Semifinals Predictions

All apologies for the off days. I wore myself out trying to keep up the quality during the daily World Cup run while doing my job, and felt a need to recoup for a day or two. I am back though, and will have at least a couple of updates before the Finals on Sunday, though thoughts on that may take a bit since I'll be in NYC visiting friends.

Thinking back to the last two quarterfinals, I think the France vs. Brazil game was probably the best game of the tournament (or at least the one I enjoyed the most). France dominated this game, and Brazil could not get their act together and play as a team against another squad with enough talent to really test them. This was the first time where the immobility of the Brazilian strike force really hurt them, because they made the job for Gallas and Thuram far too easy. One shot on goal against a nutter like Barthez is a clear failure. I also didn't understand Brazil's tactical choice in this game - why only one forward and if one forward, why have that one forward be the immobile fat Ron?

Oddly enough, Brazil and England shared essentially the same fate this tournament. Both teams had a ton of stars that never gelled into a great team, particularly in the midfield. Kaka and Ronaldinho are perhaps two of the most expensive and talented midfielders in the world, but they never seemed to create beautiful football together. They weren't as dismal as Stevie G and Lampard, but by their own standards, neither had the World Cup they were hoping for and that contributed to their team's demise. Kaka's injury clearly played a part in his performance against France, and he probably should not have been on the pitch.

Zidane's performance in the last couple of games has been so insanely good that I now want to go back and watch 1998 matches to see what he was like when he was 26. I watched a bunch of those games - they were what rekindled my childhood love of the game - but can hardly remember a thing about them. I'll be sad to see the big man go.

As for England and Portugal, when making my predictions last week, I forgot there's at least a 50% chance one of England's stars will do something terminally stupid in the quarterfinals or later. It's funny - I know footballers generally aren't the brightest bulbs in society, but it's occasionally hard to remember that when they turn in "brilliant" performances on the pitch. Then they do something like step on an opponent's testicles in full sight of the referee and then push somebody directly afterwards and it all comes crashing back, once again killing the hopes of a nation. Rooney is still very young, but how can you trust a guy when he has a fuckup this big?

The other big factor in this game was that Crissy (Ronaldo) played and was plenty healthy. He killed Neville on that wing which, in conjunction with Beckham's injury, made England one-sided for the majority of regular time. I used to think that England and the Boston Red Sox were kindred teams, always managing to disappoint fans no matter how great their promise. Now I'm more convinced England are more like the Cubs, determined to fail in the most spectacular and inexplicable fashion possible.

Italy vs. Germany
Reader Dozer asked me if I was willing to change my original prediction that Italy would win this whole thing now that I've seen how good ze Germans are. I thought about it quite a bit and decided that I'm sticking to my guns here, though in truth this game is as much a pick 'em as Germany vs. Argentina. I'm not completely comfortable with this position (and would actually prefer Germany win), but I'll take a stand and tell you why Germany get bounced here.

First of all, Torsten Frings is suspended, which takes away the most important member of their midfield. Forget Schweinsteiger and Ballack - Frings is the guy on the squad that makes the whole team go. It's possible Germany have adequate cover for him (even likely), but the new guy will have to perform at an extremely high level right from the start to match what Frings has given them over the last 6 games. Second, Ballack and Klose are both gimpy and haven't had enough time to recover. Klose was hardly himself against Argentina, despite the goal, and Ballack looked like he was going to die on the pitch. That performance was tremendous, but it wore on the whole squad and they'll almost certainly show signs of that today starting about minute 60.

Third, I don't think Metzelder and Mertesacker can handle Toni. If he's on form now (even with the two goals against Ukraine, that remains to be seen), they will not be able to deal with someone as big as they are, but stronger, faster, and more skilled. I really like this German team, but I picked Italy to win it all from the beginning, and I'm not jumping teams with the end in sight. If it comes down to penalty kicks, however, Lehman is God.

How weird would it be to have them win the World Cup while their domestic league is in a complete shambles from high-level match fixing?

France vs. Portugal
I'm not betting against France any more this tournament. If they face Italy in the finals, I just won't bet. This team has played absurdly well for the last two games and need to do so for two more in order to take home another golden foil trophy, and with the way Zidane has looked, I absolutely would not put it past them.

I think this game will come down to wing play. Both teams love to attack from the wings both from the midfield and with overlapping runs from their backs. However, that creates a real tension, since counterattacks will expose the backs if they push too far forward, allowing the counterpunchers to get easy chances at goal. Can Miguel and Sagnol be involved in the offense without screwing up and giving away a crucial goal? It will be an interesting game of cat and mouse in the wide parts of the field that should be a lot of fun to watch.

The central midfield battle is also a doozy, featuring Deco and Zidane as the artistes with Maniche, Thiago, Makalele, and Viera as the "less talented" members of what will probably not be a shooting war. The one area where a team has a major edge is at forward, where France has Henry while Portugal has Pauleta, who has practically been a blank this tournament. I think this game comes down to a moment or two of brilliance from one side that goes unmatched by the other team. I sincerely hope it does not end in PKs because a) I am sick of them and b) I'd hate to see what should be an awesome battle between two very talented teams end that way unless the score is 2-2 or better. Regardless, France wins and we have to listen to idiotic U.S. announcers tell us how this really is Zidane's last game one last time.