Football kNuts

EPL Previews Have Begun!

2006-07-25T14:26:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-19T13:24:00.000-04:00

(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.

The Greatest Football Pay Per View of ALL TIME

2006-07-15T11:58:00.000-04:00

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.

The Football kNuts Best 11

2006-07-12T10:27:00.000-04:00

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.

The non World Cup stuff can be found at http://football-knuts.livejournal.com/ starting next Monday.

You see some spectacular things in NYC.

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.

Finals Predictions

2006-07-07T09:56:00.000-04:00

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.

Crissy on the eBay Transfer List

2006-07-06T14:51:00.000-04:00

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.

Live Blog - Germany vs. Italy

2006-07-04T16:06:00.000-04:00

Minute 0 – Wow, Frings got the +b for trying to slap Julio Cruz, but no Schweinsteiger for Germany either – this is a different German team. For Italy, The Pony (Mauro Camoranesi) is playing in the midfield, and Gatusso is also starting. In a freak rip in the space/time continuum, Al Pacino actually played him in a movie back in the 70s.

Minute 3 – Totti hits a bullet from a free kick, but it hardly troubles Lehman. In fact, Lehman looks like he’s on the training ground instead of at the semifinals of the World Cup. This is a good thing, right?

Minute 5 – Dave O’Brien apologizes that we might be able to hear someone else’s commentary through their mikes. As if we could be so lucky. I’ve been pretty tolerant of this announcing team, but O’Brien asking multiple times why Pekerman didn’t bring in Messi or Saviola during the last Argentina game, and Balboa answering “because they’ve used all their subs!” officially pushed me past my limit. What the hell happened to Tommy Smyth? He’s good enough to do the Champions League games, but only gets a couple of shots during the World Cup? Something about this does not make sense.

Minute 6 – I notice that Friedrich has shaved since Germany faced Argentina. I decide that I have officially seen too much football in the last six weeks.

Minute 7 – Klose goes down and rolls around as if he was thrown out of a moving car. Play stops and he gets up with a grimace and then immediately starts running again. Sometimes I hate football.

Minute 10 – Ten minutes in, and no real chances have been created yet. Not remotely surprising considering who is playing.

Minute 11 – Toni and Lehman have both slipped on the craptastic turf in the last minute. I hope FIFA gets this garbage straightened out in the next four years, or you may as well play South Africa on a sheet of ice instead. Ridiculous. I hear one of my internet doppelgangers is a turf expert – maybe they should as him for help.

Minute 12 – Camoranesi doesn’t know words to the Italian national anthem – oh the shame. Little known fact – approximately 76.3% of Americans pretend The Star Spangled Banner has the word “watermelon” in the lyrics.

Minute 15 – Klose is so good at taking tough passes and then laying the ball off to Podolsky. Lucas was just a step slow in getting there. One wonders if Klose passes this well at the club level.

Minute 16 – Oo, back to back attacking chances, one for each team. Perfect offsides trap break by Italy, but the pass is just a hint too far and Lehman cleans it up after 8 or 9 tries.

Minute 20 – The Pony is sporting the samurai variation of his normal hair do. Does he have to commit sepukku if Italy lose? Regardless, he’s certainly the coolest looking player on the pitch today.

Minute 22 – I think Balboa just called one Italian central defender Mozzarella. Meanwhile, Kehl is getting involved in the offense and looks good, hooking up with Podolski for a tough volley. Podolski pumps up the crowd and it makes me wonder why more players don’t do this. You see it in American football, but not nearly enough for the rabid fans in real football. If you ever get a “create player” option in Football Manager, I’m adding the trait “pumps up the crowd” to my guy in addition to “responds poorly to authority” and “tends to get drunk in Japan.”

Minute 24 – Italy’s turn to go close this time, getting a great free kick from Pirlo that just misses both Toni and Mozzarella.

Minute 25 – Thinking about Football Manager traits makes me wonder how they incorporate tendencies to do Rooney-esque things on the pitch. They have Bravery and Decisions, but I think Stupidity may deserve a spot in the ’07 edition.

Minute 26 – Cannavarro looks great, but the rest of Italy’s defense seems a bit shaky, especially up the left wing. Germany needs to exploit this.

Minute 28 – Holy crap, AC Milan, Lazio, and Fiorentina are also recommended for demotion from Serie A match fixing. I knew about Juve, but had not heard Milan was also in that list. Hopes for a fire sale of Italian stars unwilling to play on relegated sides have officially gone to 11. Let’s just hope that Chelsea are not invited.

*I just realized that a televised auction of the stars from these four teams would perhaps be the greatest football Pay-Per-View event of all time. Expect to hear more about this soon.

Minute 30 - Lahm trips The Pony just outside the box and should probably have received a yellow card for it. He also sports a fantastic shiner from somewhere. Uncomfortable story: My mother-in-law also once sported a black eye just like that one and admitted that she got it while changing positions during sex.

Minute 34 – Klose is on the break and lays it off to Schneider for a fantastic open shot that Buffon manages to parry in a reflex save. Best chance of the match and Buffon proves equal to the task.

Minute 37 – Balboa makes excellent observation (shocking, I know) that Ballack is actually playing the holding midfielder role while Kehl and Borowski get involved in the attack. I’m not sure this is a great idea, since Ballack might just be their most talented player, but Frings is certainly the most important guy for them to replace. So he’s either playing the Frings role, or he’s resting a lot.

Minute 40 – Podolski has now been on his knees and back more than any whore at a Prague cabaret, and he’s not the only player who seems to have taken up a new occupation. The game has suddenly turned into football pinball.

Minute 40 – Borowski gets the first (well-deserved) yellow of the game for an ugly challenge from behind on Totti.

Minute 44 –
Dear Marcelo Balboa,
Can you please stop applauding players for diving? I know that you have taken approximately 10,000 balls to the head, but this behavior is “cheating” no matter how clever you think it is.
Thank you,
Real football fans

Minute 44 – Lahm serves another fantastic ball into the box for Klose, but Italy clears. He might just be the most accurate crosser of the tournament.

Minute 45 – Totti goes flying over Ballack just before the end of the half and gets called for a foul in the process. It was likely the wrong call, but I approve.

And that’s it for the first half. There have been a couple of decent chances, with Schneider probably getting the best one of the half, but both defenses have held. A very solid half of play, and less chippy than many have feared.

Eric Wynalda has grown on me throughout this World Cup. As long as he’s not commenting on the USMNT, he’s frank, accurate, and even somewhat self-effacing. He says stupid stuff when discussing the U.S. but I think that might be just because he cares too much.

Second Half
Minute 48 – The Italians get their 6th offsides flag of the game already, signaling that Germany have apparently figured out how to play the trap correctly since Wanchope embarrassed them three weeks ago.

Minute 50 – Klose makes a ridiculous run that would be the highlight of the Cup if he’d finished it, but gets knocked off the ball just as he shoots and Buffon saves it with his feet. Italy strikes back immediately but is… offsides.

Minute 54 – FAN-tastic tackle by the Magic Dwarf on The Pony, as Lahm has to track back quickly in order to prevent a break. Camoranesi is an angry equine.

Minute 55 – Graphic shows Germany have 0 shots on goal thus far tonight after averaging 9 a game prior to this round, but didn’t we just see Buffon make a save on Klose? FIFA stats remain confusing.

Minute 58 – Totti plays about the fifth ball in a row in to Toni that has been mis-hit or mis-weighted. Each of these has killed what looked like a promising attack. Pirlo needs to get more involved.

Minute 63 – Great ball into Podolsky by Schneider. Podolsky turns extremely well on the ball but then smacks it directly at Buffon, who parries. The ESPN update tells me Martina Navratilova plans to retire at the end of the year. I’m suddenly confused and try to remember what decade we are in.

Minute 67 – Podolsky is on the break, but runs so quickly that the ball can’t keep up. They repeat the break about 45 seconds later, but Borowski’s touch deserts him on the final ball. I realize at this point that I am fully in “screw my predictions” mode and am cheering for Germany. Uber alles, etc.

Minute 69 – Offsides #9 on Italy. Between that and Totti, the Italians are really suffering in the final third of the pitch.

Minute 72 – The first sub of the game is Schweinsteiger in for Borowski. Balboa somehow tells us that Bastian hasn’t had a great tournament, which makes me wonder whether they’ve legalized marijuana in Deutschland. Italy really need an impact sub, but it’s Germany who make the first one. The game feels like it could break open at any moment.

Minute 74 – Finally Lippi makes his sub, getting Totti out of the game while bringing Gilardino off the bench. This isn’t relevant to anything, but the crowd in Dortmund sounds awesome.

Minute 77 – Germany give up a corner on an overdue successful attack from Italy. Zambrotta comes streaking up the sideline, crossing to what looked like Toni at the far post, and Kehl manages to head it out. The corner is plucked from the air by Lehman, who has been dominant thus far when he’s had any action.

Minute 80 – Action has downshifted from 5th gear into 2nd and everyone tries to catch their breath.

Minute 81 – Cannavarro gets called for a mystery foul on Podolsky that occurred inside the box, while the ball is placed outside the box. Ballack rips it over the crossbar. I realize I don’t actually know whether Podolsky is spelled with a Y or an I, but in Latin I am positive it is spelled with a J, making it the inverse of Jehova.

I'm now babbling and making non-sensical Indiana Jones references. Goals please!

Minute 83 – Odonkor comes into the game for a gassed Schneider. He’s like the German Aaron Lennon – all pace, and scary as hell to exhausted left backs for the opposition. In fact, when polled, tired left backs pick Odonkor and Lennon 1 and 2 over Freddy Krueger as men they have nightmares about. On the other side of the field, Gattusso and Ballack go at it again. I’m definitely enjoying their chippy, physical battle.

Minute 85 – Italy finally break the trap again and Lehman nearly knocks Perotta out with a flying elbow while punching the ball away. This is a move we teach in women’s self-defense, though we recommend the ladies don’t leave their feet.

Minute 88 – Ze Germans have held up surprisingly well, considering they played 120 minutes last Friday with most of this same team. Camoranesi hacks down Kehl in the middle of the field and gets a yellow card, looking like a tired but still very feisty Pony.

Minute 93 – Joy, a 0-0 draw. Again. Please not penalty kicks, please not penalty kicks!

Extra Time
Minute 91 – The Pony is off, Iaquinta Inns comes on.

Minute 91 – Gilardino makes a spectacular run (cue Jim Broadbent) down the right side, beating Mertesacker before cutting the ball back and going near-post on Lehman. The ball goes through, but strikes the inside of the post, crossing the goalmouth before being cleared. Soooo close.

Minute 92 – Italy have taken queue from early 2000's baseball and snorted speed during the break, with Zambrotta cracking a long-distance bomb right off the crossbar. Moments later, another Iaquinta run on the right off of a long ball signals the likely Italian strategy for the rest of extra time, a strategy that might just work.

Minute 95 – Lahm battles against Zambrotta and earns a free kick at the edge of the area. The free kick turns into a corner that goes all the way through the penalty area before being cleared.

Minute 96 – Mozzarella takes a 55 mph shot off the noggin and comes up woozy. Arturo Gatti has taken less hard shots to the head than most of these central defenders, and he doesn't even have to worry about elbows...

Minute 103 – Ballack and Iaquinta smash together, and the ref chooses to ignore it. I approve. In other news, Ballack is pretty big – he’s going to be a major pain in the ass in the EPL.

Minute 104 – Balboa just told us Italy was not taking Totti off and keeping him loose for penalty kicks. Didn't he get subbed out half an hour ago? Apparently not – he just hasn’t done anything since minute 73. To further the confusion, O’Brien turns Mozzarella’s name into Maserati. I head over to the FIFA page to figure out who they subbed out.

Minute 106 – Podolski gets an open header and pushes it well past the near post, as the first half of extra time ends.

Minute 108 – Lehman grabs another corner from the air, making sure his guys don’t have a chance to make a mistake. Apparently it was Toni that went out in the second half. Damn these rhyming Italian names!

Minute 111 – Madness in the box as Italy break and Lehman misses when trying to snatch the ball from Del Piero’s feet. Germany immediately counter and Podolski ends up with an open look that Buffon again is able to parry. The men of the match thus far are clearly the two goalkeepers.

Minute 114 – Lehman makes another mistake by coming out and almost getting caught in no man’s land, but Del Piero pushes his shot wide. 10 Germans just died of heart attacks and aneurysms.

Minute 116 – In complete and utter opposition to how the game went previously, it is now end-to-end action. It looks like my co-rec league, even to the point where they appear to be playing 6-on-6 in each half now that they are tired.

Minute 118 – Pirlo finds space and takes a shot from around 22 yards out that forces Lehman to save to his left. Corner kick to come.

Minute 119 - GOOOOOOOOOOOAL. Pirlo takes the ball at the top of the box after , threads a perfect pass to Grosso who sidefoots it into the far corner. Unbelievable!

Minute 121 – GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAL. Gilardino breaks against an exhausted, undermanned German defense and lays it off to Del Piero for an open look from 10 yards. Del Piero pushes it into the far corner and Italy are into the Finals! Unbelievable ending! Italy deserved to win this for their performance in the last 30 minutes, but a heartbreaking loss for Germany. They were the most enjoyable team to watch for the duration of the Cup, and contrary to everything I thought at the beginning of the tournament, I am sad to see them go.

Semifinals Predictions

2006-07-04T12:38:00.000-04:00

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.

Quarterfinal Predictions, Part II

2006-07-01T09:56:00.000-04:00

After two perfect predictions yesterday, including Luca Toni's scoring exploits, I am officially feeling it. Let's see if we can go 4-4.

England vs. Portugal

So long, Portugal - you will not be missed.

This is it for Portugal - the end of the line. They are missing three key players in Deco, Costinha, and an injured Christiano Ronaldo and I think England will really be up for this match. (Also, in case you care, Luis Figo should be serving a suspension for a headbutt the ref didn't catch, but FIFA are pants, so Figo gets to play.)

This is the day where Rooney breaks his World Cup cherry, Joe Cole gets his star on the football walk of fame, and David Beckham plays a solid 65 minutes. I can feel it in me bones - the boys are going to win this one. They just have to keep Maniche, Figo, and Pauleta out of good scoring positions and I think they will be fine.

My only hope is that it doesn't turn nasty, because Portugal's games can get that way in a hurry. Portugal are the new Argentina. If there's any justice in the world, England will send these cheaty, diving [censored] crashing out of the Cup, and if there's not justice, England are still going to win this one because they are better team nearly across the board.

Brazil vs. France
At what point does a sleeping giant have to fully exit dreamland in order to win a World Cup? I think we find that out today, because if Brazil's defense or strikers sleepwalk through this one, they are going home. France will be the best team Brazil has faced this Cup by far, and they also present an interesting matchup in terms of style and tactics. The French are clearly looking to counterpunch, while Brazil will presumably do their thing and try to play beautiful attacking football.

Ronaldo certainly has a unique diet.

The worrisome elements for France are that, while Ronaldo hardly moves when he is on the pitch these days, when he does get the ball he's still lethal. France can't afford to give up more than a goal in this game or they are likely dead. The other thing they have to be concerned about is the same thing that sent Argentina packing: exhaustion. While it was most pronounced on TV for ze Germans during yesterday's game, exhaustion hit Argentina's players early, resulting the substitutions of Riquelme and Crespo midway through the second half, though they certainly could have used Riquelme's presence for at least the full 90. The French are relatively old, and while Zidane got a mandatory game off and Domenach has at least been reasonable about keeping his midfield fresh, his backline and workhorses have got to be tired. Tired is the last thing you want to be when playing Brazil. The fact that they are not playing the early game should help some.

From Brazil's perspective, their defense has to step up if they want to get out of this game alive. Unlike Ghana, France actually has players that can put the ball in the net. If you look slow against Henry and Ribery, you are losing, it's as simple as that. Brazil's defense hasn't looked good for some time (though to be fair, the haven't had to), which means they either come correct or they have to win this game in a shootout. They can certainly do it, but they probably do not want to. The play of Uncle Sal or Silva for Brazil (Uncle Sal may be injured) and Viera for France will be a big deal.

Also, has anyone seen the kid with all the hair and the big teeth on the pitch lately? The World Footballer of the Year has been strangely quiet lately.

This may seem like folly, but I had Spain bouncing Brazil in the round of 8 in my original predictions, so I'm going to stick with that and pick France to win this one. Regardless of what some folks may think, Henry has played well thus far, scoring a couple of goals and setting up a few others. I think he has a huge game today, the rest of France plays great defense, and they go through into the semifinals.

One of these guys could be a male model and likely has a huge following of women and in the gay community. The other is just Uncle Sal.

Quarterfinal Predictions Part I

2006-06-29T14:29:00.000-04:00

Before we get started on what just might be the greatest weekend in football, let me just say that I have generally loved the football in this World Cup. I have some complaints about the referees and how the rules of the game are being enforced and I think the game could be better on the field, but that doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed the last 3 weeks. Far from it, and I am particularly stoked about Friday and Saturday's action. There's even a chance ESPN won't shove Shep Messing down my throat on either day, which might just be cause for a national freaking holiday.

Germany vs. Argentina

Will it be Ballack...

The early game is of epic proportions, featuring two of the most successful countries in World Cup history, forced to do battle a full two rounds away from the final. It also features two of the most in-form teams at this Cup, which has fans everywhere hoping for fireworks. In fact, there are tremendous personnel matchups all over the pitch.

For starters, you have the two midfield generals and their pitbull defensive mids squaring off in a battle for central supremacy. We saw in the Champions League semifinal that a very good defensive midfielder is capable of marking Riquelme out of a game, but Villareal didn't have the weapons that Argentina does, and Torsten Frings will have his hands full for 90 solid minutes. For Germany, Ballack is likely too big and strong to be marked off the ball by just one man, but Mascherano has been tremendous thus far. Ballack's rumored to be having fitness troubles again, which could simplify the job.

Each team also has a tremendous wing midfielder that has powered their offense in the Cup thus far, and their play will be vital in determining which of these teams will win. Will it be Guy Ritchie star Bastian Schweinsteiger, or Adam Sandler lookalike Maxi Rodriguez? Hollywood couldn't script a confrontation this intriguing if they tried, and they wouldn't because American audiences would be turned off by the fact that this would be a foreign language film in both Spanish and German, and they'd need to read subtitles, which is a real pisser. Thankfully it's happening in real life, so we all win.

or Riquelme who comes out on top?

Each team also has an excellent attacking full back (Silence of the Lahm for ze Germans and captain Juan "Don't call me Pablo" Sorin for the Argies) that contributes to their offensive engine, but may be forced to play more defense than at any point thus far in the tournament. In fact, the striker vs. back line battle should be epic and will play out very differently on each end of the field. For the Germans, man mountains Mertesacker and Metzelder have to find a way to keep the extremely quick Saviola (or Messi) and crafty Crespo in check, while Ayala and Heinze - at least one of whom should be in every Best 11 team - have to deal with the speed, power, and aerial acumen of Klose and Podolski.

Tactically, this should be a cagey game where both teams look to capitalize on a mistake or convert from set pieces. They both have great offenses, which means the emphasis will be on defense for both. If the Germans score quickly like they have been, the crowd may carry them, but I don't think they will this time. In fact, since the Germans have played the weaker schedule by far, I think it's they that have to be worried about a barnstorming start from the Argies that puts them immediately under the gun.

In the end, home field and two headers carry the Germans to victory. Whatever the final result, the journey to get there should be an all-time classic.

Italy vs. Ukraine
I have the Italians making it to the finals by hook or by crook, and we all know how the last game played out. Fortunately for the azzurri, things should be a bit easier this time out. Ukraine couldn't get their game up if Adidas balls were constructed of Viagra. It particularly hurts them that Shevchenko still isn't fully fit, and the rest of the squad need him in top form just to look average. The Ukrainian defense is solid, but they haven't seen this many skilled players on the other side of the ball since they faced Spain, and that was a disaster.

And I shall call him The Pony...

As for the Italians, Cannavarro and the boys are not going to be troubled much by Sheva's friends even without Nesta, and I think they can keep Andriy under wraps. Additionally, I foresee Toni/Gilardino getting off the schneid, and Totti doing something stupid, though both of those might have to wait for next week's game before they come to fruition. Whatever the case, Italy are making it into the semifinals here, I'd stake a small fortune on it.

I do hope that we'll get to see Mauro "The Pony" Camoranesi on the pitch at some point in this match. He's been absent since the opening match against Ghana, but could see some time due to a bevy of Italian injuries. Oh, and he has the coolest ponytail in the tournament (not that that's any way to judge a football player).

Firestarters
Which team is more despicable: Italy or Portugal?

Before this World Cup, I was unaware that on-the-field handjobs were so common...

And finally, a little piece of marketing genius, courtesy of Phil Ivey, Full Tilt, and the folks at YouTube:

Round of 16 Wrap Up

2006-06-29T11:06:00.000-04:00

I'm running a bit behind on the end of my round of 16 review and some of you have asked for it, so here goes...

Italy vs. Australia

Men sucking their thumbs are clearly the villains of a story.

The referee was involved in two major decisions this entire game and he managed to get both of them wrong. First of all, the Materazzi red card was dumb and totally uncalled for, putting Italy at a disadvantage for what might have been a yellow card offense and nothing more. Then you get to the bit of acting at the end that lead to the penalty putting Italy into the quarters. Unlike some other penalties in this World Cup, this one wasn't one of those "are you out of your mind?" calls, but was more of "that's definitely the wrong call according to the rules." If a foul occurred there - and you can argue this one on both sides until you are blue in the face - it was obstruction, which should have lead to a free kick from a really difficult spot instead of a penalty kick. It still gives Italy a scoring chance in exchange for a flop, but it doesn't decide the game, which is what the ref did.

I was right in that the Aussies gave Italy everything they could handle in this game and more, it just made me sad to see them bow out on something so dubious. As for the Italians, dubious is all they do...

Switzerland vs. Ukraine
My sources behind the scenes have informed me of the following: In addition to the memo to the ref that FIFA sent before this game instructing him to give no cards until after the 60th minute, there was an additional memo sent to the teams that told them all players completing dangerous through balls from the midfield into a good attacking position would be executed by firing squad after the game with no possibility of appeal. Sometimes serious measures have to be taken, I guess. Good thing no one defied them in this game, or it might have looked like football.

Believe it or not, I watched 120 minutes of this game and then turned it off. I just couldn't watch the penalty kicks and care anymore. Ukraine won. I hope desperately that they don't win again. Has any team had a more improbable, goof-grab run in this tournament? Sure, they beat Saudi Arabia by a lot. That was the only game they played remotely well in. They needed a gift penalty to score at all against Tunisia and then failed to do anything against the Swiss (who (by the way) bow out of the tournament without conceding a single goal. Now that's pretty fucked up, right there.), yet they still find themselves facing the Italians in the quarterfinals. One good game, make it to the Top 8.

Clown shoes...

Brazil vs. Ghana
If Ghana had anyone in their lineup who could finish, and if the linesman had called the double offside on Adriano's goal, this game might have been spicy even without Michael Essien. As it was, you got the best move of the tournament from Ronaldo, some mind-blowingly bad offside trap work from the Ghanaian defense, and Brazil cruise into the quarters without having played that well yet.

Spain vs. France

Patty is taking fat hits from the fountain of youth.

For the first time all tournament, France play a team where their 4-5-1 formation makes sense and they finally looked good. Go figure. In the last two games, Patrick Viera has been the real difference-maker, looking like the Viera of old, who just happened to be one of the Top 5 all-around midfielders in the game. It's been said that big men age faster than their smaller counterparts, and both for Juventus and during the early part of the Cup, Patty looked like he was 50. The last two games, Viera seems a spry and dangerous 25. It's not hard to believe that France are winning without Henry playing his best yet, but if he hits his stride for Brazil, we're certainly going to see fireworks.

The Spanish may blame Thierry Henry's flop for their failure, but they should be pointing the finger at the mirror instead. Spain had plenty of decent chances for more goals, but they simply did not convert, unexpected considering how lethal they were in Group stage. The French defense was decent but not spectacular, and if Spain had hit a single more goal at any point before Zidane's reminder of how good he is, they probably win this game. I don't believe Spain were caught unawares by how good the French are, but I do think Aragones made a hefty mistake in starting Raul as an attacking midfielder when his lineup in games 1 and 2 worked so well without Raul in there. I'm sad to see the Spaniards go - they played beautiful football and probably should have been bashing the Swiss instead of the French, but I can't complain about seeing France make it through.

With Zidane and Viera sucking full bore off the fountain of youth, this team could go all the way. One merely wonders how long the juice from the rejuvenation machine will last.

Oh, and that racist prick Aragones absolutely has to go. It's difficult to believe Spain kept him on after the first set of comments, but wanting to keep him on after a perfectly valid excuse to give him the axe is absurd. Is the entire country crazy?

Beautiful (Broken) Feedback
It seems my blurb for this entry on some of the World Cup journal communities completely left the audience behind, which was unexpected but I guess shouldn't have been. Aside from that, the post seems to have spawned quite a bit of thought from those who read it, which was exactly what it was supposed to do.

On The Pitch has a good response to it that includes a point I didn't directly address in my post itself: Perhaps the biggest failing of referees at the World Cup has been the lack of consistency. As I mentioned in my comments there, I view this one as a given. All referees are going to call things slightly differently and have to be heavily trained if you want to change it, and if FIFA can't put refs in a position to get even that right, then there's little hope for anything else.

A couple more points about yesterday's post before I actually do my work for today and get started on the Quarterfinals predictions:

* I'm not married to any and all of the ideas discussed yesterday. Of the controversial bits, I actually like the blue cards concept the best because I think it would add the most value to the product.

* In said blue cards system, yellow cards still exist for most of the fouls they exist for now. Blue are for minor offenses, yellow are for medium to major offenses, and red means Marvin K. Mooney, would you please go now.

* FIFA is clearly setting referees up to fail with the support they are delivering. With modern communication technology, mistakes like the Graham Poll not sending off a player for his second red card (in the Croatia vs. Australia match) simply should not happen. It should not be a problem for his fourth official to get his attention over the radio and give the player the boot. This whole issue feels like it’s plagued by a cloud of stupidity.

The Beautiful (Broken) Game

2006-06-28T18:28:00.000-04:00

I have been fascinated by the sport of football since I was a small boy, in spite of the fact that I never played when I was younger. My mom would come home from work when I was around 6 years old and find me contentedly sitting in front of the TV, watching non-English language football broadcasts, though I'd never actually kicked a ball myself and never could figure out the damned offsides rule when no one was around to explain it en ingles. This says a lot about how I was hooked by the game right from the start or it might also have been the result of me sticking a false plug into a light socket and nearly electrocuting myself when I was three - the eternal conundrum about licks and centers of Tootsie Roll Pops is easier to figure out. Regardless, I've just spent the last month of my life writing daily about the game for free when I not only have plenty of other (paid) writing options but also other entertainment options, so I guess you could say I care.

After watching some untold number of hours of football during said period of time, I have come to the following conclusion:

Football is fundamentally broken.

Maybe you like this about the game. Maybe the impact of overly fallible human referees who are regularly duped by highly paid athletes and actors is an element of the sport that you appreciate. Perhaps you are of the opinion that while it sometimes ruins the game, it is also one of football's true idiosyncrasies that can no more be fixed without ruining the game than the fact that field players can't touch the ball with their hands. If that's the case, then so be it - you aren't my target audience. But maybe you don't feel that way. Maybe you hate the fact that referees seem to have at least as much impact on the game as any one player, particularly at the international level. Maybe you abhor the divers, the thugs, and the cheats that are nearly ubiquitous these days, and would like to see a lot of the grabbing, tugging, pulling, and general rugby-like elements removed from the game. Maybe you want to see football move closer to the beautiful, flowing ideal everyone talks about and not even the Brazilians truly obtain.

Maybe you just want jogo bonito.

If you are one of those people, then perhaps we've got some things to discuss.

Problems of Manpower
In no other sport does so much responsibility for how the game plays out rest on one individual: the referee. Fans pay hundreds or thousands of dollars a season to see players (and in some cases, hundreds or thousands of dollars a ticket at the World Cup), and yet the guy who consistently has the greatest effect on a game is the one with a whistle in his hands. Football stars get paid up to $250,000 a week. A referee is lucky if he gets paid $250 a game. This World Cup has shown, often in dramatic fashion, that even if the referees are good at their jobs (and many of them clearly are not), the tasks they are asked to perform are Herculean in nature.

In professional baseball there are 4 umpires on the field during the regular season and 6 during the post-season charged with officiating 18 players. In NFL football, you have 7 officials tracking 22 players. In basketball you get 3 guys following 10, and in hockey you have 4 guys following 12. However, in football, you have 1 referee and 2 linesman calling the game for 22 players on the largest field of any major sport. Asking a ref to properly officiate a free-flowing game with that many players acting on a field that large might as well be the same as asking him to divert an entire river to cleanse some shit-filled stables. In fact, in some games during this Cup, that might just be the most apt description possible of what the referee is supposed to do.

However, that particular problem doesn't signal anything "broken." Poor staffing is easily fixed, provided you aren't completely locked into the idea that there can be only one ref on the field. You can add more bodies to the pitch at any time and bring the average official-to-player ratio closer in line with other major sports.

No, where football is broken is in the discipline system.

Referees and the Discipline System
Referees essentially have two priorities on the pitch. The first is to keep the players safe from other players who are behaving violently. As evidenced by Italy vs. USA and Portugal vs. The Netherlands, the ability of a referee to maintain order when things turn nasty is tenuous at best. The referee's second priority is to maintain the integrity of the game, which includes calling all the other fouls that are not violent. This is where the major failing has occurred in World Cup 2006.

The record number of yellow and red cards by the end of the Group stage didn't simply materialize out of thin air - referees were clearly told by FIFA that they needed to call the game in a particular fashion before the Cup, and they tried to stick to that. Once again, in principal, cracking down on all the things FIFA wanted stopped, which includes tackles from behind and fouls that interfere with scoring chances, is a good thing. What's shocking is that FIFA instituted new guidelines at the World Freaking Cup, and have then backpedaled in the middle because they realized they screwed up. Where was the test bed for this system and the referees who were trained in match conditions to implement them? Putting something new like this into place at the game's showcase, which only occurs once every four years and which approximately 3 billion people watch is idiocy in the extreme.

The record number further illustrates what a failure the discipline system is. In football you have fouls, yellow cards, and red cards. That's it. A foul is just a foul until it's a yellow card or a red card. Yellow cards and red cards mean suspensions. Suspensions mean stars are not on the field, which is bad for the game unless there is a good reason for it (like violent behavior). In principle, the system is fine. It's highly flexible and gives the referee the maximum amount of leeway in a game filled with grey areas. In practice, however, it is a massive failure, especially when it comes to actually enforcing the rules.

Professional players are going exploit the rules to the absolute maximum that they are allowed. In fact, one could say that it is in their job description. Unfortunately, this desire is generally contrary to that of the fan, who would prefer to see good football, and referees are ill-equipped to make sure players follow the rules. Say, for example, a player keeps walking up the back of the other players in the middle of the field. This is an obvious foul and gets whistled constantly in every single game. How exactly does one penalize a player for this behavior? Now, the ref can eventually give this player a yellow card for persistent infringement, but say the player still does it, but this time only on important plays. Do you red card someone for it? Technically the answer is yes, but few referees I know of have the huevos required to do such things. Additionally, if they did hand out a red for such a thing, you could expect the ref to be ripped apart in the media and possibly by FIFA itself.

If you think that sort of foul is a pain in the ass to correct, don't even get me started on grabbing and shirt-pulling. Those are fouls, plain and simple. In fact, they are fouls that ruin that game. Sadly, they are so rampant that people just say, "Oh, that's normal." They may be commonplace, but they are still against the rules, yet referees are essentially powerless to stop this behavior because they only wield big sticks. Imagine what the game would be like if players weren't constantly slowing attacking players down by grabbing their shirts, shorts, or wang.

Now imagine the outcry if a ref were to give Sergio Ramos a red card for only his fourth instance of shirt-tugging (which would likely still occur in the first half), and you'll see why actually enforcing these rules are impractical. Persistent infringement, while useful in certain instances, is actually a joke.

Fix the Obvious
Football matches are decided by fewer points/goals/runs than any other sport. In fact, it is likely this absence of scoring that gives the sport its charm, since every scoring chance carries a tension and excitement that might not exist otherwise if scores ended 10-9 or even 4-3 with frequency. That said, people watch the game to see players score. So wouldn't it be nice if we made certain that goals that were actual goals (like France's vs. South Korea) actually get counted? That particular call (or not-a-call, if you like) dramatically changed the outcome in the group, which in turn affected seedings going into the knock-out stage, and gave us the France vs. Spain matchup in the round of 16 instead of France vs. Ukraine and Switzerland vs. Spain. France v. Spain was a great game, but a botched, yet obvious and easily reparable ref call in the second game of the group stage illustrates the fact that one goal can make all the difference in the world, especially at the World Cup.

The solution here is clear: you institute instant replay or some sensor in the balls that tell you whether or not a goal has occurred. Scoring in football is rare enough that you absolutely must give a team credit when it actually occurs, even if the referee and his linesman are blocked/not in position/fail to see it. This one is so important and so obvious that no further explanation should be needed.

Additionally, when the referee does something to actively change the scoring, like award a penalty kick, wouldn't it be nice if someone were there to review it immediately? Forget simple games, entire tournaments hinge on these decisions. It only makes sense to get a second pair of trained eyes to at least take a look and see if they agree. Humans are fallible, especially when attempting to observe events occurring at an extremely fast pace - events that are often intentionally disguised or falsified by the participants themselves. Create an instant replay official to review goals, penalties, and red card offenses with a 60 or 90 second review period, and you will dramatically change the game for the better. If the replay official doesn't see conclusive evidence of a change, then the referee's call stands.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...
Something has to be done about all the grabbing and tripping that goes on during the game. It's certainly illegal and by penalizing it in some meaningful fashion, you move the game back towards a more ideal, free flowing contest. Therefore, the next change I would implement would be to borrow a system from indoor soccer and institute the use of blue cards and a penalty box for minor infractions. This World Cup has proven to me that you have to have some sort of mechanism in place to actually penalize persistent infringement in a way that matters, and yellow cards aren't it. Therefore, a subsystem needs to be created to deal with the problem more effectively.

In my opinion, you can leave yellow and red cards in place, but shift minor infringements to blue cards. 3 blue cards would remove a player from the pitch for a period of time (either 10 or 15 minutes, which should be long enough to make players uncomfortable about hitting the box), during which time that team would be forced to play a man down. After serving the penalty, the player is reinstated into the game and can continue as normal unless they accumulate 6 blue cards in a game, in which case they are dismissed for good. (Truthfully, I like the concept of 5 getting you the boot, but some people like symmetry.) However, instead of receiving a mandatory suspension for the next game, players dismissed for blue card fouls would be able to play in the next match.

Arguments about slowing down the game are meaningless here, since these fouls all cause a stoppage of play when they are called, and it doesn't take much time for a ref to write down a player number and infringement code. Besides, if the game is actually played how it was meant to be played, there will be fewer fouls in total because players don't want make that extra foul and hurt their teams by getting the boot.

Will it work? I don't know, but steps need to be taken to fix a game that has become degenerate far too often at the highest levels. Don't tell me these things can't be done, and done well. Both professional basketball and professional hockey dramatically changed how they enforced the rules in the past year, returning to a truer interpretation of the rulebook for their sports and cleaning up the stupid fouls that decrease scoring and worsen how the game plays. Taking these steps has unequivocally improved the product on the field for both games.

There are two more changes I would like to see in how the game is officiated, and both of these are at the administrative level. The first change I would like to see is a push for longer suspensions for players that cause injuries or commit violent conduct. Football is a tough sport, and it causes tempers to flair. However, there's no place on the pitch for people who can't control their tempers and end up attempting to injure other players. A friend of mine was commenting on the injury to Christiano Ronaldo saying, "sometimes you just need to remove a guy from the game." That's unacceptable. If you can't mark a player without cheating, you deserve to lose, as simple as that. It's ironic that Ronaldo is the example here, because no team better exemplifies the whiney, cheatey nature of sport than the Portuguese, but he was the one the Dutch set out to injure badly enough to make sure he was removed from the game.

Once again, keeping stars on the pitch is extremely important to the health of the game, and cracking down on players who try to take opposing players out of the game is an absolute necessity. Violent players need to be suspended for lengths of time that hurt. Fine not just small dollars, but actual wages (this is easier to do at the domestic level). Make it hurt, and make it so teams are interested in trying to keep their players in line as well.

The last change I would institute is sort of the opposite of the last one. I would make certain that every yellow and red card given out at the World Cup were reviewed for validity, and immediately reversed if found to have little or no merit. Refs screw up, we all understand that. Admitting it occurs should not be a difficult topic to broach, and it's understood that what happens during a game that affects the scoreline cannot be questioned during the game, but after the fact is another matter entirely. By doing this and questioning the ref involved, you would not have Michael Essien watching Ghana painfully from the sidelines for a nothing foul supposedly committed against the United States that even Bruce Arena was scratching his head about. Once again, making sure the stars are on the pitch is prioritized, it doesn't undermine a ref's authority during the game, and yet it still attempts to make sure the calls are correct in the end. Everyone can see the referees are fallible - admit when something was wrong, fix it, and move on.

Reality Bites
So with all of that now on the table, the question becomes: Do I think any of these ideas will be put into action before the World Cup in South Africa? Realistically, I think FIFA will either put the ball sensor or goal instant replay in place by 2010. I also think they'll probably take some minor administrative steps like further reviewing of cards into account, and I think they'll even start some pilot multi-referee programs, but it's extremely unlikely they go further than that unless forced in some way to do so. The governing body is a giant bureaucracy, and as such is phobic of change. I'm certainly not the first to suggest a modified version of the indoor system has a place in the outdoor game, and I likely won' t be the last. It's also unlikely that we will see such a system put into place in my lifetime.

What's clear to me after watching over 40 games since the start of the Cup, is that the referees and more specifically, the system they are supposed to enforce, are failing the fans at the World Cup level. The rules as they exist in writing are acceptable, but the way that they are enforced contributes to lower scoring, decreased star exposure and field time, and increased thuggish behavior. Unless FIFA makes some considerable changes in manpower and how fouls are enforced, we can expect more of the same four years from now.

Football is a sport and business that produces revenues in the tens of billions of dollars per year - as consumers of the product of this business, we have a right to demand better.

Unfortunately, when played in the fashion generally exhibited at the 2006 World Cup, jogo bonito is hardly beautiful.

Author's Note: If this entry strikes a chord, feel free to repost this wherever you like, but please include a link to http://footballknuts.blogspot.com/.

Round of 16 Predictions, Part II

2006-06-26T11:00:00.000-04:00

The man of the match in Portugal vs. The Nederlands goes to...

I'm short on time for this one, so it'll have to be a quickie. There's a rant about Portugal vs. The Netherlands that's been milling around in my head for a little while yet, but it's not fully formed, so will probably end up as the header to a news and notes column in a day or two.

I am now convinced that Sven Goran Eriksson is the professional golf of football when it comes to tactical team management. In big games, his squads will simply not be fun to watch, regardless of who is on his squad, thus absolutely killing every fan's viewing pleasure. Every England game thus far has been occasion to fall asleep on the couch, and it's highly unlikely to change, though it was good to see England's goats come up big for them in an important game (and I'm shocked to find myself actually riding the Hargreaves bandwagon). I'm not exactly sure when England became Italy, but that's certainly what they look like these days, and I suspect it will continue as long as he keeps managing them. If it works for them and they win the World Cup, great... he got the result everyone wanted. If not, it's been a long, boring ride that I would prefer to never repeat. Football is supposed to be entertaining. England matches hardly fit that description. I'd almost rather watch John Daly's reaction after he shanks a drive, and that's pretty goddamn desperate.

Italy vs. Australia
Oddly enough, this is the match that I expected to get pretty rough from the get go - partly because Hiddink coaches his sides to play that way against better teams and partly because the Italians can't seem to help themselves. FIFA may have instructed referees to immediately crack down on that sort of stuff now that the Klitchko v. Lewi... erm, Portugal vs. Netherlands match has gone down, which could change this game dramatically (and likely in favor of the Italians). That said, I think the Italians are in real danger here. Australia plays a lot like the U.S. except with more skill, and Hiddink's teams are always fit. Additionally, Aussies already play in heat at home, so Germany isn't anything new to them, while the Italians have certainly shown some wear in their early games. Today's game is early, and Germany has been sweltering lately.

If Italy's strikers finally wake up, I think they win this, because they are going to get chances against Australia's back line. However, if they continue to slumber through this tournament like they have at nearly every other World Cup in recent memory, then the Aussies might just pull this one out. Italy's odds appear to be around 3.5:1 at the bookies, and I think it's much closer to 2:1, making Oz a good bet in my mind, should one be interested in that sort of thing.

Switzerland vs. Ukraine

Senderos gave fans one of my favorite images of the World Cup.

Boring vs. Boringer. That's what most people might think on this matchup, but I haven't found the Swiss to be that boring. Yes they lack bona fide superstars, but Senderos, Frei, and Barnetta have played just below that level so far and deserve some respect. Ukraine have looked terrible in the World Cup minus 90 minutes of Saudi bashing, while the Swiss have looked consistently good. The loss of Senderos will hurt them (he's out with a shoulder injury) because he has been nothing short of incredible thus far, but I don't think it will come into play against a misfiring Ukrainian offense that probably couldn't score a goal against the Swiss U21 side.

Brazil vs. Ghana
No Essien, no chance. It's as simple as that. Brazil have finally rubbed the sleep out of their eyes and will start firing on all cylinders, so now we'll see what they look like when they actually care.

Spain vs. France
The best match of the Round of 16, and another pick 'em. If this were just team vs. team, it would literally be a push for me, since talent seems about equal on both sides, even with Spain squashing opponents beneath their high-scoring boots. However, Domenach is involved on the France side, giving Spain a heavy edge. I hate to see Henry bow out this early, but overcoming a bad coach is really tough at this level, and Spain are playing very well.

Now if I can just get two goals from Torres so that my golden boot prediction will again have life...

Real Life Football Manager - Best Buys from the Group Stages

2006-06-25T10:03:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it's fun to pretend the real world exists as a Football Manager-like vehicle* for you to speculate as to who you would like to buy, should you just happen to find yourself managing a giant football club. Silly? Perhaps. But folks need to dream about football, just like they need to think about what they would do if they win the lottery next week. And hey... maybe you slept in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Today you get to pretend you are this man, minus the perpetual pout.

A few caveats before we begin. First of all, during or shortly after the World Cup is the worst time possible to buy players. Player values at the Cup skyrocket, while a maximum of 7 games is a particularly small sample size to see whether a player is actually good or if he's just enjoying a good run of form surrounded by outstanding teammates. There are a billion examples of craptastic buys made directly after the World Cup where players never came close to panning out at the club level (half of them were on the Senegal team from 2002), thus making your purchases closer to hitting the craps tables in Atlantic City than buying a sure thing. Thankfully, we don't care. I just wanted to point out that we are aware of the circumstances and would behave differently if we, you know, were managing an actual club side that was not named Chelski.

The other thing to note here is that we (I expect you to chime in with your own opinions here) are doing here is not naming players that are already superstars. Assume everybody knows Henry, Zidane, Ronaldinho, Zlatan, Ballack. What we're looking for here are guys who may not be famous yet, but probably should/will be after Germany. If you have questions on this, save them for a bit until after you've read my choices, which should clear most of them up.

Defense
Arthur Boka - Ivory Coast
Boka plays his club football for Strasbourg, and was perhaps the best player minus Drogba on the pitch for the Ivory Coast throughout their 3 group games. An extremely fast left back, his service from the wings was very impressive, as was his work rate. He's a little smaller than most teams like for their defensive line these days, but being a left or right back generally mitigates that, and any team looking for a fast fullback who is always willing to get involved in the attack should take a closer look at how Boka did when playing for Strasbourg. You have to love a full back who can actually deliver accurate crosses.

Phillip Lahm
The inaugural goalscorer of the 2006 World Cup is also one of its breakout stars. Dubbed "The Magic Dwarf" by German tabloids (bad beat on that one), Lahm has been instrumental in kickstarting the impressive German attack with his overlapping runs on the left hand side of the defense. After the early mistakes against Costa Rica, he's been part of a defense that has hardly given opposing teams a sniff. Though he plays for German giants Bayern Munich, Jose Mourinho has reportedly already tabled a hefty bid in his endless search for the perfect left back. Judging just by World Cup performance, Lahm would certainly be a better choice than previous target Ashley Cole.

Plus, if he moves, you’re bound to see a bevy of Hannibal Lechter headlines from the English tabloids, and who wouldn’t want that?

Oguchi Onyewu
Reader "Mouth" will doubtless disagree with this, but Gooch was one of the best players on the U.S. team and has shown he can shut down top-notch forwards consistently at the international level. A beast of a man who clearly lifts weights to make sure his upper body is stronger than any forward he will face, Gooch is great in the air and reads the game pretty well. He's a relatively new addition to the U.S. MNT, and clearly needs some work on controlling forwards with his body and positioning instead of his hands and arms, but he clearly has great potential and is rumored to have already signed a contract with EPL team Middlesboro.

John Mensah
The so-called Rock of Djiporta was one of the key players in helping Ghana advance out of the group of little death. Built like a smaller Onyewu, Mensah has more experience playing at top levels against crafty forwards and it shows in his game. He's considered to be one of the better defenders in the top French league, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him move to one of the bigger leagues in the next six months. It will also be interesting to see how he handles Brazil's bullish forwards in their round of 16 match.

Juan Pablo Sorin
This one is dodgy because everybody knows who Sorin is, but despite watching him play some in La Liga and in the Champions League, I didn't understand that he was this good. An absolute joy to watch whether he is attacking or defending, Sorin just turned 30, but like Roberto Carlos, he plays like he's ageless, running up and down the flank to get in on attacks while making destructive tackles when forced to track back and defend. Ayala is the rock of the Argentine defense, but Sorin is just as good at his position and should get as much credit.

Sorin seems to get transferred about once every 18 months, which implies that he has some hidden "issues" that I'm not aware of (translation: he might be a dick or he fails to shower - one of the two), but after seeing him play for Argentina this Cup, whatever squad he's on (and he currently plays with teammate Riquelme for Villareal in Spain) has now become a must-watch game for me.

Midfield
Bastian Schweinsteiger

Who would that be, Tommy? Ze Germans?

Another relatively unheralded Bayern Munich youngster, Schweinsteiger has been the yin to Ballack's yang for Germany thus far. He's shown real quality in the attack, linking up extremely well with the German strikers and showing a pretty solid work rate as well. Plus he's young - only 22.

Looking at Schweinsteiger's face makes me think he'd fit in just fine on the set of a Guy Richie movie (perhaps Snatch 2 has a World Cup plot?), the guy has clearly had his nose broken a couple of times, but he seems tough too, like he's broken someone else's nose to boot. I wonder what "Oy!" sounds like with a German accent... This in turn has spawned the hope that some English club will cough up the big dough necessary to sign him before the next World Cup rolls around.

In fact, seeing how good these kids are makes think Bayern are ready to destroy the Champions League next year. Nobody wants that.

Stephen Appiah
Michael Essien’s midfield counterpart was the man of the match against the United States and while he’s not rocket fuel like the Chelsea player, but he’s pretty diesel. One of the things I really like about the Ghana players is that they are all powerfully built, giving them something extra when they are on the ball (and not flopping on the ground like they were shot during the second half against the USA). Appiah has solid skill on the ball, good vision, and tackles like Mike Singletary in his prime. He deserves better than being stuck playing for Fenerbahce in Turkey.

Maxi “Adam Sandler” Rodriguez

Rodriguez had the game winning goal and a huge movie opening this weekend.

This was written before his ridiculous goal against Mexico, but needless to say his stock has been raised further.

Argentina’s midfield is loaded, but at times Maxi Rodriguez has been the best player on the pitch. His runs up the right side of the field have made the Argies considerably more dangerous, and his contributions have been a helluva lot more than two (now three) goals. Originally I just felt he was hard-working and fast, but now I’m convinced he’s capable of brilliance. He plays his club football for Atletico Madrid, but considering the difficulty one can have these days of finding an attacking right-sided midfielder who can attack AND defend, I think he’s certain for bigger things. Like “Click.”

Omar Bravo
I’m not convinced Bravo is a true forward, but I love his movement and what he brings to the game. His two goals against Iran were quality, and he’s one of the best players in the Mexican League. If he were to move to a bigger Europe club, his size might force him to move back slightly into an attacking midfielder role, but I think he’d adapt to that position pretty easily. Then again, maybe he’d just be a less obnoxious Craig Bellamy. I said previously that I think more Mexican League players could be making their way overseas, and I think Bravo deserves the chance if he wants it.

Honorable mention: Clint Dempsey

Forwards
I’m going to leave this one up to you guys – who have you seen that isn’t a superstar yet, but that you love to watch play?

* For those Americans who have never heard of it, Football Manager (currently in its 2006 edition) is perhaps the most addictive sports simulator on the planet. A mega-blockbuster seller in Europe, FM can be completely overwhelming to the novice, but if you stick with it, it offers you just about everything a fan could possibly imagine with regard to being able to manage one of the world's major or minor football teams. You get to do everything from buy and selling players, resigning them to contracts, setting tactics and training, scouting players and teams, etc, blah, foo... basically anything that does not involve the actual kicking of a ball is possible. If you are at all the "manager" type and you like football, I highly recommend checking it out, assuming of course, that you don't mind losing days of your life to playing video games.

Round of 16 Predictions and More

2006-06-24T11:28:00.000-04:00

It's time to get to it - predictions for all of the Round of 16 games will follow, but first a review of my predictions to start the tournament.

Reviewing My Mistakes
I got 12 of 16 right in my original Group predictions for who would advance. The teams that failed me were the USA, Croatia, Ivory Coast, and Poland. Of those, two were half-hearted picks (USA and Poland) that I would not have put any money on, while two were just wrong (Ivory Coast and Croatia). The teams taking their places are the dominant Argentina, Ecuador, Ghana (who I felt was a good long-shot bet at the start), and the surprising Australia.

Exactly two true underdogs made it through to the 16, which is a bit surprising considering how strong some of the groups were and how bad certain favorites played. France and Ukraine tried really hard to screw things up on the final day, but still managed to make it through. Fitness was a major issue, with far more goals coming in the final 15 minutes than in any other period, and it proved to be the undoing or Iran, Japan, and Croatia. Exactly one team with four points failed to make it into the knockout rounds (South Korea), once again proving that under the current structure, a win and a draw is pretty much the magic number unless you get really unlucky.

Germany vs. Sweden

The Swedes can't beat these guys right now - no one can.

The Germans are now the favorites for me. Yes, they didn't play anybody great in their group phase, but they destroyed every team they encountered. Their strikers are in great form, Ballack looks unhampered by injury and imperious, and any problems at the back seem to have been quickly fixed after the Costa Rica game. Almost any Euro squad is a favorite at home to anyone short of Brazil, and these guys aren't "any Euro squad." This team is basically France in 1998, except with better strikers and slight downgrades most other places.

As much as I like Sweden, Zlatan's injury has me worried enough about their attack that I'm not sure they can score against this team. They roughed up England a bit in a game England needed to make sure they drew, but they haven't exactly looked dangerous outside of that game. When I picked the Swedes to upset the Germans weeks ago, Germany just wasn't this good.

Argentina vs. Mexico
The Mexican team practically has to make this into a rugby match in order for them to have a chance. A good ref could make this game awesome, but a bad one will make it unwatchable. Argentina is a 6:1 favorite here according to the betting lines, but they can't be more than 3 or 4:1 in reality. Mexico has every chance to upset them here.

I don't think they will, mind you - Argentina can play rough, and they just have too much firepower at every position for Mexico to handle - but it will be closer than any non-Mexico fan thinks it will be. Mexico would like to absorb and counterattack in this game, but I think Pekerman warns his team to keep them off that, and even if he doesn't, Argentina's back line are outstanding. A scoreline around 2-0 for Argentina seems about right.

England vs. Ecuador

Overrated? Hardly. (And I love this ad.)

It always shocks me how people can be haters about players on the England squad with no real justification. I mean, sure... there are some stinkers here, but the world class players really are world class. Before the tournament I got comments that Rooney is completely overrated and that England could easily sink or swim without him. That's ludicrous. Rooney changes every game he's in. He has the rare combination of speed, power, and vision to test any set of central defenders in the world, and when he's healthy, he's the stones. Yes, he has some anger management issues, but he's also the most tenacious and dogged player on his team short of Steven Gerrard, which is saying a lot. He also has a work rate that one rarely sees from a player with this much hype.

Then just a few days ago, someone tried to tell me that David Beckham is overrated and has been for his entire career. Let's take a moment to set the record straight, shall we? Beckham is one of the great right-sided midfielders of all time at the club level. He creates the most valuable commodity possible for a team in need of attack: accurate crosses. Quality service into the box is tougher to find than an English cabbie in New York City, and one need look no further than all the teams exiting this World Cup for proof that this is true. Nobody has provided better crosses throughout his career than David Beckham. Even last season in Spain, when Beckham had clearly aged far beyond his best, he created 17 more scoring chances than anyone else in La Liga, in four fewer games than the closest runner up. Hello? Love him or hate him, he's hardly overrated.

Now it's true that at the national team level he's had some rough days that he and pretty much all of England would like to forget. Regardless, he's also produced magic on far too many occasions for anyone to be bitter about him continuing to play. You aren't benching David unless he's seriously injured, and just like I said last time, I think you can expect him to perk up quite a bit in the knockout rounds, just like you expect Brazil to do the same . Look for 60 to 70 good minutes from Beckham and then 20 minutes of lightning from Lennon.

So uh... as for the game, England face a tough test here. Ecuador are like Paraguay, except with more skill on the ball, which should cause English pulses to beat a little quicker. The defense will play better than they did against the Swedes, but Ecuador are good and they have nothing to lose. Tenorio is every bit as good as he looked in the group stage and could cause problems for Terry and Ferdinand if he's allowed to run at them. I think England needs to get on the board first and then continue to play attacking football, though it's unlikely Sven will let them do that. If Ecuador score first here, it could be a very long day, but I think Sunday will be the first time the true quality of English football shows through in the entire tournament, and they win this one relatively comfortably.

Portugal vs. The Netherlands
A classic pick'em, and the best match of the weekend. Which Portugal team shows up, the whiny, divey one or the one with all the skill? The Dutch should be scared shitless about this game, because while Portugal might be a bit more inconsistent, they match them for skill at nearly every position. This match will feature the best winger play in the tournament from Robben, Ronaldo, Van Persie, and Figo, and assuming it doesn't turn into a hackfest, the scoring chances should come fast and furious.

I had the Dutch winning their group in the preview and therefore saddled with a much easier round of 16 game. Portugal are quite a bit tougher than Mexico. In fact, I still think this is Portugal's year, and think they will squeak through in this match, a prediction my Dutch friends will absolutely hate.

Dear God

2006-06-23T11:28:00.000-04:00

I'll have the usual full article later today, but I just wanted to note that the refereeing for the last two days has been almost soul-crushingly bad. The cards and calls in this Ukraine vs. Tunisia game alone are enough to force wailing and gnashing of teeth from any fan of the game. Ukraine hardly looked like they wanted this game, they got a gift of a red card in the first half, should have given up a penalty from a handball on a free kick, and then get what may have been a phantom penalty in their favor in minute 71. Ridiculous.

Is the fix in? Betting on this sport is so much more scary when you realize just how much of an effect the refs have.

USA vs. Ghana Recap

2006-06-22T12:16:00.000-04:00

Two mistakes for the U.S. defense, two goals for Ghana. That’s as simple as it gets and tells the entire tale in this one. It felt a little bad to be hard-done by the penalty against Onyewu, which was much more a case of big guy vs. small guy for a ball in the air and not a foul, but it’s time to face facts:

The United States did not deserve to advance.

There were too many bad touches, too many terrible passes, too many mistakes on defense, and not enough creativity on the ball when it was needed. I mentioned during the Group E review that I wasn’t sure U.S. football had advanced much since 2002. We have not developed any world class players, and while the squad was certainly deeper, it was not noticeably better across the starting lineup. After watching this squad play for three games against excellent competition, I feel I was right.

The U.S. has no truly dangerous players to a good defense, which hamstrings the entire offensive attack. Every single pass has to be perfect in order to create chances, and the U.S. can’t seem to weight passes with any skill at all. How many passes did you see ping off a player’s feet because it was hit too hard? That’s the explanation for the anemic offense. Landon Donovan is great for MLS, but highly mediocre against non-Concacaf opposition. The two supposedly best skill players on the team can’t get or remain healthy enough to play together in the midfield. There are also holes all over the squad, including at right and left back, right mid, and striker.

I don’t think Arena killed this team, but he certainly didn’t help them. He was too conservative, they got off to a poor start, and the offense never showed up. Maybe the horses weren’t there, but nothing Bruce did was daring and the U.S. needed some daring, especially in the last game.

1 goal. 1 point. 1 embarrassing loss. I’m not surprised by our results here, but as a fan, I still have to admit I am disappointed. Oh well… there’s always 2010.

Looking forward, assuming Johnson develops to replace McBride, you still have the entire midfield minus Mastroeni and Donovan to replace, you need to develop right and left backs, and you have to find another striker, preferably one who is consistent and is good in both the air and with his feet. Lots of guys exist to replace Pope, but it remains to be seen whether they can play mistake-free football, which is what will be required (and is what Eddie didn’t play). That’s a lot of guys to discover or develop in a relatively short period of time.

As for Ghana, they looked swell. They had a tough battle against a game opponent and did everything necessary to get the win. The punishing of Reyna’s mistake was beautiful and lethal, and the defense was more than enough to handle the U.S. With Italy up 1-0, Ghana only ever needed a draw, and they got the win instead. Great work by a very dangerous team that I viewed as a good value for a longshot bet in this group, and they should prove very dangerous to Brazil in the next round, though Essien’s dodgy yellow and subsequent absence from their round of 16 match will hurt then tremendously. I think Brazil stop sleepwalking through the tournament at this point and destroys them, but it was a great run and the Black Stars are a lot of fun to watch.

No More Owen and USA vs. Ghana Preview

2006-06-22T00:44:00.000-04:00

Well, any controversies about whether or not Michael Owen should be starting or even be on the team have now been completely settled in the most gruesome-to-watch fashion possible. I feel bad for him - Mike's a likeable guy who is great to watch when he is on form, and you can't wish an ACL rupture on anybody, especially when you have to watch it do so on live television. This is especially awful since Owen was just coming off another craptacular injury earlier in the season and now has probably a full year before he can expect his knee to function as expected. And that's only if everything goes well for him. With his injury history, Glenn Roeder may just have to stick a fork in Owen and cut his losses.

Attach this to the goal and Lampard would still fail.

The questions now become: who starts in Owen's place, and do England have to change their formation to deal with it? From a fan's perspective, it would have been swell for England to advance in imperious form, dominating every team they encountered and hanging cricket scores on opposing defenses. Thankfully for fans, though they did not get the desired scoring or quality of play, they generally got the desired results. England made it through at the top of their group and don't have to face ze Germans or Argentina until the finals. They also learned that Joe Cole, John Terry, and Stephen Gerrard are the best members of the team, Peter Crouch is at least passable at the World Cup level, and Wayne Rooney should be fit enough to play full games from here on out. On the flip side, they learned that David Beckham plays like he's 34 and still disappears from games, that Ashley Cole has apparently forgotten how to play left back, and that Frank Lampard cannot hit the broad side of the barn with his shot, and would likely still fail to do so even if you attached a tether from said broad side to the ball. That's useful information.

Now what to do about it?

I'm still not sold that Owen Hargreaves is good outside of a substitute role at the end of games. I mean, I think he's better than Carrick, but Carrick looked lost at this level when I saw him play (though I think he can grow out of that, just not at the World Cup). If you assume that Crouch is definitely going to start now and that Walcott/Lennon will have to see more time off the bench, then you have major problems if Crouch/Rooney gets injured because you have absolutely no good cover. Gerrard can still be moved up front, but you have to tell him he needs to play like a striker if you do, and if you move Gerrard then you lose one of your two best midfielders. In short, all scenarios are pretty ugly unless Walcott plays like a wunderkind, though that sort of thing has certainly happened before.

For now, I think you press forward with the normal lineup and expect that David Beckham has been saving himself for the important matches in the knockout stage. He was more than willing to do just enough to get by in the group, but this is his legacy for England, and I'm certain you will see better performances out of him now unless he's injured and no one knows about it. Once again, I don't think England should be worried any more than normal, though I certainly wouldn't wager any money on them winning this think at 6.5:1 either.

Oh, and anyone who says Rooney is overrated is an idiot. His first 30 minutes on the pitch were more than Owen had done in his last 3 hours of play. Wayne matters. 'Nuff said.

The Swedes looked pretty reasonable out there as well, especially in the second half. I like the lineup featuring Kallstrom and Jonssen to start, and though they obviously need Zlatan to have a big game and give them a chance against ze Germans, I would not be disappointed to see Allback partner him in attack instead of Larson (though to be fair, Larson is fine too). Their defense is solid, but I'm not sure it will be enough to get them past a German squad whose strikers are firing on all cylinders.

Oh Mexico
This team is completely schizophrenic, playing at times like a squad destined to do great things, and at other times looking utterly beatable by the likes of Angola. His penalty miss aside, I think Bravo is a player capable of playing in Europe, while Marquez is every bit as good as advertised, but their supporting cast could certainly use some work. Mexico will have to play against Argentina in the same fashion the U.S. played against Italy in order to have a chance in that match, which could create some very ugly and tense football. People who watch hockey for the fights and NASCAR for the wrecks should really enjoy this one.

USA vs. Ghana Preview

In order to advance, the U.S. need Ghana's defense to crumple like Glass Joe.

Eddie Johnson gets the start, while the rest of the lineup is rejiggered to fill the holes left by the Pope and Mastro red cards. The task here is simple: score goals. If you can't put the bulge in the old onion bag, you aren't advancing, it's as simple as that. Forget goal difference or anything silly like that - the U.S. has to win and have Italy beat the Czechs to advance. Ghana, on the other hand, are also a very strong team who will give the Americans everything they can handle, and probably more. If the U.S. scores an early goal, I think they get a huge boost of confidence and win this one. If Ghana score early, the game will either be a draw or a loss unless Ghana's defense goes down like Glass Joe eating a right cross.

To me the key players in this one will be Landon Donovan and whoever replaces Mastro as Defensive Midfielder (which might just be Reyna, with O'Brien taking Reyna's role as midfield creator). If Donovan gets touches on the ball and plays well for once, then he can put Ghana on their heels and the boys stand a chance. If he disappears in the midst of an aggressive Ghanaian defense, then we might just bow out of the tournament without scoring an actual goal. On the flip side, somebody has to deal with Essien in the midfield and you don't want the entirety of that responsibility to fall on the defense. Fitness may play a factor at the end of the game, since the Americans nearly killed themselves to keep up with Italy, but the final day of this group should be insane. The header "E is for Excitement" that I wrote back in the group review has proven more than correct here.

Prediction: US 2-1, provided they get the first goal.

Big ups to the Elephants, who finally got a win. I'm still sad to see CIV bow out, but I hope they will be back in four years time.

Next Up: My power rankings + players I think would be good buys for club teams.

Just the Stats, Ma'am - Through Game 2

2006-06-21T11:31:00.000-04:00

I haven't had a chance to aggregate all the Sky stats yet, so we'll start with the FIFA stuff. They don't collect nearly enough info for my tastes (or perhaps it's just that they don't publish all the info, which is perhaps more annoying), but regardless, there's enough there to looks at some very early trends.

Tackle Stats

Player	Team	MP	MinP	TC	TS	FC	FS	YC	RC
YORKE Dwight	TRI	2	180	14	9	4	2	1	0
AZIZ Khaled	KSA	2	180	13	5	3	6	0	0
JUAN	BRA	2	180	13	0	4	2	0	0
LINDEROTH Tobias	SWE	2	167	13	2	2	3	1	0
NUNO VALENTE	POR	2	180	13	4	3	1	1	0
FONSECA Danny	CRC	2	118	12	2	2	4	1	0
NEKOUNAM Javad	IRN	2	180	12	3	3	6	2	0
TYMOSCHUK Anatoliy	UKR	2	180	12	0	4	4	0	0
ZEWLAKOW Michal	POL	2	172	12	4	1	4	0	0
ANDRE	ANG	2	168	11	2	6	3	3	1

Player	Team	MP	MinP	TC	TS	FC	FS	YC	RC
HASHEMIAN Vahid	IRN	2	180	1	19	4	1	0	0
VALDEZ Nelson	PAR	2	180	3	18	2	4	1	0
LUIS FIGO	POR	2	177	3	16	4	16	0	0
MENDONCA	ANG	2	180	6	16	7	7	0	0
TORRES Fernando	ESP	2	180	1	15	0	9	0	0
SMOLAREK Ebi	POL	2	180	3	15	3	7	1	0
IBRAHIMOVIC Zlatan	SWE	2	135	2	15	3	1	0	0
RONALDINHO	BRA	2	180	2	14	3	5	0	0
CRISTIANO RONALDO	POR	2	149	0	13	4	11	1	0
ADEBAYOR Emmanuel	TOG	2	180	2	13	6	7	1	0

What's interesting to me right from the start is that 7 out of the top 10 tacklers are midfield (Juan, Nuno Valente, and Zewlakow are all D), though 11 is tied down to #17 or so, and you get more defenders like Sorin down there. I guess this makes sense, since you don't really want your defenders having to make a lot of tackles, because in a good defensive system you'd rather see your midfielders blow things up before it gets to your D. The other thing I know is that you do NOT want your guys making the tackles to be suffering a lot of tackles, since that sort of thing tends to lead to goals and such, which tends to cause losing. I'm looking at your, Dwight Yorke, and you Khaled Aziz.

Foul Stats

Player	Team	MP	MinP	TC	TS	FC	FS	YC	RC
LUIS FIGO	POR	2	177	3	16	4	16	0	0
TONI Luca	ITA	2	141	2	6	3	13	0	0
CRISTIANO RONALDO	POR	2	149	0	13	4	11	1	0
MARQUEZ Rafael	MEX	2	180	9	1	1	10	0	0
PARK Ji Sung	KOR	2	180	4	8	0	10	0	0
TENORIO Carlos	ECU	2	109	0	11	4	10	0	0
VAN PERSIE Robin	NED	2	180	5	3	7	9	0	0
TORRES Fernando	ESP	2	180	1	15	0	9	0	0
KAKA	BRA	2	180	0	10	4	9	0	0
LJUNGBERG Freddie	SWE	2	180	8	11	1	8	0	0

This sort (Fouls Suffered) is particularly interesting, because it includes almost exclusively attacking players who are on the ball a lot. Suffering a lot of fouls is actually a pretty decent thing, since, depending on where you suffer them, they are likely to put your team into position to get good free kicks and occasionally a PK. It also means you probably have pretty decent skill on the ball. What you would like to see here is a guy who gets fouled a lot, but does not get tackled a lot, since it likely indicates a player is particularly clever or strong on the ball, and they are creating almost exclusively good things. Toni, Marquez, and Van Persie are both highly positive in those ratios and it will be interesting to see how these change as the teams get further into the tournament. What you do not want to see are guys who are suffering a bunch of tackles and not getting fouled at all, since all that means is that they aren't playing well with their teammates and aren't creating anything good out of their ball possession either.

Two special things to note here: First, this list is almost exclusively superstars. I'd be interested in seeing if this carries over into domestic leagues. Second... what exactly is Rafa Marquez doing in this set of players? I have some theories, but nothing I really want to venture at the moment.

Level 12 Warriors

Player	Team	MP	MinP	TC	TS	FC	FS	YC	RC
ONYEWU Oguchi	USA	2	180	2	1	10	5	1	0
DELGADO	ANG	2	180	10	1	8	2	1	0
PAREDES Carlos	PAR	2	180	1	5	8	1	1	0
PARDO Pavel	MEX	2	180	3	2	8	1	0	0
CROUCH Peter	ENG	2	180	2	2	8	1	1	0
VAN PERSIE Robin	NED	2	180	5	3	7	9	0	0
MENDONCA	ANG	2	180	6	16	7	7	0	0
MENDEZ Mario	MEX	2	180	11	7	7	6	0	0
BOKA Arthur	CIV	2	180	5	2	7	5	1	0
BRAVO Omar	MEX	2	180	3	8	7	4	0	0
MUNTARI Sulley	GHA	2	180	6	7	7	4	2	0
SEQUEIRA Douglas	CRC	2	180	6	2	7	2	0	0
ADEBAYOR Emmanuel	TOG	2	180	2	13	6	7	1	0
FIGUEIREDO	ANG	2	151	5	5	6	6	0	0
STANKOVIC Dejan	SCG	2	180	2	5	6	6	1	0

Finally we get to the guys that love to hack and slash. I hypothesized that this list would mostly be defenders and defensive mids, but it's intriguing to see a lot of aggressive attacking players near the top of this list. Not one of the leaders has a red card, and only Muntari has a pair of yellows, so these are guys who seem to foul pretty intelligently. I guess the other thing to note is that most of the defenders on this list are on bubble teams - not sure what that means yet, but it's also something to keep an eye on. Might have to do with the style of football they are forced to play...

Through two games, I was right in my prediction for who would win the Golden Boot. Of course, Klose took the lead immediately thereafter, but at least I was right for a short period of time, right?

More later, including England thoughts, Mexico thoughts, and US v. Ghana predictions.

Blood, Sweat, and Cheers

2006-06-19T20:20:00.000-04:00

Greetings. Sorry for the absence and the delays. I am back, both in body and in spirit. I cannot tell you how much it pained me to miss so many games over the last four days. Not physical pain, mind you. No one kicked me in the shins or gave me a headbutt and concussion, or anything remotely painful at all really, not even a nasty hangover. I simply mean that even though I have a job I love that happens to be a lot of fun, I still wanted to be watching football when the good matches were on.

If you are reading this site, you are football fans, even if it’s only for these four splendiferous weeks we call the World Cup. You feel my pain.

Speaking of pain…

How about that U.S. vs. Italy match?
I’ve been in a news blackout, so I haven’t had any chances to read the myriad of stories and opinions that have been written about this game. I’m sure there is much to be learned from Ives Galarcep’s insider accounts in his blog, and I’m sure there is nothing useful said in Michael Davies’ blog on espn.com, yet it will still be fantastically fun to read, but for now you shall get my unadulterated response.

There was no way to know before the game took place how it would go. Would a United States team that has never looked as bad as they did against the Czech Republic since Arena took over step it up and remember how they are supposed to play the game in order to get results? Or did a 3-0 victory crush their spirits just like they were crushed in 1998?

There was so much blood and action in this game that Tarantino is now considering making a football movie his next project.

I was quite happy to see that not only had their spirits not been crushed, but they were strong enough to allow the lads to produce an heroic effort against a very strong Italian team that easily could have blown them out with a lesser performance. And it was a heroic effort in what ended up being a wild and wooly game. I was almost as shocked by the elbow from De Rossi as I was from the geyser of blood from McBride’s face. What the hell was he thinking? You may get away with that sort of thing in Serie A, but BILLIONS of people watch these matches, so even if the ref and his assistants would have missed it, he was still going to be shown doing it on TV. You might as well just put up a sign saying, “Welcome to Italian Donkeyville. Population: De Rossi”

I was not, however, shocked by the red card just before the half on Mastroeni, who made a stupidly strong challenge in front of a ref looking for a reason to issue an equalizer card. It could easily have just been a yellow and a stern warning, but the game was particularly rough, and the ref was justified for that one. The second Pope card? Totally over the top, but what can you do?

Regardless, that provided the setup for redemption, and the boys from the U.S. came through. My criticism of the squad after game 1 was they forgot how to play, particularly through the midfield. We are not as skilled as the best teams in the world, and therefore have to work harder in order to stay even or come out on top. There wasn’t nearly enough work against the Czechs. Against Italy every member of the squad made up for that. Reyna was exactly what he needed to be, Gooch is an outstanding defender even at the highest levels*, and Arena got everything he was looking for out of this team, both mentally and physically.

This result was unbelievably important in what it means for soccer in America. Two more performances like the first one would have set the game back considerably after the headway made in 2002. This result at least stabilizes things, and sets up a huge upsurge should we actually progress out of this complete insane group. I have no predictions for the U.S. vs. Ghana game, but at least now I have hope, and as fans in England will tell you, that’s all you really need to get by.

With Ghana’s result (and they are every bit as dangerous as they looked), the final day of Group E action should be unbelievable.

Dear Eric Wynalda,

Suck it.

Yours trulified,
Football kNuts

Unlucky in Love

This guy gets a 10 for bread AND circuses.

Henry scores, France look better than they have in some time, and yet they still end up with a 1-1 draw. How exactly does that happen? Let me break it down for you. First, when you have one real goal that goes unnoticed, and an obvious penalty kick that goes uncalled, it certainly has the potential to negatively affect your results. The South Korea goal was a little fluky, but clean sheets are tough to hold, and South Korea have impressed me overall. Personally, I feel the blame for the failure to win still rests squarely on Domenach’s shoulders. His system is wrong for his personnel, he has the wrong people playing in the wrong positions, and his game management could use some work as well. In short, France have been a little unlucky in both of their games, but if they were properly managed, I am of the firm belief it would not have mattered because they would be creating more chances and scoring more goals.

The problem here is that unlike with Michael Owen, who can eventually be benched once people are convinced the problem exists and then go through the through the twelve steps of grieving (same for Fat Ron, by the way, though he should probably hit a different twelve-step program), you can’t just yank a manager in the middle of the World Cup. The pressure on the new guy would be too great to handle, no one knows how it would affect the team, and the steel clankers it would take to make that call likely do not exist in most football associations, and particularly not in France. (Said clankers also make it a bitch to get through airport security.)

This just goes to prove that, regardless of how talented your personnel are, it is difficult to win in spite of one’s manager.

* For those who missed it earlier, I went back and rewatched the U.S. vs. Czech game and Onyewu wasn’t bad, he just wasn’t great there.

Match Days 7 and 8

2006-06-17T11:12:00.000-04:00

Uh oh, England

Not content to just do the robot, Peter Crouch decided to also bring back breakdancing against T&T.

Yes, they made it to the elimination round and yes, they scored two goals this time instead of uh… well, sort of none in game 1. However, they just aren’t looking better against teams they should be bashing. England’s wins right now are like Chelsea wins… you are happy that they are still winning, but you feel a little guilty about it as well. Should we be cheering, or should we be disappointed that it’s not more enjoyable? If this were baseball, we’d call it winning ugly and move on because it doesn’t matter how you win as long as you get the result. Unfortunately it’s not - people use current form (however wrongly) as a predictor of future form, and are thus scared shitless that England will once again fail to live up to their potential.

I’m not afraid, but (as I said earlier this week) Owen has been awful, Sven should have seen it before now and done something about it, and now far too much pressure rides on the immediate return to form of Rooney. Regardless, I don’t think anybody knows anything about how this team is going to play until it actually happens. Hang on, England fans – it’s going to be a wild and nervous ride.

Weapons of Mass Destruction
Wow, Argentina kicked it into overdrive against what was supposedly one of the stingiest defenses in the Cup. This equates to nothing less than a complete and utter meltdown by S&M, and serves notice to the rest of the world that Argentina is not only absurdly good, but also absurdly deep. Breaking Messi in like this was great for that team, because now he has a ton of confidence and is ready to take either a starting spot or be a super sub against anybody. I wasn’t sure their starting lineup should be Crespo and Saviola if Messi was healthy and now I’m less sure, though at this point I don’t particularly think it matters who they start up front - these guys think they can beat anybody and they might just be right.

I’m not sure what the extent of Gonzalez’s injuries are and if he’s gone for good then Argentina loses perhaps their top midfield sub, but they have not failed to impress yet. In the pack, Sorin is even better than I thought he was. He had a great game against IC, particularly in the second half and I expect more great things from him throughout the tournament. What was I thinking by not picking them to advance?

I’m going to miss these guys.

Oh yeah, I was gay for Ivory Coast. I still am, actually. I love watching that team play and I’ll be sad to see them go. I hope they at least go out on a high note and get a win over the S&M boys.

Favorites Can’t Fail…
The utter lack of upsets in the tournament is quite surprising, especially since I was under the belief that we were in a new era of parity among the world’s football teams. (For the record, I still do.) Unfortunately the underdogs that were supposed to be dangerous have mostly proven to be whimpering puppies, while the top dogs, in spite of some underwhelming performances, have still managed to put up results.

…But They Can Draw
While there have been some unexpected draws (Mexico, Sweden, France), none of them have really been in the important groups, meaning nearly all of the favorites are likely to make it through. T&T have proven much more game than pretty much anybody could have anticipated while that Mexico vs. Angola game was the boring type of nil-nil draw, as was France v. Switzerland. There’s still a chance that one of those results could knock somebody out (with France the most likely), but at this point in time practically every single favorite has done enough to put them at least in position to get to the knockout stages. I find that both impressive and a little disappointing.

Looking Forward
Today’s stories to watch look like this to me:

Can the U.S. bounce back and not get demolished by Italy? Those guys have gotten killed for the last five days and I’m curious to see whether they use it as motivation or whether they have already packed their bags.

Are the Czechs really that good? A second result against Ghana like the one against the U.S. will certainly lock up their buzz, and it will set the stage for an extremely important Czech vs. Italy matchup next week where the winner gets to avoid Brazil. That one will be an absolute cracker.

Can Australia get another result and become the U.S. team of 2006? Can France overcome the general incompetence of their manager and score some goals? Who will finish second in Group H?

All of these should be interesting to follow for the next few days.

Coming Soon... Er, later anyway

2006-06-16T14:48:00.000-04:00

I'll be updating later this evening with my thoughts about the last two match days. The short of it was that Argentina looked treeeemendous, the Dutch looked alright but easily could have drawn that game (alas, I could not root for Ivory Coast over the Dutch, even though I would have loved to see the Elephants make it through), and Engerland have problems that they may not be able to overcome. They are probably not as bad off as the French, whose manager seems to be terminally stupid, but they have a lot of work to do before their first elimination game in a week.

For now I have to get back to work. Hello to everyone who recently found this site via the AVS Forum (an outstanding site get reviews and feedback on pretty much every Audio-Visual question/item imaginable (I checked there for reviews of my Westinghouse LVM-W3 before I bought it, and it's a helluva nice TV), and also a shout-out to all the folks from Star City who followed the clues in Friday's article.

Until next time, enjoy the show.

Day 6 Analysis

2006-06-14T21:18:00.000-04:00

Spain vs. Ukraine
Ukraine looked absolutely terrible in this game. They couldn't keep possession through the midfield, their defense was porous at best, and Spain's defenders almost completely shut down their wing play. It was difficult to tell how Shevchenko was feeling because he never saw the ball. In short, this was an awful start for a team that many people picked as dark horses to make it deep into the tournament. They'll need to scramble now just to make it into the second round. Meanwhile, all the U.S. fans are thinking, "Thank God we're not last anymore!"

Well, at least not until we play Italy on Saturday anyway.

Captain Caveman came to play.

Of course, a good portion of the credit for Ukraine looking so bad has to go to Spain for looking so good. Their entire team had a gem of a game, producing three real goals and few chances for Ukraine. The defense was stout, the attack was frisky, and Raul came on as a sub and looked dangerous, so it was all good news for the perennial underachievers.

Spain can't get full credit for four goals on this day, however, because David Villa's spot kick and the ejection of Vashchuk were completely blown calls on a challenge that a) was committed outside the box, b) did not actually see the player go down until well after he released the shot, and c) could not have been more fair. Ukraine was robbed there, though they were always going to get spanked regardless of whether Vashchuk was on the field or not. Hopefully the suspension from the next game will be overruled on appeal, but somehow I doubt it.

Fun nicknames from today's game (not even made up):
Carlos "Captain Caveman" Puyol
Fernando "El Nino" Torres
Sergey "Radiohead" Rebrov

I only watched the Tunisia vs. Saudi Arabia game in fast forward, but the last 10 minutes of this game were incredibly exciting, and this draw plus Spain's thrashing of Ukraine puts second place in this group completely up for grabs. If Ukraine recovers their form (and they'll need to look like a completely different team if they expect to win any games), they can still make it out, but if not, the second team to make it out of this group is anyone's guess.

Germany vs. Poland

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti.

Poland came to play on this day and nearly walked out with the result they were looking for. Of course, at least part of that was due to numerous squandered chances by the German attacking force including a double crossbar strike in the final minute of regulation. You could see that Poland was folding after Sobolewski received his red card in the 75th minute, and they were always going to be a little lucky if they held on for the draw after that point, but they almost got there.

Ballack looked fine and fully fit in this game, while Podolsky and Klose proved they will be a very interesting strike force to watch going forward. Podolsky's skill on the ball is almost Brazilian in quality and he's fast. I'd like to see him get more touches in future games, perhaps by dropping a bit deeper into the midfield from time to time, but overall Germany are an unexpectedly fun team to watch. Speaking of fun, Philipp Lahm is my favorite new player to watch. A right-footed left back, he plays solid defense and always seems to be involved in the attack, whether it's via making overlapping runs or simply stepping up for the ball when Germany switch the point of attack. He's also lethal when it comes to crossing the ball, something that far more teams in this tournament wish they were.

It nearly didn't happen, but Germany walked out of today's game as deserved winners and already qualified for the second round. Happy times im Deustchland.

Day 5 Analysis

2006-06-14T01:51:00.000-04:00

I did not get a chance to watch South Korea vs. Togo, so there will be no mindless blathering about Lees, Kims, Ahns, Parks and Togoats/Togeese/Togolese. For those of you disappointed by this news, my sincerest apologies. For those of you looking for brilliant and insightful analysis (Translation: more mindless blathering) about the France and Brazil matches, then you have come to the right place.

And away we go!

France vs. Switzerland

I'm afraid 60,000 fans wearing those glasses and hat would scare the piss out of me.

Everybody hates a backseat manager, but that's exactly what I'm going to do for a few minutes here, so tune me out if you don't like it.

I have never seen a team as talented as France look so awful tactically. I don't know exactly what Domenech is thinking with his lineup and formation, but let's take a step back and look at this objectively. The French World Cup squad includes three world class forwards in Louis Saha, Thierry Henry, and David Trezeguet, all of whom are proven and typically brilliant goalscorers at the club level. Now I'm just an amateur at this sort of thing, but wouldn't it seem to make sense that, unless you had a very good reason, you would want to have at least two of them on the field at any particular time? The squad also includes two incredible midfield bulldogs in Patrick Viera and Claude Makalele, plus a strong back line with two good fullbacks who like to get forward. Oh, and you have Zinedine Zidane still roaming your midfield. So why, exactly are they failing to score goals? Lots of reasons, actually.

First of all, for whatever reason, Domenech has decided he wants his team to play a 4-5-1 with Henry up front as a loan striker. Okay, I can see that - Henry plays in a 4-5-1 at times at Arsenal and they seem to excel at scoring goals. But at Arsenal Henry has world class wingers in Freddie Ljungberg and Jose Antonio Reyes and Robin van Persie and Robert Pires, all of whom are better than Wiltord and Ribery. Even in Arsenal's 4-5-1, Henry rarely lacks for a partner to run with, pass to, play 1-2's around defenders, etc. Additionally Thierry has a very young, spry Cesc Fabregas filling the middle as an attacker.

In the French system? Well, in the French system Henry rarely has anyone at all to play with up front, and the wingers seem to be having this exact same problem. Ribery and Wiltord were consistently stranded on the wings and then dispossessed mostly because they had no one to pass to. "Le Toupee" Zidane's extremely creaky wheels are incapable of keeping up with the rest of the attack force, and while his touch is still brilliant, he seemed out of sync for the vast majority of this match. I also love Patrick Viera, but as much as it pains me to admit it, Patty is getting old. There are a lot of miles on his legs, and he just can't transition from offense to defense like he used to. Since he and Makalele are basically the same player playing the same position, since Makalele does it better, and since somebody needs to make way for a striker, Viera's got to go. It's not like the back line has gaping holes that you need two defensive mids to cover for anyway, and certainly not against the likes of Switzerland.

This is enough to frustrate pretty much anyone.

I'm not sure if Domenech realizes this, but the talents of his skill players are built to play attacking football, and yet he has them locked into this terrible set of restrictions that leaves his squad and the entire country of France completely frustrated. I mean, did you see them today? They looked frustrated. And if you had seen French fans somewhere, they likely would have been chain-smoking and frustrated too. I mean, I was frustrated. How about you, were you frustrated? I bet you were. Because if you weren't frustrated, all you had to do today was watch the match on ESPN2 and listen to Shep Messing relentlessly discuss how frustrated the French attack/team was. This was going on regardless of whether the French were actually playing well and attacking (they had their moments) or not. Needless to say, Shep was the most frustrating part of the entire affair.

I think America as a whole is lucky that most people don't watch football here or else you might just see one disgruntled football fan pick up a rifle, climb a clocktower, and take out their frustrations with Messing's commentary on the rest of us, and nobody needs that.

Back to the French... Henry is a people person. He went to kindergarten, he learned to color inside the lines, and he likes to share. In fact, he's a brilliant passer of the ball who creates about as many goals as he scores. He's like a big, immensely talented greyhound puppy who just wants a fast puppy pal or two to run with. Instead, he's saddled with the hopes of a nation, not enough help, and a bunch of teammates who seem to stop running when he gets the ball just to watch and see what he'll do next.

Give Thierry a friend, Ray. Your team and your nation will thank you for it.

Match analysis? Both teams squandered some chances and ended up with a stinker of a draw. The Swiss defense is good and should be enough to get them through the group, assuming the score a goal or two. Not a whole lot else to say, really.

Brazil vs. Croatia
So these are the world beaters, eh? They don't seem so impressive to me...

Alright, that's a lie, but Croatia looked really good as well, giving Brazil almost more than they could handle. Unfortunately for the lads in the checked jerseys, their strikers decided that Dida was the bullseye between the posts instead of the spot to be avoided, and Brazil escaped with a 1-0 victory and knowledge that Australia and Japan should be easier matches, though certainly not pushovers. I want to see more of Croatia. They seem to play good football, especially for guys who are clearly on the mafia payroll as hitmen when they aren't playing at the club level.

1-nil isn't very exciting, but I can't really blame Brazil too much for this result. The first match of the World Cup is always a tense affair, especially when you are playing ten-on-eleven for 70 minutes. What's that you say? It was eleven-on-eleven? It most certainly was not! I saw Ronaldo standing on the sideline snacking on twinkies and ding dongs for the vast majority of the time he was in the game, so with Adriano struggling a bit as well, it's no wonder Brazil only scored a single goal for all the beautiful, brilliant trouble.

Kaka, Ronaldhino and the back line were very good today, and proved to be enough for Croatia even without a useful strike force. If the rest of the squad should find their form, we might be discussing the six-time World Cup Champions four years from now in South Africa. In the meantime, if Brazil can't find any strikers willing to do some work, they are beatable by almost any team with class, and that includes whichever team makes it out of Group E as the runner-up.

Random Questions

Look ma, it's uncle Sal.

Is it just me, or does Emerson playing for Brazil make it look like your weird, balding, 40-year-old Uncle Sal just happened to stumble onto the pitch and now finds himself playing in the World Cup? Don't get me wrong - he does everything out there. Cooks, cleans, hoovers up loose balls in the midfield, the works... and Brazil need a guy just like him on the field at all times. I'm just saying I thought Cafu was the oldest member of the squad, but after watching Emerson play on Tuesday, now I'm not so sure.

No, I don't need you to tell me that Emerson is the same age as me. I already knew that, thankyouverymuch.

You know why I like Ronaldinho? Because he Never. Fucking. Goes. Down. Nowadays all it takes is a soft breeze and a harsh glance from a defender for most attacking players to fall over in a challenge, but not with Ronaldinho. In fact, you can't even knock him off the damned ball, let alone knock him over. The only way this guy falls down when he's playing is if you hack the hell out of his legs and knees while trying to tackle him and even then there's only a 50/50 chance. And the other thing I love about Ronny? When you knock him over, he stands up right away, dusts himself off, and smiles at you before sticking a dagger in your heart on the free kick. His enthusiasm is infectious, and it is fan-freaking-tastic to watch one of the best players in the world play the game the right way. I hope his reign at the top is long and glorious.

So Spain vs. Ukraine walk into a bar at 9AM, what do they order and who scores the first goal?

Oh and this last thing has nothing to do with football, but it's brilliant and therefore merits a link [You Tube Video for those of you on the syndicated feed]

Day 4 Analysis

2006-06-13T11:38:00.000-04:00

Australia vs. Japan

Cahill is a likeable lad, especially when he scores goals.

Man, what a game - most exciting finish of the World Cup so far. What's startling is just how much Japan was winning until they were suddenly losing. I mean, their goal was a fluke, but they should have had two or three by minute 80 if they were converting with any consistency. Then again, you could have said the same about Australia, and a 2-2 or 3-3 scoreline by that point in the game was certainly possible. However, once Cahill (I told you I liked him) scored his goal, Japan immediately wilted, which led to two more dodgy goals to finish. It wasn't a great game technically and someone clearly needs to turn the thermostat down in German or some footballers might die, but it was the most exciting game of the tournament thus far. A good win for the Socceroos.

Epideme asked me the win caused me to change my mind about Australia advancing out of this group. Obviously not. This game was always a pick'em in my mind, and Hiddink is a master at winning these sorts of matches. Unless Japan play big against Croatia, the game that matters is Australia vs. Croatia on June 22nd. Regardless, congrats to the land of Oz for your first-ever goals and win of the World Cup.

Italy vs. Ghana
Italy looked downright predatory in this game. Totti looked fully fit, Luca Toni is even more of a beast to handle at this level than I anticipated, and the defense looked decent, if not impenetrable. The engine is purring, ladies and gentlemen, and that sound you hear is nervous coughing from the rest of the field who are now aware that Italy are healthy and frisky. I think the Italians figure out how to shut Rosicky and Nedved down in the middle and run them ragged in the final match of this group. Remember, that match will actually matter because the runner-up in this group advances to play Brazil immediately, and even if you want to rest your stars, I'm not sure you can do it with the prospect of facing Not Brazil staring you directly in the face. Of course, all that assumes that the two favorites win their next matches as well, which is yet to be decided. Ghana could still play spoiler. The U.S... notsomuch.

Ghana are also a very solid team, and minus Kuffour's heartwrenching error at the back that gave the Italians their second goal, I thought they played pretty well, creating chances and looking very active on the ball. Their finishing is suspect (that's being generous) and will certainly have to improve if they are going to win any games, but after watching these two teams play, the U.S. will be fighting for their lives to avoid embarrassment for the rest of the group stage.

USA vs. Czech Republic, Take 2

As you can tell from the last post, I statted the game last night to see what I would learn from the U.S. performance that wasn't readily apparent the first time I watched it. The first thing I learned is that Onyewu had a better game than I thought. He was really only at fault for the last goal, where he took a bad angle on Rosicky/was just too slow to catch him. If I were Shep Messing, I'd say something here how Gooch was the free safety on that play, Nedved was the quarterback, and Rosicky was the speedy wide receiver who blew right by him to score a touchdown on Kasey Keller. Unfortunately, the U.S. only lost by a field goal, which might make things very confusing for the casual observer. Where was I? Oh right, the other football...

Aside from that gaffe, Gooch was an absolute monster in the air and just in general, marking first Koller and then Lokvenc out of the game, while hoovering everything else in his general area. For the Czechs, their entire back line was stout, with Ujfalusi and Jankulovski particularly impressive, especially in the second half.

I think one of the stories of the match really comes from the crossing stats. 2-28 from the USA was terrrrrrible, while the Czechs went 7-13 with Nedved providing the bulk of the goods. There's more that could be deduced from this, but suffice it to say that the U.S. still stank and the Czechs were still really good. Oh, and Rosicky is even quicker than I thought at first. I hope he continues to have a good Cup.

Overall yesterday had some absolutely scintillating football to watch. Let's just hope today is as good. With Brazil and France finally kicking the ball around, there's a good chance it will be. Allez Les Bleus or however you spell it!