, Zizou was generally brilliant throughout the tournament. But beyond the headbutt, how do you explain to someone that a guy dismissed for violent conduct in the final when his team still needed him was still deemed the best player? It's practically tantamount to saying, "We don't care if you are violent, as long as you are brilliant as well." Nice sports ethics lesson there. Is this something you want your kids taking away from the game? Welcome to an immediate black eye for the game and a lot of folks left scratching their heads.
Reason #4 - Brazil's performance. As much as most of us hate the FIFA rankings system, they give people who don't know much about the game a measuring stick by which to judge teams they might not know very well. According to FIFA rankings and basically any sensible rankings as well, Brazil was definitely the best team in the world entering World Cup 2006. Sadly, in four out of the five games they played, Brazil were just short of bad, especially when compared to their own lofty standards. Thus, anyone tuning in to catch the #1 ranked team in the world and home of the FIFA World Footballer of the Year was treated to the sight of surprisingly stinky football. Nobody expected this, and yet there it was for all to see.
Obviously there's nothing to be done to change the fact that Brazil did not in fact play the beautiful game at this World Cup, but regardless, they certainly did not help improve upon a product that was clearly suffering.
Reason #3 - The Referees Since the bad refereeing was nearly universal right through to the quarterfinals, the blame for this one rests squarely on the shoulders of our FIFA lords and masters. They clearly wanted to crack down on a variety of behaviors, but unfortunately did not realize the severity of their decree and also did not train referees properly in order to carry it out.
There were more yellow and red cards at this World Cup than ever before, and yet ironically, they did nothing to curb the type of behavior FIFA was trying to eliminate. Diving was rampant and there were a couple of matches that turned shockingly violent. Additionally, all of the yellow cards did absolutely nothing to increase scoring, and the inconsistent refereeing combined with Sepp Blatter's idiotic criticisms while the Cup was still going on merely served to increase the PR hit the game was already taking - a PR hit that likely would never had occurred had Sepp and his boys prepared referees properly in the first place.
Let me put this another way: any time a referee has a dramatic and direct effect on the outcome of a game, it reflects poorly on the legitimacy of a "sport." In no other popular sport does the referee hold nearly as much power to change outcomes as they do in football. Further, when referee decisions frequently seem arbitrary or wrong AND adversely affect the fortunes of one team over another, it's a blemish on the sport as a whole. With the Serie A scandal fresh in everyone's mind, I'm surprised there were not more nervous twitters about match fixing at the World Cup level. It's a good thing Italy didn't get any dodgy penalties awarded to them along the way...
Reason #2 - A Preponderance of "Simulation" The biggest lingual sleight of hand in the game gives us the second biggest reason why World Cup 2006 was a stinker. I thought I was a pretty jaded football fan, but I have never seen diving to this degree at any level. Portugal matches were such astounding divefests that I found myself looking around the pitch to see where the pool was located. (It appeared to be centralized in the penalty area of whichever goal Portugal was attacking.) Nike is rumored to have floated the idea of giving Portuguese players nothing more than a pair of goggles and a speedo for their Euro 2008 uniforms. When watching Crissy Ronaldo, I eventually came to the conclusion that Greg fucking Louganis did not dive this much, and he was a professional.
This is one of the explicit detriments to the game that FIFA has talked about cracking down upon/fixing and yet this year more than any in recent memory, diving was a massive part of the game. Let's hope that FIFA figure out a way to fix this for good and soon, because when jaded fans are furious and frustrated at the effect "simulation" has on the game, one can only imagine how ludicrous it looks when a player falls to the turf like he's been shot only to get up 30 seconds later and take off at a full sprint.
Reason #1 - A Complete and Utter Lack of Goals Believe it or not, regardless of what the sport is, people typically like to see players score. While the lack of scoring in football creates some drama, scoring itself is exciting, and changes in the lead are both exciting and dramatic. Of course, to have changes in the lead, you typically need both teams to score, and that failed to happen in 2006.
According to some excellent analysis by Peter Goldstein over at Planet World Cup, goalscoring at this World Cup was the second lowest ever at 2.30 per game, bettering 1990's 2.21 by the slightest of margins. There were an average of 2.44 gpg total during the Group stages, and a paltry 1.875 gpg during the knockout rounds. To give you some external reference, the knockout average is lower than the average goals scored per game by Chelsea or Manchester United (1.89) or Real Madrid or Valencia (2.0) by themselves during the 2005-2006 season.
In terms of suspense, there were 5 games out of 48 during the group stages that finished 2-2 or better (including the dismal-yet-exciting Tunisia vs. Saudi Arabia match), and 0 during the knockout stages. According to Goldstein, only 28.1% of games featured an equalizing goal, making it the second worst World Cup since 1930 for that sort of excitement (1990 again takes the crown by a small margin). Hardcore football fans can understand the brilliant 0-0 or 1-1 draw is a positive for the game, and I think casual fans are okay with draws in general, but a lack of scoring overall just makes the game look like 22 guys running around and flopping on the ground for 90 minutes. Numerous folks I talked to were like, "What's the point?" which is a pretty widespread opinion here in America. Let's face it - few goals plus fewer lead changes leads to pretty boring football, regardless of whether you are watching football for the fifth time or the five hundredth.
Football at the International level has become increasingly more defensive over the years (I haven't done the stats on domestic football to see if it too has become more defensive), making it similar to what happened in the NBA and the NHL over the course of the last decade. Officials heading both of those leagues took steps in recent years to correct what they perceived as a downturn in the quality of the game, causing scoring (and fans) to return to both with a vengeance. It will be interesting to see if FIFA are capable of making the changes necessary to correct this problem, or if we will be stuck with the "beautiful, boring game" for the foreseeable future.
Conclusions The 2006 World Cup was a failure at bringing the best football has to offer to the casual and hardcore fan alike. Diving, violent conduct, shoddy inconsistent officiating, a dearth of scoring, and far too many games ending in penalty kicks are hardly what long-time fans love about the game of football, and yet these were the traits on display for all to see in Germany. In fact, if one were to package the traits of football you didn't want to see emphasized at the game's greatest event, these would likely be it. Therefore it is my conclusion that the 2006 World Cup was an unmitigated failure in selling the product of football to those with no more than a passing acquaintance with the game.
Note: For those who want to read my rant on World Cup officiating and what can be done about it, please click here.
Now that official word has been handed down and we know exactly what is going to happen regarding the nefarious Serie A teams, it makes sense to run this column. For those of you who are link-phobic, allow me to just tell you that Italian giants Juventus, Lazio, and Fiorentina have all been relegated to Serie B, with various points docked for previous seasons AND next season, while AC Milan were allowed to stay in Serie A, but docked 44 points from last season, and will start 2006 with a 15 point deficit. Should the verdict stand, none of these teams will be allowed to play in Europe this season either.
With the punishments final, it should set off a run on transfers the likes of which haven't been seen since Leeds United called time on David O'Leary's madness.
What's that? Okay, fine - it will be much greater than that. In fact, the news is SO interesting that I think it has the potential to be turned into the greatest football pay-per-view event of all time. What sort of idea could possibly meet the hype?
The 2006 Serie A Auction of the Stars
Harry could make a real splash here.
Here's the plan: Any and all players on the relegated teams who are interested in transferring should submit their requests and they will be publicly posted as available for bid. Then next Saturday, July 22nd, every single team interested in bidding on these players will show up at some predetermined place where an auctioneer will then run an auction for each player's transfer rights, with the winners earning the right to negotiate personal terms with the players.
The entire process would be covered by television cameras and commentators from every major league in Europe, and after each set of bids, interviews commence with the manager of the team that won the bid and they'd get a chance to interview the players for their reaction. Then, said commentators could, you know, commentate on whether they thought the player was a good buy for the team, whether a particular player went for too much money, etc. Tell me you wouldn't pay 50 bucks/30 quid/1 million lira to see Harry Redknapp show up with a 70M pound transfer kitty and make some noise. I am convinced that this is one of the greatest television ideas of all time. Just take a look at the list of players that might be involved:
Juventus Gianluigi Buffon - G Lilian Thuram - D Fabio Cannavarro -D Gianluca Zambrotta -D Robert Kovac -D
Emerson - M Pavel Nedved - M Patrick Viera - M Mauro Camoranesi - M
Zlatan Ibrahimovic - F Adrian Mutu - F Alessandro Del Peiro - F David Trezeguet - F
Fiorentina Sebastian Frey - G Tomas Ujfalusi - D Valeria Bojinov - F Gianpaolo Pazzini - F Luca Toni -F
Lazio (No wonder they were fixing matches) Simone Inzaghi - F
All I can say is: wow. And this is assuming that none of the Milan players want to move post-scandal, though they could certainly be included if they wanted to opt-in.
Now there's obviously a major problem with this plan in that players still have to agree to personal terms in order make the transfer complete, so they could obviously stall for whatever team they wanted to move to. However, I can see working around this by setting up some rules ahead of time.
Rule #0: Players will privately publish their personal terms ahead of time to the auctioneer so that teams will know whether they have a chance of meeting them. This is a long shot, but whatever - this entire idea is a long shot.
Rule #1: Players get 10% of the transfer fee as long as they sign with the team that bid the most for them. Otherwise they get zero.
Rule #2: Trailing bids matter, since they will determine who gets second and third chances, etc to negotiate with the player.
Rule #3: If you can't agree to terms with one of your Top 5 bidders, you have to stay with the relegated team for the rest of the season. You will sign a contract to this effect ahead of time.
Rule #4: Chelski are not invited.
Could this work? I think it could. Obviously there are ways to game the system, but that's part of the fun. The revenues from this could go to charity as the teams use it for good PR, or better yet, founding a refereeing program that doesn't suck. Additionally, you could get some betting company to sponsor this with Live Bet odds on infinite things, including which player will command the highest transfer fee, who will sign with what team, and whether one of the managers/players will have an aneurysm during the course of the event.
What's to stop Real Madrid from coming in and winning the bid for every one of these players? I don't know, actually. It doesn't mean they'd sign all of them and it would kind of ruin the suspense, but maybe the gaming going on for second and third place bids on a lot of players would be the interesting part. Obviously Real are freaking crazy, so they could ruin the whole show, but I don't think they would. If they did, it would be a very expensive day for them.
Do I think this could ever happen? No, of course not. But would it be the single most fascinating day of the football offseason if it did? Hell yes.
Public Service Announcement: I've been having some internal debate about whether or not to continue this blog now that the World Cup is over. It has helped me define how much work would be required to produce solid material daily about football over an extended period. The answer to that question is: a lot. Since I already know the audience is likely to diminish dramatically from a number that is already not enormous, there is some merit in just canning things altogether. However, assuming I don't sign on with some sports website to publish regularly (a pleasant dream, but one that seems vaguely unlikely), that would leave me both without a vehicle and a readership for football writing, which is unacceptable.
To make a long story short, I'm going to continue writing about football into the coming season - mostly about the Premiership and La Liga, with a smattering of Serie A thrown in. The publishing schedule will be 3 times a week, likely on Sunday/Monday, then on Tuesday and Thursday. That will give readers regular times to come visit the site, and give me regular breaks. Since it's easier to build readership there, I'm going to move it over to Livejournal, which will make it easier for the bulk of people already reading to follow.
Alright, since it's Wednesday, I assume you've read all you want to read about Sunday's festivities. I was in NYC for the weekend and watched the penalties across from the Hotel Gansevoort down near the Meatpacking District (which sounds like the best name for a gay neighborhood in history, but really is just the old meatpacking district). Anyway, after the game finally ended, I saw both Ronaldo and Maria Sharapova come out of the hotel and hop into cabs. I also saw some of the hottest Italian women ever celebrating with skeezy Italian men over the Azzurri victory. Fun, interesting times.
The first half of the final was fun to watch and reasonably well played. The final 75 minutes were much less so, and I doubt you need me to tell you just how sick of penalty kicks I am. In fact, I'm so oversaturated with info about this Final that I'm just going to wrap any game specific recap here. Zidane headbutted Matza, Matza fell real hard, nobody will ever know exactly what he said, and Zidane capped his career of brilliance with one moment of insanity. At least we're never going to forget it, right? See the bottom of this article for 5 reasons why I myself might take a hit out on Matza if I played against him.
I got my immediate prediction on this one wrong (I picked France on Friday in what looked like a push), but I got my prediction from 6 weeks ago (before the World Cup) correct in picking Italy to win, and I got 6 of the 8 quarterfinalists right, so I didn't do too badly.
My Best 11 This is going to be a 4-5-1, since that's all any of the good teams except Germany seemed to play. This isn't really a good thing for the game, since it means the majority of the World Cup was played like every team was the 2000 New York Knicks, trying to win every game by an 81-80 score, but it's what we've got to work with
Obv.
Goalie: Buffon, Italy If we were chatting via instant messenger, this is the part where I type "Obv" and expect the conversation to be over. Lehman and Ricardo were the only two even close in my mind, and they were also the two that showed that saving penalty kicks is a skill and not sheer randomness. Buffon's only drawback is that he makes it all look so easy, which disguises the fact that he's really, really good.
Defense Right Back: Miguel, Portugal Center Back: Fabio Cannavarro, Italy Center Back: Lilian Thuram, France Left Back: Philip Lahm, Germany
Two central rocks, and two attacking wing backs who played very good defense. Canna and Thuram both show that you don't need giants to play in the middle in order to win, an opinion that seems to be at odds with current trends. Of course, they are also two of the best defenders of the modern era, so the rule may be "You either need world class players OR big backs to compete." Something to keep an eye on in the coming years...
The two guys I really wanted to add to this list were Gabriel Heinze from Argentina and Zambrotta from Italy, but even Chelski has to pick a starting 11 every Saturday.
Midfield Midfielder: Maniche, Portugal Midfielder: Michael Essien, Ghana Midfielder: Maxi Rodriguez, Argentina Midfielder: Zinedine Zidane, France Midfielder: Andrea Pirlo, Italy
Yes I know this leaves us without a true left-sided midfielder, but these guys were more deserving. Besides, Rodriguez would technically be running down the left side of your television for half the game, right? Zizou and Pirlo were always going to be on here since they were the creative engines behind the two teams in the finals, but the other three were extremely tough choices that could have gone to any number of superstars.
Essien was nothing short of masterful in guiding Ghana out of the group of little death, and deserves credit for that, which is why he is here. Maniche was dynamic as a box-to-box midfielder for Portugal and gets the nod just ahead of Deco for a strong (yet hateable) Portuguese team, and Maxi Rodriguez just gets the nod over Riquelme and Mascherano for a seemingly reformed Argentina. I hope Argentina manager Jose Pekerman gets a chance to coach more at this level - one mistake should not destroy what was otherwise a very good World Cup.
Players that would likely have made it if this column were the Best 16 instead of the Best 11 include Viera, Ribery, Gattuso, Deco, and Torsten Frings.
Forward: Miroslav Klose It feels a little shady to just give this to the golden boot winner, but Klose had an amazing World Cup until he got injured, at which point Germany's attack suffered. Klose was gangbusters during the group stage (again), but you could definitely tell he was bothered by injury as the tournament wore on. He was completely out of their Argentina game minus his fantastic headed goal, and didn't make a dent against Italy. Then again, who did? Regardless, before the injury, Klose was a monster, giving fans everything they could have wanted included bulges in the old onion bag.
As for other forwards, Henry played well both in scoring goals and in passing well to his teammates, but his dive against Spain tainted his Cup a bit for me. Fernando Torres of Spain was the only other striker in the list deserving a positive mention. Yes, it was that kind of Cup.
Tomorrow: 5 reasons why this was a terrible World Cup for casual fans.
Here we are, 62 games have passed and only one relevant one remains. My predictions have been very good since the round of 16, nailing 11 of the 14 games since that time including both of the semifinals. That leaves just one game left to be decided (I’m ignoring the consolation game), between one surprise team and the team I predicted would be there all along.
I said a couple of days ago that there was no way I would bet against France anymore, and that rules holds true. Yet six weeks ago, I picked Italy as the team to win it all, a prediction most laughed at, so I find myself in a tough spot. On one side there is Totti, Cannavarro, and Buffon. On the other, Zidane, Henry, and Thuram. Only one of them will come out of this with a title, and yet I find myself still undecided as to who will win. With that in mind, let’s break down the strengths of the teams.
For Italy, their strength lies in their rock solid defense and the brilliance of Pirlo, who has far outshone Totti as the maestro in the Italian midfield. Cannavarro is certainly on my best of 11, and while the Italian attackers have generally failed to impress, one must still admit that Toni is dangerous and difficult to handle, even if he is currently misfiring. They also have perhaps the best goalie of the tournament in Gianluigi Buffon, a laughable name that disguises mastery between the pipes beyond that of his peers.
For France you have the undeniable Zinedine Zidane, who has roused his aging frame to produce performances that will live forever in the annals of World Cup lore. He did not dominate against Portugal like he did against Brazil, but he didn’t need to, and his penalty kick is one of the very few to have beaten Ricardo. Joining Zidane in attack are the equally masterful Thierry Henry and the youth of Frank Ribery, who after a slow start, has managed to live up to the initial hype of his billing. Patrick Viera and Claude Makalele have also been extremely strong for France, saving their best performances for teams that would test their skills. The French defense is what has been particularly impressive this time around, with Thuram delivering an incredible set of displays to rival his form in 1998, while the rest of the defense has managed to link well with the attack and gone to great lengths to protect them from the certain buffoonery of one Fabien Barthez.
Looking at the two teams, France is clearly the stronger of the two in attack, while Italy’s defense has been impenetrable to even the most talented of squads. France’s defense is also stout, but Barthez is a weak link that Italy can exploit, provided they get some space to deliver shots on goal. This is space that the defensive six from France have denied everyone else. As for the Italian attack, Toni and Totti can certainly challenge the French defense, but I get the feeling both Totti and Pirlo will find it difficult to create with Viera and Makalele dogging their every move, and Toni is nothing unless he can get some solid service. On the other side of the ball, Gattuso can handle Zidane just as he handled Ballack, while Cannavarro and Grosso will be able to deal with Henry, though if he gets a great through ball he will be off to the races. That leaves Ribery as the wild card, a role he seems born to play.
With two teams this closely matched, this game will come down to one of two things. Should Barthez manage to avoid any unreasonably stupid plays against Italy (something he failed to do against Portugal), then France will win this game on the back of some piece of brilliance from one of their three offensive stars. However, if Barthez makes the critical mistake that has dogged him his entire career, Italy will take home their 4th title and first since 1982.
My prediction? I think France takes second trophy home to the Champs Elysees, and Zidane’s name is written into the record books alongside Pele’s as one of the greatest World Cup heroes of all time. Honestly, it’s probably already there, but a victory on Sunday will leave no doubts as to his greatness. The only note of discord a French victory would strike with me is that Domenach would be rewarded for tactical mismanagement in the early rounds, though he has made up for it since then.
Cristiano Ronaldo, known to fans as "Crissy" has been placed on the transfer list via eBay. This should be relatively unsurprising to folks who have been paying attention to the English backlash against ManYoo's talented winger.
This comes hot on the heels of the following staggering comments:
"We played well and did our best but the referee didn't help us,' the 21-year-old Manchester United forward said. 'Everyone who saw the match could see that the referee wasn't fair." You are correct, Crissy - the referee wasn't fair. What he should have done was card half of your freaking team for diving, which would have included dismissing you twice over. Instead he left his cards in his pocket, allowing your players to stay on the field, a dubious but mostly fair decision. Like, diving is one thing and deserves to be punished, but bitching about not getting calls for diving after the fact is positively retarded. Here's to hoping that Crissy interacts closely with a grease fire sometime in the near future.
As for me, assuming I can get internet tonight, I will have a couple of updates late tonight/early tomorrow morning about the Finals and various and sundry thoughts I've had in the last couple of weeks. In the meantime, if you have any questions for me or topics you want my thoughts on, leave them in the comments and I'll answer them as soon as I can.
