All in All: A Somewhat Disappointing Cup

Paul Mirengoff entitles his post: "Unsatisfactory World Cup ends unsatisfactorily. I agree. I've got to say, when it comes down to it, I was a bit disappointed by this Cup.

• I hate ending matches on PKs. It's just stupid. And you go through this entire tournament - more than a month of such high intensity games, with billions of people watching, and it ends like that - with something that isn't even the game, but rather something tangentially related to the game. It's like the NCAA tourney or NBA finals being decided by a three-point shooting contest. Asinine. I fail to understand why they haven't figured out a way to fix this.

• The Zidane build up by everyone (ABC/ESPN especially) and then the let down with his inexplicable head butt.

• The Final was NOT a great game. Average at best. You would have loved to see a good game in the Final - like Italy-Germany, or France-Spain, or Agentina-Mexico (the three best, IMO). Instead, we got a sloppy game with tired players.

• Not enough goal scoring. There just wasn't. This Cup was the soccer version of the '99 NBA Finals. I don't know how to fix it, but they need to go in with some rule changes like the NBA did. And it was made worse by so many coaches going with 4-5-1 formations. It's like coaches are allergic to playing attacking football. Instead, we've got a ton of Pat Riley clones as football coaches. I hated it. And it exacerbated the problems created by the next point.

• The referees sucked. Too many cards. (And for a lot of ticky-tack fouls - like the ones that put Essien out of the Round of 16, and the one in the group stage that could have cost Zidane.) Moreover, too much inconsistency.

• Too much diving and whining. Normally I don't care. I said several places that it's all part of the game. But I guess the Portugese just got to me in their last two games, I dunno. Or maybe it was reading about it so often. But yeah, compared to US sports where players would never fall over and whine and writhe in fake pain all the time, it made these guys look bad.

• The USA sucked. Took a lot of ooomph out of it for a while - basically from when the USA was eliminated until the France-Spain game, for me. (Secondarily - the other teams I liked, Holland and Spain, also disappointed.)

• I'm just going to repeat it: NOT ENOUGH SCORING. The number of really great goals in the tournament was in single digits. The leading scorer had 5 and no one else had more than three. Disappointing.

(That all said, the WC is still the WC. I'm still looking forward to 2010.)

ITALIA

My call of the game going down to penalties was right, but it was Italy breaking tradition and finally coming through in a PK situation. (And my prediction ability fails me at the very end of the WC... oh well. I did say that I'd be utterly shocked if more than 2 goals were scored - there wasn't.)

I hate PKs. It is a shame it ended that way. One would think that Buffon, as the best keeper in the Cup, would have the advantage, but I actually had some confidence in Barthez in the PKs. He's a bit goofy, but he is still a very good shot stopper, which is all that is required. Here was my impression of the PKs:

Pirlo: right down the middle! Mind games.
Wiltord: Outguessing Buffon.
Materazzi: A bit hisitant, but beautiful placement.
Trez: Just different than ZZ's - crossbar & OUT!
DeRossi: Nice. Upper corner - doesn't even look.
Abidal: Faked out Buffon.
Del Piero: Faked out Barthez.
Sagnol: Outguessing Buffon.
Grosso: Yup. Nice.

Unlike the other games that went down to PKs, the keepers really didn't have a chance on ANY of these PKs. So it just didn't have anything to do with whether Buffon was better than Barthez. The difference was the one that just bounced out. In the end, France had two PKs off the crossbar - one went in, and the other didn't. The one that didn't - it lost them the cup (and reversed Trezuguet's karma from when he beat the Italians in Euro '00). I was shocked that they took off Henry prior to the PKs - shouldn't he have been on to take the PKs? Don't you want you best striker taking them? And wasn't it predictable that it would go to PKs? I couldn't figure out that substitution.

The big question will be, of course, WHAT HAPPENED WITH ZIDANE??? It's going to be fascinating to find out what happened with the guy. Who ever would have thought he would head butt a guy in the middle of OT!? And it wasn't even something that Materazzi did - something he said, one assumes. Is it possible that he said something racist??? That was my initial reaction - the only thing I could think of that could provoke such a reaction. (I believe he got suspended in '98 for a similar reaction to a racist statement.) If so, there's going to be a huge, HUGE outcry - given all the emphasis against racism in this Cup. But what else could it be that caused Zidane to utterly ruin his reputation??? After everything he did this WC, it's so disappoitning that he ends like this.

Just a strange, strange game. The France PK in the first half wasn't deserved, but later they had a guy taken down in the box that SHOULD have been a PK but that wasn't called. France dominated for most of the game - other than for the time after the France goal and prior to the Italy goal. Italy looked tired for most of the 2nd half and the OTs - Toni did nothing and I was shocked he wasn't subbed out. I think this was the reverse of the Italy - Germany game; in that game, Germany tired out because they had played a longer (OT) match the prior round while the Italians had an easier match. Here, the reverse; the Italians played an incredibly difficult match in the semis, while the French didn't have to put out as much effort in the Semis.

Did anyone else think that the Italian goal that was called back in the 2nd half should have been allowed? I thought so. The player who scored was NOT offside - the offside player was next to him. But, you know what, that was no different than the goal that Henry scored against Brazil - where Henry wasn't offside, but a couple of other players whom the ball flew over WERE offside.

I don't know that the best team won. But in the end, Italy held on, and reversed their PK fortune (as well as their fortunes against France). Good for them.

3rd Place: Germany

No Ballack, no matter. Portugal thoroughly outplayed. They really finished up the tournament poorly.

Predictions for Final

For today's third place game, I note that Ballack, Lahm, and Mertesaker will not play. Um, so, OK, I'll take Portugal. 2-1.

For tomorrow, the big question is: will either side score? Both sides' defenses have been in absolutely fine form. And we're going to get another 4-5-1 matchup. I'm rooting for the Italians - yes, somewhat anti-France (whaddya want?), but also I've liked the way the Italians have played; Lippi playing so many forwards on Tuesday was great. Nevertheless, I don't think we'll see any kind of offense now; I'm thinking 0-0, and goes to PKs. I'd be utterly shocked if there are more than 2 goals scored. After all, these games have just gotten more and more defensive.

The tourney so far has been fairly predictable. Italians beat Germans. French beat Brazilians. English can't beat Swedes. English lose on PKs. Etc. So what's the Italy-France history? France wins. (See Euro 2000, WC '98, WC '86.) Totti takes the Roberto Baggio role tomorrow.

Announcers

At TNR, Alex Massie points to this Slate article entitled: "In Defense of the World Cup Announcers; They haven't been that bad. Seriously." Massie is incredulous.

You know what? I agree with Slate. Other than Balboa, I've thought that the announcers haven't been too bad. O'Brien has continued to improve (even if I get on him about it being CristianO Ronaldo). He still talks a little too much. But overall he's nice to listen to. If only he had a decent analyst, it could have worked out well.

JP Dellacamara is great and Harkes has been consistently enlightening. I just wish Harkes would speak in full sentences sometimes.

I like Shep Messing too - he's the announcer for the Metrostars Red Bulls, so I know him pretty well - and he knows his stuff. Of course, I have a soft spot for the former Cosmos keeper (check out the photo of him and Pele). His Jersey accent is sometimes annoying (even for someone who hails from Jersey), but that's my only complaint.

And I've liked Wynalda (who has the same role as Charles Barkley on TNT - provacative and more often than not right) and Julie Foudy (someone let her talk, please! She knows soccer) on the studio shows.

Best XI

My picks:

GK:
Buffon, ITA
(runners up: Ricardo, Lehmann)

Backs:
Cannavaro, ITA
Thuram, FRA
Lahm, GER
Miguel, POR
(runners up: Grosso, Zambrotta, Sagnol, Gallas, A. Cole, Ayala)

MF:
Zidane, FRA
Maxi Rodriguez, ARG
Essien, GHA
Pirlo, ITA
(runners up: Riquelme, Frings, Viera, Makalele, Ribery, Totti, C. Ronaldo)
(Note: probably should be Viera ahead of Essien, given the number of games played, but I wanted to honor Essien for the impressive feat of leading Ghana through the Group Of Death)

Forwards:
Klose, GER
Henry, FRA
(runners up: Podolski, Crespo, Torres)

Coach:
Lippi, ITA
(runners up: Klinsmann, Hiddink)
(Note: think about what Lippi did - the Italy coach is one of the 2 or 3 most scrutinized in the world by the media, and yet he won the Group of Death, he had a major injury to Nesta and guys like Gattuso, Zambrotta and Totti just returning from injury, went down to 10 men twice, had two players suspended (De Rossi and Materazzi), AND had to deal with a gigantic scandal at home. Wow.)

Golden Boot:
Cannavaro
(it's likely to be Zidane, if FRA wins, but I think I'd still pick Cannavaro)

France 1 Portugal 0

Well, after the Italy - Germany match, this one was a let down. The intensity seemed to me to be less for some reason and there were simply fewer exciting chances. Portugal never looked as though they really had much of an attack, as the French midfield (again) controlled the game. While Christiano Ronaldo made some runs, I don't think they were the most dangerous runs in the world, and Deco and Figo were outplayed. The Portugese defense played well in taking Ribery out of the game (I though he had been excellent for the last few matches), and Miguel again played nicely until he got hurt.

But, again, I don't see why a team that is already losing by a goal would replace Miguel with another defender like Paulo Fereira (who, BTW, I like for Chelsea, but still you need more attack). Eventually they were forced to move one of their defenders up to the front like. But they should have just replaced Miguel with a real attacker, not another defender. And if you take off Pauleta because he's not doing anything, you need to bring on another striker. Nothing against Simao, who I like as a wing/attacking mid, but having NO striker in the game when you are down a goal against the French and only 20 minutes left? Nuts. Another failure to put the proper players in the game to create the necessary attack.

The PK I thought was deserved. Barely. Henry wasn't in a position to score there if Carvalho hadn't taken him down, since Henry faked himself out too, but taking a guy down in the box is a penalty, end of story. I just don't understand Carvalho sticking his leg out as he is falling on his ass - what the hell was he thinking??? Oh, and yeah Chrstiano Ronaldo dove a couple of minutes later when the Portugese were up in arms over a play in the opposite box - no penalty there. He was trying to get the ref to give a make-up call for the soft PK at the other end, which is understandable. That said, even though the ref made the right decisions on those two plays, I didn't think it was a well refereed game. Can't think of any real miscalls, but that was my impression. I don't understand why FIFA would put such an awful referee back in an important game after the USA-Italy debacle. In the end, though, C. Ronaldo is going to have to tone down the diving.

Italy 2 Germany 0

Excellent game. Italy certainly deserved the win, but Germany put a good fight. I think Germany has to be happy with how well they played this World Cup, considering the low expectations (based on their pre-WC results) coming in. Klose and Podolski were a revelation; who'd have predicted that they would play as well as they did throughout the tourney. Of course, that changed when Italy put the screws to Klose, whom Italy shut down.

Once again, the team with the dominant midfield won. Where was Ballack? He was practically nonexistent. (BTW, do you think Chelsea is worried? Their two huge signings - Ballack and Shevchenko - both had a bad World Cup.) Also, in retrospect, I think the loss of Frings was pretty important. He was having a very good Cup. And then, for some reason, Schweinsteiger didn't start either. So Germany was left with a slower midfield, and Italy took advantage. Italy doesn't have the big name in the midfield (well, depending on where you think Totti plays), but I was impressed with Pirlo. The deft touch to Grosso was fabulous, only outdone by the shot itself.

On the goal, it was hard to tell what happend to the German defense. Metzelder (I think) left Grosso to try to cut off Pirlo at the top of the box, and then Ballack came over to take away Grosso, but too late. Was it Metzelder's fault for leaving Grosso to mark Pirlo, or Ballack for being too slow to mark Grosso once Metzelder left?

The game had a very nice back and forth flow to it. Most of the game was a midfield battle, but even so there were enough chances in the first 80-or-so minutes to make it sufficiently interesting. Strangly, the Italian back line was a bit shaky for the first part of the first half, but then settled down very well and completely took Klose out of the game (Podolski at least had a few chances). By the end of regulation, I thought the Germans had the better of the play. But the Italians really stepped up in OT, didn't they? Beyond the goals, there were 2 posts and numerous other chances. (Even Germany had a good chance or two, including one in which Buffon made an excellent save.) The OT, I thought, was really pretty exciting. But I think Germany was simply worn down by then, after their OT match the prior round, while Italy was able to substitute the likes of Pirlo after 60 minutes against Ukraine. By the 2nd OT, that made a huge difference.

Also, what was great about the OTs was that Lippi played so many forwards! Can you believe that he brought Gilardino, Iaquinta AND Del Piero in the game? It made for great attacking soccer. Why the hell don't other coaches on the verge of losing do this??? And Italy wasn't even losing at the time (although Lippi was rightly concerned that going to PKs would have been a losing proposition for them). Look at Arena's bizarre substitutions in the Ghana match, or even Big Phil's substitution decisions in yesterday's Portugal-France match. Awful.

Also, the refereeing was great. He let them play, which was nice. And even though the Italians did a little bit of their diving act, it wasn't too much.

Over all, one of the best matches of the tournament. And the shots of the Circo Maximo after Italy scored were great.

Semifinal Predictions

Had 3 of 4 quarters, including spot on the England match. Also, BTW, on the ESPN Soccernet "Germany Cup Pick'em", I'm at the 99.8th percentile.

Germany - Italy.

Everything says I should take Germany. They've played the nice attacking style we all like, they've got the leading scorer in Klose, and they've got home field. So I'm picking Italy. Their defense seems to be in pretty good shape. Nesta is out, but they've got Metarazzi back. They shut down the Germans. Italy 1 Germany 0.

Portugal - France.

Another heart over head, but I'll go with Portugal. They've got Deco back, and Deco, Figo, Maniche, and Christiano Ronaldo will be an interesting matchup for France's midfield. As I said below, France won the Brazil game in their midfield. But maybe, just maybe, their midfield will meet its match in Portugal's midfield. I can also see Miguel making one of those nice runs. Portugal 2 France 1.

More Thoughts on the Quarters

Brazil's debacle has got to be laid at the feet of the coach too. More stupid defensiveness, another loss. Why take out the second striker and replace him with a midfielder? Ronaldinho isn't a striker, so you are left with 1 - Ronaldo. And we all saw that Ronaldo was up and down. So, you take away Ronaldinho and Kaka, and Brazil had no offense. Ronaldinho was never in any of these matches really, and Kaka was taken out brilliantly by the French, so much so that Parreira subbed him out.

So I should apologize to Domenech. The last two matches have been absolutely brilliant. The Franch midfield has been dominant, even more so than their defense. You take Makalele, who is the best holding midfielder around, and put him in with Viera, a good two-way guy, and Zidane and Ribery, who are wonderful attackers, and that makes for a dominant midfield. And I think that's what shut Brazil down - they could never get into their possession game, because their midfield was outplayed by France's.

One interesting note. If you look at Henry's goal, I noticed that it wasborderline offsides. Henry himself was ONsides. However, Viera and (I think) Thuram were offsides when the ball was played. Now, of course, it was not played to them, so it was a passive offsides. But did they affect the play at all? Because it looked like Dida had to worry about them before the ball got to Henry, thus making their offsides not passive.

Also, some has been made of Roberto Carlos sitting on the 16 while Henry came in to score the goal. What was he doing - playing the offisides trap? But note thatat least one other time Henry was left wide open - a cross came in and he had an open header, but Viera came in and took it early before it got to Henry. Else Henry would have scored another goal.

France - Brasil

Wow, can you believe that Brasil left Thierry Henry completely unmarked??? What an unbelievable breakdown! Yes, it was a nice free kick by Zidane, but if you leave Henry unmarked, what do you expect will happen???

Portugal on Penalties

I called it yesterday: nil - nil, Portugal on penalties. History repeats itself from Euro '04.

Here were the PKs:
Simao: nice
Lampard: Balboa is right - no confidence
Viana: ripped - post!
Hargreaves: powered it past off keepers hand
Petit: Another clear miss!
Gerrard: Weak. Not placed well and tipped off.
Postiga: Faked out the keeper nicely.
Carragher: Brought on for the PKs. And screws up!!!
C. Ronaldo: For the win... yes. What will be the reaction back in Manchester when he comes back for the season?

The post-game is absolutely right - Ricardo was absolutely great. The PKs weren't the best, but he even got a hand on Hargreaves' blast. Awesome.

Howard said last night "england has to win a shootout one of these tournaments, don't you think?" Aaaaah, no. I think England is forever doomed in PKs. Did anyone really have ANY confidence in Lampard or Gerrard? They were horrible the entire tournament, and were just weak in the PKs. I have no idea how to fix PKs, but whatever England has been doing since, well, forever, it hasn't been working. England's PK history:

'90 WC semis: loss
'96 Euro semis: loss
'98 WC second round: loss
'04 Euro quarters: loss
'06 WC quarters: loss

So, Christiano Ronaldo played. He looked pretty good, fairly good pace, and had a few good chances. (Note to Dave O'Brien - it's ChristianO Ronaldo, not Christian Ronaldo.)

4-5-1 vs. 4-5-1 makes for a boring midfield match. Nobody was really interested in winning. Nobody really pushed forward - everyone was more interested in preventing a counter.

Until the Rooney red card, England had better posession, and in that you could see the loss of Deco. But the Rooney red card was deserved, I thought (I was incredulous until I saw the replays that clearly showed what Rooney did). Who knows how strongly Rooney stepped on him - it might, MIGHT, have been some acting on RC's part. But, I'm sorry, you just CAN'T step on someone's groin. You can't put the referee in the position of deciding how hard the step really was. You just can't put the referee in that position. Rooney's temper, AGAIN, was his undoing. You can see why he did it - he was frustrated at being the lone striker with virtually no touches at all. So you know it. But understanding where it came from isn't the same as excusing it: he should be crucified in England.

Obviously, the Rooney red completely changed the game. England actually had a few chances afterwards, but there was no sustained attack. And Portugal was able to keep control of the midfield for the most part afterwards.

Also, how good was Miguel again? He so dominated Joe Cole that Sven gave in and subbed Cole out. That side of the field was just completely ceded to Portugal.

In the end, the loss was Sven's fault. The 4-5-1 just was never going to get it done. It put Rooney in an untenable situation. And there was never enough to get it done otherwise. You don't have enough forwards, and thus no chance to score. I ripped Arena for not putting his team in a position to win. Sven has to take the same hit.