“Welcome to the World Cup, where every team is the Galácticos. The nickname refers to Real Madrid, the most famous and successful soccer club in the world, which has made a practice, in the past generation, of spending enough money to recruit Zidane and Beckham and Cannavaro. Oops, almost forgot Cristiano Ronaldo.” (NYT)
“World Cup fever, and the racial harmony it has inspired in her country, is something Caroline Motholo has experienced only from afar. On the periphery of her more-than-full life – she runs a day-care center catering mostly to orphans whose parents have died of AIDS – she has seen the images: white and black South Africans side by side in the stadiums and fan parks, cheering together for their national team before its ouster, sharing pride that their once-shunned homeland is host for such a grand event.” (SI)
“In the World Cup, as in any tournament, half of the field is eliminated in the first round, and half again in each succeeding round—a method of crowning a champion devised by Zeno and guaranteed to bring the whole thrilling spectacle to a buyer’s-remorse anticlimax. (You can see the diminishing interest in the now-trickling coverage in outlets both mainstream and semi-pro.) Whichever second-rate European nation triumphs on Sunday—if they can control the midfield as smugly as they did against Germany in Wednesday’s semifinal it will surely be Spain—will look a lot less truly top-dog than simply last-man-standing.” (The Paris Review)
“It’s the World Cup Final this coming Sunday between Holland and Spain and to celebrate this Footyphila will take a look at a selection of the football-related stamp issues of both countries. First up is Holland or more correctly the Netherlands.” (footysphere)
“Given that I’ll be shouting for the Germans in tonight’s 3rd place playoff, I thought it appropriate to show this clip of the Uruguayans – when the South American team were still World Champions – coming a horrible cropper against Scotland…” (More Than Mind Games)
“Spain Soccer News Topics are currently averaging 1.17 goals per game at this World Cup Soccer News Topics, sitting right behind the United States (1.25) in 12th place out of the 32 teams who started the tournament. Of course, unlike all but one of those teams above them (the Netherlands, in 3rd place, averaging 2.00 goals per game), they still have a chance to win the whole thing. But that hasn’t stopped the criticism of Spain’s ‘dull’ play.” (Big Soccer)
“Just to end the week on a depressing note, we hear about a BBC Newsnight report that says FIFA was warned Nigeria might be ‘vulnerable to match-fixing’.” (Pitch Invasion)
“Like all soccer writers, I have a debilitating nostalgic streak, and like all soccer writers, I love Holland. The Dutch, who face Spain in Sunday’s World Cup final, are soccer’s most gorgeous losers, a team defined by a single generation of players who brilliantly failed to reach their potential. The Dutch teams of the 1970s—led by the mercurial Johan Cruyff, who’s widely considered the greatest European player of all time—launched a tactical revolution, played one of the most thrilling styles of their era, and lost two consecutive World Cup finals in memorable and devastating ways.” (Slate)
“Do Americans hate football? Not regular football, of course. Not football as in first and ten, going long, late hits, special teams, pneumatic cheerleaders in abbreviated costumes, serial brain concussions—the game that every American loves, apart from a few, uh, soreheads. Not that one. The other one. The one whose basic principle of play is the kicking of a ball by a foot. The one that the rest of the world calls ‘football,’ except when it’s called (for example) futbal, futball, fútbol, futebol, fotball, fótbolti, fußball, or (as in Finland) jalkapallo, which translates literally as ‘football.’ That one.” (New Yorker)
“In this second part about Argentina’s visible gaping holes in their squad, it will now be about Javier Zanetti’s possible impacts on the team had he been included in Maradona’s 23 man squad alongside Esteban Cambiasso, whose analysis on his possible impacts have been explained in part 1. To be frank, no matter how well argued arguments such as the one written by yours truly in part 1 about the justifications for Cambiasso’s inclusion in the squad, many would be able to still argue against it in a relatively effortless manner.” (Beopedia)
“If you look at the history of soccer for groundbreaking, ‘game-changing’ innovations, you realize they have been scarce; by and large the game hasn’t evolved much. Some innovations resulted from a changing of the rules. Most of them, however, were driven by either organizational or individual excellence.” (GOOD)
Zinedine Zidane
“The race between Spain’s David Villa and Wesley Sneijder of the Netherlands to finish as leading scorer of the 2010 World Cup could be the decisive factor in Sunday’s final. It could also establish which of these players, each with five goals apiece, comes to define this tournament and joins the ranks of the World Cup’s greatest players. It would be difficult to dispute that either player deserves such recognition, but in whose exalted company would they stand?” (WSJ)
“The semifinals of the World Cup 2010 have come and go. Holland managed to overcome the resilient but under strength Uruguay in a thrilling 3-2 encounter, while Spain finally managed to shake off their ‘flopping on a big stage’ curse and cruised to the final to face Holland after totally turning off the goal tap of Germany and finished them off by a narrow 1-0 scoreline. Holland and Spain will battle it out in a high stakes battle to become the very first European nation to win the trophy outside of their own continent and also for each of them to win the thing for the very first time in their respective histories. One main question which is undoubtedly in the minds of everyone associated with the respective teams the moment Spain defeated Germany 1-0 last night is surely just like what the title above is saying, ‘How to stop them?’. The following will be some possible ways that could be employed by the respective teams to halt the other in their quest for glory. In this first part, it will be about how to stop the first team that reached the final, and that’s Holland.” (Beopedia – How to Stop Them? (Part 1/2), How to Stop Them? (Part 2/2)
“This has been the tournament of 4-2-3-1. The move has been apparent in club football for some time; in fact, it may be that 4-2-3-1 is beginning to be supplanted by variants of 4-3-3 at club level, but international football these days lags behind the club game, and this tournament has confirmed the trend that began to emerge at Euro 2008. Even Michael Owen seems to have noticed, which is surely the tipping point.” (Guardian)
“After travelling through South Africa for three weeks I have struggled to find anyone who is not interested in the World Cup. The owner of the guesthouse I stayed at in Johannesburg, a former rugby professional, has watched every televised game. I spoke to an old anti-Apartheid campaigner at the fan-park in Cape Town.” (WSC)
“In this past month of World Cup football, I have seen my facebook stream lit up by ‘friends’ claiming that they are loving to watch coverage in Spanish. In many cases, these friends speak Spanish as a second language; I even have friends who don’t speak Spanish well at all, yet watch the Spanish coverage because they claim it is more dramatic.” (Soccer Politics)
The Lower Buttons – Intogeymy 1967
“Arriba, Puyol! That’s how I will think of him from now on, this muscular defender, with his ringlets flopping all over the place, leaping above the tall timber of the German defense and heading the Spanish where they have never been before. Carles Puyol looks so much bigger in the photos, but in reality he’s short for a central defender, reminding me of Yogi Berra, who could hit a ball off his shoe tops and send it over a building in the biggest of games. Puyol can leap beyond his 5 feet 10 inches and did it in the 73rd minute Wednesday night to give Spain a 1-0 victory over Germany.” (NYT)
“So in the end, Germany came up against a team that could defend, and the great counterattackers were exposed in a 1-0 loss to Spain in the World Cup semifinals on Wednesday. Without an early goal to protect, without opponents that poured forward and left spaces behind them, the Germans were left bereft, and as they chased a goal in the final stages, it became clear just how limited they are as a creative force.” (SI)
“Take, if you will, Hungary’s Golden Team. The story may be familiar to you: a near-perfect marriage of radical tactics with great players (Puskás, Hidegkuti, Kocsis, Bozsik, Czibor…), producing a new, adventurous style which was seemingly irresistible; an Olympic gold medal, won with five straight wins by an aggregate score of 20-2; a tying-up of the loose ends of the Dr. Gerö Cup; the Wembley 6-3, with the “people from outer space” and the “fire engine heading to the wrong fire” and the ‘utter helplessness’; the 7-1 return in the Népstadion; the four-year, 28-game unbeaten run (if we don’t count a loss to a Moscow representative selection. And we don’t, apparently) the team took into the 1954 World Cup, and not just any unbeaten run, but one in which they truly trounced opponents; the breeze through the group stage (two games, seventeen goals); the Battle of Berne; the thrilling victory over champions Uruguay in the semi-final; the final against a West Germany team they had beaten 8-3 (a real 1954 score, that) earlier in the tournament; the two early goals that would surely see them on their way to fulfilling their destiny as the greatest ever football team; Germany’s quick replies to level the affair; a third German goal with five minutes to go…” (Sport Is A TV Show)
Carles Puyol “A narrow but deserved victory for Spain, who simply carried out their gameplan more effectively than their opponents. There were two issues to be decided with the starting line-ups. Joachim Loew chose Piotr Trochowski ahead of Toni Kroos to replace Thomas Mueller, whilst Vicente del Bosque finally dropped Fernando Torres, opting for Barcelona’s wide forward Pedro instead.” (Zonal Minute)
“Lampard’s shot, Tevez’s offside goal, Luis Suarez’s ‘Hand of Sod’. For those who believe football’s rules are in need of an overhaul then this World Cup has provided plenty of ammunition to take to FIFA’s headquarters in Zürich. A game that promotes incompetence from officials (Lampard, Tevez) or encourages the use of cheating (Suarez) would seem ripe for overhaul and rugby would appear to offer the most immediate solutions.” (Pitch Invasion)
“I’ve just returned from several days in Cape Town, where I saw the Uruguay-Netherlands game and once again learned the limited power of football to offer up moral clarity. After the Ghana match, I was sure I’d be able to take out all my rage and spleen at the Uruguayans in the next game, savoring their defeat by the Dutch. Then I had a conversation with a ten-year-old stalwart Uruguayan fan on the plane to the Cape, and out went my certainty.” (Soccer Politics)
“Spain outplayed Germany yet again. And now the Spanish have the biggest prize of all within their sights. Spain will play for the World Cup title for the very first time, thanks to Carles Puyol’s goal on a powerful header in the second half Wednesday night. The 1-0 victory over Germany was a repeat of the teams’ meeting in the European Championship final two years ago, which gave Spain its first major title in 44 years.” (ESPN)
World Cup 2010: Germany 0-1 Spain
“Two years is not a long time in football, especially when you consider that national sides evolve, certainly more than club sides. In that respect, you would have expected quite a few rematches from European Championship finals happening in subsequent World Cups. However, of the twenty-six finalists in the first thirteen European Championships, six of them have failed to qualify (including Czecholslovakia Denmark and Greece, who were European Championships), and three others have failed to get out of the group stages.” (twohundredpercent)
Germany 0-1 Spain – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – World Cup – 7 July 2010
“Germany faced Spain with a spot in the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals on the line. The winner would face the Netherlands in the final on Sunday while the loser would play Uruguay in the third place match on Saturday.” (The 90th Minute)
“There’s no doubt that Germany looked magisterial against Argentina. Late last year, I watched a team pummel Diego Maradona’s team in similar fashion. They ran all over them with astonishing ease, making them look like a third division team on the brink of the brink of relegation. This was a particularly low moment for Maradona, the winter when his team was more messy than Messi. Still, the side that beat them clearly possessed players of superior quality. That was last December when the albiceleste ventured into Barcelona’s Nou Camp. They left the stadium that day defeated 4-2. The team that thrashed Maradona’s men didn’t qualify for the World Cup. In fact, it can’t. FIFA won’t let it. But anyone who has paid attention to this tournament knows its best players well.” (TNR)
“During the quarterfinal between Uruguay and Ghana, maybe a little bit before it started, I had a somewhat startling realization. I didn’t care if Ghana won. I was aware that I should want Ghana to win, and that was fine, but it didn’t really resonate with me emotionally. In the next day’s match between Spain and Paraguay, I could sense a very real antipathy towards the Albirroja. As if they were somehow disturbing the natural order of things by holding Spain goalless for the balance of the match. This has led me to believe that, horror of horrors, I don’t really like an underdog.” (Run of Play)
“Confidence in Spain’s World Cup hopes has been fragile ever since Gelson Fernandes bundled home Switzerland’s winner in their opening group game. Concern at their lack of fluidity has expressed itself in the form of debates about tactics and personnel, the latest of them revolving around Fernando Torres’ misfortunes in front of goal. Yet since Saturday’s nervy win over Paraguay that faith has suddenly returned, a strange turn of events considering the identity of Spain’s semi-final opponents, the form team of the tournament.” (WSC)
“The pre-tournament favourites versus the most impressive team in the competition so far. A repeat of the 2008 European Championships final it may be, but this is completely different contest. For a start, David Villa and Mesut Ozil – the two star men – were not involved two years ago. Of the Germans, only Miroslav Klose, Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski remain in the same positions from that final, whilst Spain will start with a different formation to in 2008, even the side contains a number of the same players.” (Zonal Marking)
“Holland progress – they shaded the contest, and took the initiative to try and win the game by throwing on an extra attacking player at half-time. Both teams named the expected starting XIs, and both set out broadly as predicted in the preview. Uruguay’s midfield was a cross between a standard four-man system and a diamond, with Walter Gargano playing much further up the pitch than we are used to seeing him. Alvaro Pereira stayed wide, whilst Diego Perez played a reserved role on the right.” (Zonal Marking)
“Hua’s note: Weeks ago, the casual World Cup watcher did not need a principled reason to back the team in green over the team in blue. A friend who once studied abroad in Paraguay and had a good time? The enthusiasms of an affable, French-speaking cabbie? Backing Mexico to circuitously spite Arizona? Your grandfather’s love of Pele, your other grandfather’s experience in the war? Or maybe you think Kasabian >>>> Oasis. Each were noble enough reasons for the quadrennial football fan to jump online and shop for a replica jersey late at night.” (The Atlantic)
“At last. It took until three quarters of the way through its 3-2 semifinal victory against Uruguay, but the Netherlands that sparkled in its last three pre-tournament friendlies finally arrived at the World Cup on Tuesday. It is not the fluency of Oranje myth (which hasn’t existed since 1974), but there was finally a pleasing crispness to the passing of the front four, a directness and an incisiveness that had been absent in South Africa, and it wrenched a game that had seemed to be slipping away back into Dutch hands.” (SI)
“As I mentioned when we discussed what constituted an American-style of play here a couple of weeks ago, outsiders like to form a stereotypical view of how a national team plays based all-too roughly on certain past performances. It helps us organise stories in our heads about each team when the World Cup rolls around every four years.” (Pitch Invasion)
Cape Town
“Arjen Robben emerged from the bottom of an Oranje mosh pit, mud on his brow and a smile on his face. For good measure, he threw kisses at his teammates and fans. His goal gave the Netherlands a 3-2 victory over Uruguay and a spot in the World Cup final. Now that’s a Dutch treat!” (ESPN)
Uruguay 2-3 Netherlands – Video Highlights, Recap, Match Stats – World Cup – 6 July 2010
“The first semifinal of the 2010 FIFA World Cup took place on Tuesday, July 6, 2010 with the Netherlands taking on Uruguay. The Dutch would be favored in the match but Uruguay have had one of the best players in the World Cup, Diego Forlan.” (The 90th Minute)
World Cup 2010: Uruguay 2-3 Netherlands
“At times they looked like making heavy weather of it, particularly in the last couple of minutes of stoppage time. Indeed, for the first twenty minutes of the second half it looked as if both teams playing in this World Cup semi-final were going to sleepwalk their way into extra-time, but eventually the Netherlands out-muscled Uruguay to book themselves a place in the World Cup final for the first time since disco was in vogue. The question now is whether they will be set up for a Central European derby match against their biggest rivals, Germany, or a match against the World Cup semi-final debutants, Spain.” (twohundredpercent)
“Many of the official World Cup films are well-known and widely available, such as the classic 1966 movie Goal! and the Michael Caine narrated Hero from 1986. The official FIFA Films page lists 15 World Cup films from 1930 to 2006, all available on DVD. The first World Cup in 1930 has retroactively been given an official film recently made from archive footage, but there is nothing listed for 1934, 1938 or 1950, so we presume the first official World Cup film was commissioned in 1954.” (Pitch Invasion)
“Everyone wanted the FA to build its own version of Clairefontaine when France won the 1998 World Cup and 2000 European Championship and they had a consistent production line of young talent. Now the talk is of copying the coaching system that produced the young Germany team that has excelled in South Africa. The debate is cyclical but what is constant is Germany’s ability as a tournament team. Eleven World Cup semi-finals since 1954 says this isn’t a recent phenomenon. It says they’ve had it right for over 60 years.” (Guardian)
Pretoria
“The Dutch have won every World Cup game so far, but their progress to the semifinal has been accompanied by very somber tones in the international media. Many pieces have read like full-blown obituaries: ‘Total Football,’ the famous free-flowing, attacking philosophy of the Oranjes, is dead, they say, replaced by an ugly, win-at-all-costs mentality epitomized by serial agitator and all-around bad guy Mark van Bommel.” (SI)
“Holland have so far used the same 4-2-3-1 shape in every game, whilst Uruguay have used at least three different formations. Oscar Tabarez is the man with more dilemmas ahead of this contest. So how will he approach this one? Firstly, we must note that he is without two players who would have started. Luis Suarez will be absent after his handball against Ghana, whilst Jorge Fucile, the left-back who has had an excellent tournament, is also suspended. Tabarez has again named his side a day before kick-off – but with slight injury doubts over a couple of key players, there could be late changes.” (Zonal Marking)
“With The Manager: The Absurd Ascent of the Most Important Man in Football, Barney Ronay has put together what should be a very interesting book on the evolution of the role of the manager in football. Well, English football anyway: Johnny Foreigner doesn’t really get a look-in unless he’s followed Arsene Wenger and washed up on England’s shores. However, because there is so much interesting material here, the monocultural perspective is disappointing, but ultimately forgivable.” (Pitch Invasion)
“To fill the void caused by the World Cup rest days before the quarter-finals (I’ve never fully worked out if the rest is for us or them), over the next two days here on Twohundredpercent our writers have been looking at where they thought it all went wrong for England this summer. This will be immediately followed by our shooting some fish in a barrel. First up to weigh in with his (no doubt) in-depth analysis is Dotmund, wondering whether or not things would or could have been better with an English coach.” (twohundredpercent – The England Obituary, Part 1: Do England Need An English Manager?, The England Obituary, Part Two: What The Papers Said (And Didn’t Say), The England Obituary, Part 3: “Ha Ha Ha!”, Or “Bloody Hell!”?, The England Obituary, Part Four: Where Do We Go From Here?, The England Obituary, Part Five: A View From North of the Border
“Wasn’t it just a few glasses of Chardonnay ago that European soccer was melting faster than a wedge of warm Brie? France, Italy and England — three of the continent’s soccer superpowers — had gone home in various levels of disgrace. To make matters worse, all five of South America’s entrants had moved on to the knockout round, with all but Chile winning its group.” (ESPN)
“It’s hard not to resort to cliche when looking at the intricate preparations undertaken by Germany when it comes to World Cup’s, or indeed anything they do in relation to football. But if they do go on to lift their fourth trophy next Sunday night at Soccer City, FIFA may well need to make some extra medals.” (TIME)
“Argentina’s and of course their manager Diego Maradona’s dreams to join Franz Beckenbauer to have won the World Cup both as his country’s captain and manager ended unceremoniously as they were utterly obliterated and generally capitulated ironically against an extra terrestrial Germany that is sure to be on a different time frame (faster) than their hapless opponents and simply thrash them one by one like pathetic mosquitoes facing the electric mosquito racket. As many people within the footballing universe have now grown accustomed to, even prior to this World Cup campaign, fans around the world, mainly Interistas and people who suddenly become Interistas after their marvelous Treble winning campaign have been constantly voicing out their utter discontent over Maradona’s decision to exclude both the defensive midfielder Esteban Cambiasso and right back Javier Zanetti.” (Beopedia)
“Uruguay is back in the World Cup semifinals. The little country had to cheat big-time to get there, but that’s another matter. In an epic quarterfinal Friday night, Uruguay defeated Ghana on penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw to reach the semifinals, improbably returning to the sport’s biggest stage despite being one of its smallest countries.” (WSJ)
Giovanni Battista Di Jacopo, Pieta
“‘What does it take to win the World Cup?’ asked Henry D Fetter of The Atlantic a couple of days ago, in a post called ‘What It Takes To Win The World Cup’.” (Pitch Invasion)
Özil the German
“No player has fascinated me more at the World Cup than Mesut Özil. He has the languid self-assurance on the ball that comes only to the greatest footballers. Where others are hurried, he has time. He conjures space with a shrug. His left foot can, with equal ease, caress a pass or unleash a shot.” (NYT)
Tap-in and Taboo
“If this happens, what will people say about Bryan Thomas (on Twitter, in newspapers, on comment threads)? Will anyone say that he has violated the ethics of the game, that he deserves further punishment? Will anyone argue that the rules of the game need to be changed so that teams cannot benefit from committing a penalty? I suspect, rather, that Thomas will be generally credited with a very smart play. How is what Luis Suárez did at the end of yesterday’s match against Ghana any different?” (Run of Play)
when i get older
“Brian at the Run of Play did a very good job crushing the idea floated in The Atlantic that countries with an authoritarian history play more winning football. The idea memed, nonetheless. (Shocked that highbrow soccer dorks — my favourite phrase this World Cup, used by TNR Goalpost to describe their ideal reader base) appear not to check RoP before coffee.) Laughable, snobbish solipsism — it’s not just for FIFA anymore, kids.” (Treasons, Statagems & Spoils)
Time Can Do So Much
“What I want to know is whether we’ll remember any of this in ten years, or if we’ll look back on it as the mass blackout during which we all wrote mystic texts. I can’t remember two more deranged or thrilling days of soccer, or four more shocking games, in any recent tournament, and Euro 2008 made me compare Aphrodite to a Toyota Prius. It was all the more stunning because it came out of nowhere—that’s not to say this World Cup had been boring, but it had rolled along at a pretty regular tempo and, apart from a few moments of madness and bliss, within a fairly livable emotional band.” (Run of Play)
“In theory, has there ever been a World Cup in which picking a Not Quite All-Tournament team (NQATT) should have been easier? The only challenge was to find a formation that would incorporate Messi, Rooney and Torres upfront and Kaka, Ronaldo and Ribery in midfield. But then they actually played the games. Despite all the glossy, megamillion-dollar ad campaigns — when Nike said, ‘Write the future,’ perhaps it meant 2014 — many of the world’s elite players sank to the occasion in South Africa, opening the door for the lesson-known names to show that you don’t have to make $250,000 a week and own a fleet of Lamborghinis to strut your talent on the big stage. So for now — before the semifinals kick off and change everything — we salute the guys behind the guys, because let’s face it, it might be back to normal in four years.” (ESPN)
“Out of the chaos of the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup has come some degree of consensus. If today’s newspapers have one theme running through them, that theme is that Germany are currently the best football team in the world and that, to a point, it would be a travesty if they didn’t win the competition. All of this is somewhat odd, since it is effectively an admission that they got their predictions wrong before the start of the tournament (there weren’t many in the mainstream press that didn’t predict Brazil or Spain), but this groundswell of opinion has been building for the last few days.” (twohundredpercent)
“A familiar story for Spain. Good ball retention, a struggle until Torres departs, and Villa saves the day, scoring in a 1-0 win. That could quite easily be a description of their previous game, against Portugal. Spain lined up with their usual lopsided 4-2-3-1 formation and the expected XI, whilst Paraguay made six – yes, six – changes to the side that scraped through against Japan in the previous round.” (Zonal Marking)
“One should be wary of generalising too much from a sample of five games, but Germany’s tremendously successful World Cup so far and the quality of its young players, with its youngest-ever team at the tournament averaging out at 24.7 years-old, has sparked plenty of understandable interest in its youth development system.” (Pitch Invasion)
“The 2010 World Cup was my first time following England abroad and a hugely enjoyable experience it was, despite the results. Wandering around Johannesburg airport on Monday night (my flight had been delayed because of the plane taking the England team home, to add insult to injury), I came across a snack bar called Capellos, which promised ‘Food. Passion. People’. I couldn’t help but snort.” (WSC)
“The following 32 names represent Football Further‘s players to watch at the 2010 World Cup. We’ll be following their performances closely over the course of the tournament, with weekly scouting reports rounding up their progress.” (Football Further)
Luis Suarez
“Why, among all the South American teams, have you heard so little talk about Uruguay this summer? I’ll tell you why: Because they’re civilized. Uruguay is the first democracy of Latin America, the first country where women voted. Whenever they have a national conflict, they solve it by referendum. Even the flyers announcing illegal prostitution clubs have a polite note below: ‘Please do not throw this paper in the street. Use a trash can.’” (Vanity Fair)
Uruguay rides luck against Ghana
“Against Ghana, though, in the final minutes of extra time, there was no control; there was merely nerve-rending hanging-on, and if Asamoah Gyan had taken the penalty he went on to take in the shootout five minutes earlier, Uruguay would have been out and Ghana would have been Africa’s first ever semifinalist. Instead after the game ended at 1-1 in extra time, Uruguay triumphed 4-2 on penalties.” (SI)
The New Hand of God
“Finally, there’s the larger point — PKs may feel like a gimmick, but, yeah, there’s no denying: It’s one heck of a gimmick. Like the fortune in the fortune cookie, it works. The penalty kicks ending of the Uruguay-Ghana match on Friday was so emotional, so heartbreaking, so inspiring, so powerful — it was the peak of this World Cup. It was one of those universal moments of sport, the sort of thing you can just enter without credentials, without prior knowledge, without any sense of the game. This was boxing without violence, tennis without lines, an Olympic 100-meter dash without a finish line. This was raw sport.” (SI)
World Cup Live: Uruguay vs. Ghana
“An unbelievable finish at Soccer City in Johannesburg put Uruguay through to the semifinals and Ghana out of the tournament in absolutely heartbreaking fashion. Ghana was awarded a penalty kick at the end of extra time when Uruguay’s Luis Suarez punched a Ghana shot off the goal line with his hand — a denial of a certain goal and a red card offense, but punishable only by giving the Black Stars a penalty kick as the last act of the match. But Asamoah Gyan blew his chance to give Ghana a 2-1 victory by shooting the ball off the bar and out of play.” (NYT)
“What a world. Regardlesss of the lie of the fixtures, if anyone had said two days ago that Paraguay and Uruguay would be the last South American representatives in the 2010 World Cup, they would have been dismissed as cranks. But here we are. We have had three marvellous quarter-finals so far (for an almost baffling variety of different reasons) and here we are, all set for the final match between Paraguay and Spain. The Paraguayan flame has burnt intermittently in South Africa so far. Their penalty shootout win in the last round against Japan came at the end of possibly the worst match of the tournament so far, but they demonstrated their capability in winning their group as Italy imploded.” (twohundredpercent)
Spain v Paraguay: tactical preview
“Have Paraguay got any chance of coming away from this game with a result? Possibly a greater chance than some might expect. They are clearly the underdogs, but Spain have yet to hit top form, and the ease with which they saw out games against Chile and against Portugal ignores the fact that they didn’t have the game their own way until David Villa broke the deadlock.” (Zonal Marking)
Spain Looks in the Mirror
“Until their victory in the European Cup two years ago, national football in Spain was never about winning. It was about hope and fury (la Furia, the team’s nickname, recalls an episode of heroism in battle), and yes, oh yes, it always ended up signifying nothing. But defeating Germany in the final of 2008, and doing so with extraordinary virtuosity, transformed them into World Cup favorites. And then came Switzerland, with their strange mixture of German practicality and Italian catenaccio, blundered their way into the goal and had Spanish football fans go into their deepest emotional crisis in history.” (Vanity Fair)
Paraguay 0-1 Spain – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – World Cup – 3 July 2010
“It was an eventful match that would see two penalty kicks missed but Spain eventually advancing to the semifinals. Spain was the better team throughout the match but struggled to break down the Paraguay defense until late in the second half. Both teams had penalties in the second half but both were saved.” (The 90th Minute)
“So much for South Americans dominating this World Cup. Three sides from the continent were eliminated in the quarterfinals, leaving Uruguay, the last team to qualify for the competition after a playoff win over Costa Rica, as its only representative. In similar fashion, the demise of the European nations appear to have been exaggerated with Germany, Spain and the Netherlands advancing to the final four.” (SI)
“Germany put in one of the most impressive performances in recent World Cup history to absolutely thrash Diego Maradona’s Argentina side. No surprises in terms of line-ups – they were as predicted in the preview, and Argentina remained with their loose 4-4-2 diamond shape.” (Zonal Marking)
Emotion no substitute for clear thinking
“Diego Maradona compared Argentina’s 4-0 World Cup defeat by Germany to being on the wrong end of a punch thrown by Muhammad Ali. Perhaps he needed Ali’s legendary trainer Angelo Dundee alongside him on the bench. In one of the great sports books. David Remnick’s ‘King of the World,’ Dundee recalled his involvement in the first fight with Sonny Liston, when Cassius Clay (as Ali was still called at the time) had been blinded by a substance allegedly put on Liston’s gloves. He was threatening to abandon the fight, but Dundee managed to calm him down.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)
Argentina: Still Bipolar
“The ups and downs of the past 24 hours here have been brutal, saddening, and well, very Argentine. The knives will likely come out now for Diego Maradona as quickly as the flurry of mea culpas came in during the days leading up to today’s match with Germany. Not full mea culpas mind you, but the extent to which you will come across one at all among Argentina’s leaders, in politics, business, and most definitely the media—more like rationalizing.” (TNR)
Maradona gambles on the ‘owner’ to deliver Cup glory
“In the German squad’s five-star hotel outside Pretoria, their match analysts have spent days thinking about Lionel Messi. Germany enter Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final against Argentina in Cape Town with a “Messi strategy”. It may well work. There is a way to stop the world’s best footballer, and Messi’s own coach, Diego Maradona, may inadvertently have stumbled upon it.” (FT – Simon Kuper)
Argentina vs. Germany – Painless ’til the End
“I’ve tried for four years to explain to new American soccer fans what it means to lose to Germany. All metaphors escape me expect for horror films. On the one hand, the German experience is a profound blow psychologically. Even when the scoreline reads 4-1 or 4-0, the Germans always give the other team enough of the ball to make them feel the result was within in reach. If only Lampard’s goal was ruled a goal, if only Dimaria had kept his shot low, if only Romero had commanded his box.” (futfanatico)
Germany, playing for more than a win
“On the eve of the World Cup, players reminded the press that this tournament was different. This year, they were playing in the wake of traumatic loss, and would do their best to honor the memory of Robert Enke, the German National Team goalkeeper who committed suicide in November 2009. In his story for The Guardian, Dominic Fifield explains…” (From A Left Wing)
“On the way home from Johannesburg, I picked up a copy of the Mail & Guardian, which calls itself “Africa’s Best Read.” Here’s the headline on the lead story that day: “Danny Jordaan’s brother cashes in on 2010.” The newspaper reported that a company controlled by Andrew Jordaan, brother of the head of the local organizing committee, is being paid around $15,000 a month by the World Cup’s official “hospitality-services” provider to serve as a “liaison” in one of the host cities. He also happened to own a share of a consortium that built one of the World Cup stadiums. Yes, indeed, the tournament seems to have been very hospitable to Jordaan frere.” (TNR)
“Never meet your heroes, they say. It is possible that a lot of people met theirs yesterday in the form of the 2010 version of the Brazilian national football team. A team that was widely-tipped to win the competition is out at the quarter-final stage for the second time in a row, and it seems unlikely that many people will actually miss them that much. On more or less any other day of the tournament – of any tournament – this would have been big, big news. Events in Port Elizabeth were overshadowed by what was to follow in the evening, but this doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth having a quick look at how they managed to get things wrong.” (twohundredpercent)
The Dutch Risk It All
“This afternoon in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the Netherlands takes the field against Brazil in the World Cup quarterfinals. The Dutch are famous for playing a stylish kind of football that is short on defense, sometimes even short on goals, but never short on entertainment. In the 1974 World Cup final, it famously scored before its West German opponents had even touched the ball and then spent the rest of the game trying to create a highlight reel instead of a victory. The Dutch lost 2-1. But it’s reputation wasn’t harmed.” (Vanity Fair)
Oranje: Don’t Look So Surprised
“Holland just downed Brazil two to one, leaving the contents of the tournament co-favorite (let’s not forget about Spain) to scatter across Western Europe in returning to their home clubs. I like the Dutch and I tend to root against Brazil, but this is no Oranje flag-waving piece. I’m not of Dutch descent and I didn’t leap into TYAC writer Puck’s arms whenever the Netherlands scored, that’s reserved for clinical Landon Donovan penalty kicks to draw the Yanks level. So with the disclaimer out of the way, here’s my issue: Why is such a large portion of the footballing world in such shock over this result?” (Yanks are coming)
“11.37-million Australian dollars: that’s the cost of paying two shady international lobbyists, Peter Hargitay and Fedor Radmann, to grease Australia’s 2022 World Cup bid for FIFA’s wheels. A couple of days ago, we commented on the revelations coming out in the Australian press about the suspect manner in which their World Cup bid was being made. That piece was on how Australia’s governing body, Football Federation Australia (FFA), and its bid team were taking advantage of FIFA’s lax and inadequate rules on gifts to FIFA Executive Committee members (the 24 of whom will decide on the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in December).” (Pitch Invasion)
Thomas Muller
“In 1997, German football was on top of the world. Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04, the two powerhouses from the Ruhr area, had won the Champions League and UEFA Cup, respectively. A year earlier, Berti Vogts’ Germany had triumphed in the Euro 1996 final against the Czechs. Below the radar, however, something strange and disconcerting was happening: Germany was running out of decent players.” (SI)
Argentina 0 – 4 Germany
“No trash talking needed. Germany was just too good for Argentina. Miroslav Klose scored twice to move into a tie for second on the all-time World Cup scoring list, and Thomas Mueller and Arne Friedrich added goals to give Germany a resounding 4-0 victory Saturday in the World Cup quarterfinals. As cameras flashed, the Germans hugged and high-fived each other before walking around the edge of the field, saluting their fans.” (ESPN)
Germany Eliminates Argentina From World Cup (HIGHLIGHTS, VIDEO)
“No trash talking needed. Germany was just too good for Argentina. Miroslav Klose scored twice to move into a tie for second on the all-time World Cup scoring list, and Thomas Mueller and Arne Friedrich added goals to give Germany a resounding 4-0 victory in the World Cup quarterfinals. As flashbulbs popped, the Germans hugged and high-fived each other before walking around the edge of the field, saluting their fans.” (Huffington Post)
Argentina 0-4 Germany – Video Highlights, Recap, Match Stats – World Cup – 3 July 2010
“It was a match-up of two top teams in the World as Argentina faced Germany in the quarterfinals on Saturday, July 3, 2010. The winner of the match would play either Paraguay or Spain in the semifinals. Argentina was coming off a 3-1 win over Mexico in the round of 16 while Germany beat England 4-1 in the round of 16.” (The 90th Minute)
“Much of what we read about this World Cup comes from a sanitized McWorld that represents one side of globalization: the stadiums, hotels, shopping malls, media hospitality suites, and articles of South Africa are often only slightly different from the same anywhere in the world at any other modern mega-event. In places such as Johannesburg and Cape Town it is easy to stay in familiar worlds, and sometimes hard to experience anything else: writers at this World Cup for outlets such as Sports Illustrated have to, apparently, sneak away from their ‘security task force’ in order to leave the ‘compound’ for something as simple as a haircut. The consequent perspectives offer little that an imaginative writer could not produce with a fast internet connection from any airport Hilton.” (Pitch Invasion)
“I was challenged to connect The World Cup to Moby Dick. Readers of the novel and fans of the beautiful game will see points of intersection just as peculiar as what follows here.” (From A Left Wing)
Johannesburg
“A game that got increasingly exciting, before an incredible finale. Penalties and Suarezgate aside, a ‘draw’ was a fair result. Both sides fielded their expected line-ups – Uruguay had named their team 48 hours before kick-off, whilst Ghana’s team featured the predicted two changes because of suspensions. The opening to the game was played primarily in Ghana’s half, with Uruguay dominating possession.” (Zonal Marking)
World Cup 2010: Uruguay 1-1 Ghana (Uruguay Win 4-2 On Penalties)
“If this isn’t the signature match of this World Cup, an absolute classic awaits. All the “total football” focus had been on Holland v Brazil but in the end only Brazil played like they did in 1974; while this… this match was total… everything. The streets of Ghana’s capital Accra are not as packed as Ned Boulting and ITV would have been hoping when they flew 3,000 miles to get there. Most of the locals are filmed showing two fingers to Boulting and his cameras and we are assured that this is a prediction of the scoreline, rather than an invitation to the patronising outsiders to foxtrot oscar.” (twohundredpercent)
Black Star Tragedy
“Football, we learned last night during the Ghana-Uruguay game, is the most effective tool for mass torture every devised by the human race. A vast majority of the over eighty thousands fans in the stadium, and millions of viewers throughout the world, were left speechless and unwound by what we saw unfold. For me, it was a little bit like reliving the final of the World Cup in 2006, with an early euphoria followed by an equalizer, then a game dragging on and on into penalties, with Gyan’s missed shot at the last minute playing the role of Zidane’s head-butt as the dramatic and decisive instant of the night. The sorrow, the indignity, the sense of unfairness of it all was too much to even contemplate.” (Soccer Politics)
Unloved Uruguay
“The Italian JobI will admit under the cover of darkness, with a long head start from those who might disagree, that I supported Uruguay against Ghana. Beirut had been gutted by the Brazilian loss in the afternoon (and here there are the Brazilians and there are the Germans, all else being commentary), so all that was left behind was a sense of solidarity for the little guy, for Africa, for the Third World, for the poor…” (TNR)
Ghana’s Elimination by la Mano del Diablo
“If la Mano de Dios works in the service of an attack on goal, helping the ball over the keeper, across the line, or to the foot of a well-placed teammate, la Mano del Diablo does its opposite – a hand raised on the line to stop a ball speeding toward the back of the net. The Hand of God works in one direction, the Hand of the Devil in its opposite.” (From A Left Wing)
Uruguay earns first WCup semifinal spot in 40 years after ousting Ghana
“Nothing, it seemed, would go in for Ghana. Not the shot kicked away at the goal line. Not the block ruled a handball an instant later as extra time ticked to a close. Not the subsequent penalty kick that sure-footed Asamoah Gyan sent bouncing straight up off the crossbar.” (ESPN)
Uruguay 1-1 (4-2 on penalty kicks) Ghana – Video Highlights, Recap, Match Stats – World Cup – 2 July 2010
“A spot in the semifinal round was at stake as Uruguay faced Ghana in the quarterfinals of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Ghana was looking to be the first African side to reach the semifinals while Uruguay was looking to reach the semifinals for the first time since 1970.” (The 90th Minute)
Scissors Kick 