Three and in – not just another football blog

Superheroes – they’re great. They save the world and damsels in distress and they all have a magnificent range of abilities.

Superman, for example, was really fast and strong and could fly. Spiderman could shoot sticky web out of his wrists. There was nobody stronger than The Hulk while Inspector Gadget, well, he was the cream of the crop.

Sadly for Portugal though Cristiano Ronaldo’s superpower is to become invisible in big tournaments. Not for the first time he disappointed on the world stage and typically his first reaction was to point the finger elsewhere. When asked why Portugal lost his surly reply was “Ask Queiroz”.

To be fair to him Portugal’s defensive set-up doesn’t really play to his strengths but in a big game the Real Madrid man was found wanting again. Accusations that he’s a flat track bully might be harsh but they do hold some water. What exactly has he done at this World Cup? A fluke against North Korea.

What he’ll be remembered for most of all is spitting on camera as he trudged off the pitch at the end of the Spain game.

I’m not one of those people who thinks spitting is the worst thing in the world but it was an act designed to show what Ronaldo thought of this World Cup, the people who work for it and utlimately the people who watch it.

Contempt towards the game and its fans is no new thing – a serial cheat like Ronaldo displays that every time he takes a tumble or exaggerates contact from a tackle. For all his talent, and he has more than most, he remains one of the game’s most dislikeable characters.

Frank Lampard’s goal was just the latest incident which has sparked the debate about the use of video technology in football. FIFA and Sepp Blatter’s approach has been, up to now, completely intransigent.

Late last year he said:

Please do not insist on the technology, the day that the referee takes 2 captains aside to study monitors and see if something is inside the box or outside is the day the spectators will say no, we are not coming to the game.

Which is nonsense, I think we can all agree. Now though, Blatter is under huge pressure with Guus Hiddink suggesting the FIFA President should embrace technology which will prevent clear errors from happening or resign. From one of the world’s most respected coaches that’s damning in the extreme and may go some way to explaining why, this very morning, Blatter says a ‘new approach’ is needed.

It remains to be seen whether he’s simply paying lip service to issue, a soundbite which will stop the criticism until he can brush the issue under the carpet again. However, for those of us who want to see football move into the 21st century it’s a small positive. But what about those who view the use of technology as a bad thing?

To give an alternative view M. Saketh writes about the difficulties of implementing video technology:

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In an ideal world, technology would instantly make all the decisions in a football match, without error and without interrupting the flow of the game. But the reality is a lot different. Amidst all this clamour for ‘technology’, there have not been many who have commented on all the consequences of any current-day technological solution.

Blatter and Platini are afraid of technology

The major glaring mistakes that referees/assistant referees(linesmen) make are related to a) whether the ball has crossed the goal line or not, b) offside calls and c) diving,  playacting etc.

Video replays are the immediate and only viable response to b) and c). There is no available video technology that can instantly give a verdict without stopping the flow of the sport. So, unless you want to see a endless repetition of video replays as every decision of the referee is questioned, there have to be a fixed number of ‘challenges’ per team. After the nitty-gritties about challenges are worked out, one has to look at the disadvantages of using such a system – the most important being the interruptions to the game.

Because teams are going to use their challenges irrespective of whether there are blatant wrong calls, you know : just in case. And many many goals will be contested. And a laboured decision by an external umpire will signal a goal, not the ball smashing into the net. I, for one, am against that. Cricket and tennis have natural breaks built in. Football does not, and ‘killing the flow of the game’ is not just a stupid  excuse made by football administrators, it is a serious issue. It damages the charm of the game.

I am not saying that  blunders should not be removed. Any system that allows Keita to get away with blatant playacting is obviously flawed, and Lampard’s disallowed goal was ridiculous. These are very serious issues too. But there are other ways to take care of it.

Do a post-match video review and let anyone found to be indulging in simulation be slapped with a heavy penalty – like a 5 match ban and a huge fine for example. Then see how many players risk it on the pitch.

As for goal-line decisions and off-sides, extra officials would vastly decrease the number of errors. Does it really matter if a player is mere centimeters offside? Football doesn’t rely on such infinite precision. A referee is allowed to make decisions on how rash tackles are – a purely subjective decision. Officials often differ as to what constitutes a yellow card offence or whether a player has committed enough fouls to warrant a card. Even with the help of video,  it comes down to a subjective decision by a human at the end – and there are bound to be variations between different referees. It surely does not matter if a player is centimeters offside. It is the obvious off-sides that have to be removed, and that can well be done with extra and better officiating. And the goal-line decision like the one involving Lampard’s goal can easily be spotted by an extra official.

Such a system involving extra officials has already been successfully tested by UEFA, and clearly shows that intrusive video replays are unnecessary.

As it stands, there is a pressing need for something to be done to remove the disgusting playacting and terrible officiating blunders. But I am not convinced that video-technology is the definitive solution to the problem as everyone seems to believe. Use extra officials, penalise faking more heavily, do everything you can to minimize human error and to remove major blunders.

FIFA, of course, always get it wrong. Their decision to rule out video-technology forever and not trialling any new advances is plain stupid. And saying that using technology  for goal-line decisions would lead to technology used everywhere  for all kinds of decisions is plain ridiculous. FIFA is a mind-numbingly dumb organization, but …

Let us not hastily come to the conclusion that technology is the perfect answer, even though the fact that FIFA does not support it is a very strong argument for it’s use.

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So, would video technology damage the game? Can we accept ‘time outs’ in football the way they’re used in other sports? If we do introduce it to what extent should it it be used? For goal line incidents like Lampard’s or, for example, Thierry Henry’s handball?

How do officials and administrators decide when an incident should be referred to a video official? I think the majority of people accept that we have to use the technology available to us in some way, the main issue is how.

Your thoughts?

It was interesting to hear Fabio Capello say that English player were ‘tired’ during this World Cup. Yet as the BBC pointed out some of Germany’s best players played more games this season, how does it add up?

There is, of course, the winter break, which is probably most beneficial to international teams in years when there’s a big tournament but could there be more to it? This has been doing the rounds for a little while but this is Graeme Souness talking on RTE TV in Ireland about how training at altitude ‘killed’ him before Mexico 86.

It would certainly explain England’s leggy, lethargic performances, but if what Souness says is true it will be of great benefit to the players respective clubs when they start their pre-season training. It certainly makes a lot more sense than reports that the players were just bored and didn’t want to ‘play for Capello’. They were playing for their country, regardless of who was in charge.

And going back to what we’ve spoken about before, having a little distance when it comes to punditry, how much sense does Roy Keane make here? He might not be everyone’s cup of tea but he’s certainly not afraid to say what he thinks. His analysis of England’s squad going into this World Cup is spot on, in my view (via balls.ie)

As everyone looks to point the finger at Fabio Capello, who of course must take his share of the blame, it’s interesting to hear a former professional who has played and won things at the highest level speak about the players the way he does.

A little late but here we go.

WINNERS

Carlos Tevez - he might have been about a hundred miles offside for Argentina’s first goal but the second was pure quality. That said, you can’t help thinking that if Mexico had taken a slightly more normal approach and not played a jockey in goal it might have been kept out.

Germany – while all the talk is of the goal that wasn’t and England’s poor showing overall in this World Cup, not enough credit has been given to the Germans for their performance yesterday. They exposed England’s weaknesses time and time again, counter attacked with pace and ruthless efficiency and could have scored more. They scored four against Australia and four against England. For all Argentina’s attacking verve they do look like a team that has defensive issues, Germany could very well exploit them.

Thomas Mueller – The Bayern Munich man scored two against England to add to the one he got against the Aussies. He’s not quite Gerd but he looks a real talent.

LOSERS

Officials – Jorge Larrionda and his officials missed Lampard’s ‘goal’ which everyone else could see had clearly crossed the line. You have to question the linesman more than the ref whose view might well have been obscured.

In the Argentina v Mexico game Roberto Rosetti’s linesman missed Carlos Tevez’s offside. It wasn’t even close.

Both England and Mexico were let down by the officials last night but we have to acknowledge human error. Which leads us t0…

FIFA and Sepp Blatter

It would have taken just a few seconds for a video official to relay to Jorge Larrionda that Lampard’s shot had crossed the line. It would not affect the flow of the game. From the replays in the stadium itself the ref and his officials knew it was a goal but at that stage they couldn’t do anything.

Here we are in the 21st century, we have all manner of technology available to us which could be used to make the game better, yet Luddite-in-Chief Sepp Blatter refuses to even talk about it. FIFA’s response to yesterday’s incident? They will now not show replays of contentious incidents in the stadium. It’s nonsense of the highest order. It’s the sticking your fingers in your ears going la-la-la-la can’t hear you approach.

Millions of people around the globe saw what happened yesterday, are they going to black out our TV screens too? FIFA’s refusal to embrace technology is 100% wrong and it makes a mockery of the biggest tournament in the world when things like the Lampard ‘goal’ happen.

The sport is ultimately tainted and FIFA would do well to listen to the fans and the people who love the game. Blatter’s dictatorship is damaging football.

The Heinze cameraman - I was going to put this in the winner’s section because it made me laugh so much but for the sake of balance it goes here. Argentina’s Gabriel Heinze did not enjoy his close up. At all.

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Your thoughts, particularly on the technology issue, most welcome.

England, let’s face it, were awful yesterday. Leaving aside the goal that wasn’t given, which is a debate for another post, I don’t think anybody can argue that the scoreline did not accurately reflect the gaeke.

Germany made all the chances and could easily have scored more, but when is the last time you’ve seen a Fabio Capello team taken apart like that? The Italian may not be the most attack minded coach in the world -  remember he was fired from Real Madrid not because he didn’t win the league but because he didn’t win it well enough – but it’s rare to see his teams so shambolic at the back.

Terry (yellow) drawn to man and not ball (cirlced in red) - with apologies to Zonal Marking!

The BBC focussed on Matthew Upson for England’s first goal but really what could he do? Take down Klose and it’s a red card. The fact is Upson was left one on one, Terry was drawn to the German player in front of him and lost the flight of the ball completely. It’s not the first time he’s done that in recent months and the fact that he was so out of position cost England the first goal. Upson was left to chase back with one of the World Cup’s most clinical forwards and the outcome was inevitable.

For Germany’s second Terry was hopelessly out of position again, chasing the man like a Sunday league player, so when Muller chipped the ball across to Podolski he had all the time in the world to fire home. Even then Terry chased back and bizarrely stopped instead of hitting the goal line where he might well have cleared Podolski’s shot. When you look at the replays Glen Johnson, wrongly, takes his cue from Terry as if to play an offside. Terrible defending.

Then the fourth – on the BBC the commentator said “And look, here’s John Terry storming forward!” as if this was a good thing. Two seconds later England have lost possession, nine seconds later the ball is in the back of the English net.

And this is not a rookie we’re talking about here. John Terry is, nominally at least, one of England’s best and most experienced defenders. Yet he played a World Cup knockout game like some kind of training session. His positional play was awful, his decision making well below international standard and because of this Germany cut through the English defence almost at will.

Now, I’m not saying this is all Terry’s fault, a lot of English players underperformed yesterday. Gerrard was more or less anonymous, Barry failed in his primary role as the holding midfielder, and Wayne Rooney delivered another toothless, inept performance up front. The obvious change for England yesterday was Crouch for Rooney and Capello bottled that one, but had Terry not taken the bull in a china shop approach to defending they might have had a chance.

Reputations count for too much when it comes to big tournaments. It’s been clear to anyone who has watched Premier League football since Christmas that John Terry’s performances have been way below his best. Yes, Chelsea won the league but that has much more to do with the finishing of Drogba than the defending of Terry. Yet he’s a shoe-in for an England team who, if they can’t score goals, need to be defensively solid.

Whoever comes after Capello (and I think the Italian will go knowing he can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear) needs to be brave and choose his team on form. On that basis Terry wouldn’t have been on the pitch yesterday and England would not have done any worse.

This from the Get Out Of Town file, then.

The tale runs that a 2 year old octopus by the name of Paul is a football match outcome predicting machine. Or cephalopod if you want to get picky.

What happens is 2 jars are placed before Paul, each containing an indentical tasty tentacle treat.

Each jar is marked with a flag of the nations competing in the nominated match.

Tanja Munzig,  Paul’s aquarium boss says Paul the octopus not only chose a mussel from a jar with the German flag on it ahead of one in a similar jar bearing the cross of St George, prior to yesterday’s game, but he has a 70% success record.

So look out for men wielding live eels and goldfish in your local bookies.

Winners

Ghana – anyone who has had to listen to ITV’s consistently patronising commentary about the plucky little Africans will have uncurled their toes at some stage and thought about various ways in which they might kill Peter Drury. Nevertheless, for the tournament itself it’s good that we still have an African represenstative.

It might be different for us watching from afar but for those on the ground it’s clear that it means a lot to the South Africans, and I’m sure many others, that Africa maintain a footballing interest in the tournament.

Asamoah Gyan – he looks like he could kill you with his patented death stare, but the Rennes striker is really making a mark at this World Cup. He showed pace, power and expert finishing to score the winner against the USA last night, and his stock will continue to rise as he gets another chance to show his stuff in the quarter finals. It would be no surprise to see him make a move to a bigger club after the tournament is over.

As well as that he becomes the first African to score four goals in a tournament since Roger Milla in 1990.

Luis Suarez – The Ajax striker scored a remarkable 49 goals in all competitions for his club last season. He has three so far at this World Cup, including a late, great winner against South Korea yesterday. Again he’s one the scouts from all the big clubs in Europe will be looking at, trying to figure out if he’s the real deal or if, when you take him out of Holland, he becomes the bastard child of Kezman and Alfonso Alves.

Losers

Bob Bradley – It’s a bit harsh but the US coach got his team selection wrong yesterday. To be fair to him he recognised it very quickly, hauling off the hapless Richard Clark after just half an hour, but at that stage the USA were already 1-0 down, conceding yet another early goal to Kevin Prince Boateng.

They conceded after 4 minutes to England, 5 to Ghana, 13 to Slovenia and after just a few minutes of extra time last night. There’s a mental weakness there which doesn’t quite add up when you think about the character the Americans have shown to get back into games. Ultimately you have to look at the coach and the way his team are prepared.

Peter Drury – as spoken about above. His verbal pats on the head to the continent of Africa are stomach churning, patronising and frankly unacceptable. Somebody make him stop. Or somebody stop him. I’m good with either.

Sven-Göran Eriksson – he might be a very nice chap, happy to talk to journalists and so forth, but resigning from the Ivory Coast job, and taking with him a €3m payoff does little to change the perception that the Swede is football management’s greatest and most effective mercenary.

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Agree or disagree with any of those? Got one or two of your own to add? Feel free to comment. We don’t bite.

WINNERS

David Villa
Another good night for Villa, with a lofted forty-yard goal and an assist for an easy on the eye Iniesta strike. The odds on the Barca new boy taking home the golden boot are, like a man with wax legs, shortening all the time.

Cristiano Ronaldo
Possibly a controversial choice – arguably no-one from the disappointing Brazil-Portugal game deserves positive recognition. But in a tournament where the likes of Kaka and Ribery have entirely failed to turn up, Ronaldo’s one-man attempt to offer Portugal an attacking threat were admirable. Like him or loathe him, a player of his talent is a welcome addition to…

The Second Round
Some mouthwatering draws. Argentina v Mexico, Germany v England, Spain v Portugal, Brazil v Chile. Tasty.

LOSERS

Marco Rodriguez
Ruined an enthralling contest by dismissing Chile’s Estrada for the most accidental and incidental of trips. Also to blame was…

Fernando Torres
He seemed to tumble rather easily and dramatically after the innocuous incident described above. Furthermore, in contrast to strike partner Villa, Torres continues to struggle to make an impact at this World Cup. Perhaps he’s still suffering the effects of an injury, perhaps he’s low on confidence, or perhaps he’s suffering the Sampson-esque effects of a drastic haircut. Either way, Del Bosque must be tempted to go with Villa upfront alone and introduce one of Silva or Fabregas to the midfield.

Switzerland
Needed to beat one of the poorest sides at the World Cup by a couple of goals to go through. Slumped instead to a 0-0. It seems they’re something of a one-trick pony – and that one trick is parking a rather large bus right across the goalmouth.

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Some potentially divisive choices today. As ever, have your say below.

Anyone who sat through the mind-numbing, torpid mess that was Brazil v Portugal yesterday will today, no doubt, be checking legal precedent to see if they can get their money back.

That goes for the people that were in the stadium and those watching at home on television. Some kind of compensation should be given to people who paid their cable/satellite subscriptions to watch that unholy abortion of a football game.

I know, there are those who will say Portugal’s defensive solidity is impressive and to an extent that is true. They are a well organised, well drilled defensive outfit who concede very few goals. This gives them a good platform to go and win games. Except when they don’t do that and play out a draw, which is what they did yesterday against Brazil.

And I don’t really understand it. Barring some kind of hammering from Brazil, which they never looked like dispensing, content to allow Melo and Gilberto Silva to play 3 yard backward/sideways passes for much of the game, and an Ivory Coast pasting of North Korea, there was no danger of Portugal going out. So why didn’t they go for it? And how, after the game, did Carlos Quieroz have the cheek to say:

I think it was a great show, a football feast. It was a great game of football, the players played extremely well and they must be congratulated.

Yes, Portugal defended very well indeed. A lethargic and one-paced Brazil found it practically impossible to break them down. Yet Portugal have one of the world’s most potent and exciting attacking talents in the world in their team. What did we see of Cristiano Ronaldo? The best he had to offer was skewing long range free kicks wide then scowling at the ball as if it were impossible to get one on target (ask Mr Honda about that, Crissy).

A football feast? A FOOTBALL FEAST? He’s mad. There’s no other explanation for it. Maybe not losing to Brazil is something to be lauded but let’s be realistic.

If this football feast were laid out on a banquet table there’d have been a few slices of stale bread, some cuts of cheap ham which had gone hard at the sides having been left out in the sun too long, a bit of coleslaw with a crust on top and a fly covered lamb chop.

I love football feasts. They’re among my favourite kind of feasts but yesterday was not one. If we want to break it down and try and salvage something from it we can say Portugal deserve credit for their defensive display. Flipping that over we could just as easily criticise them for being so negative. They’re just Greece with a superstar forward instead of that floppy haired bloke who couldn’t even score at Celtic.

Finishing second in the group means they have a local derby against Spain in the knockout round. Given the craft and attacking power of their Iberian neighbours I imagine we’ll get the same kind of approach in that game.

My advice would be to stock up on snacks beforehand because if Portugal serve up another ‘feast’ like the one against Brazil we’re all going to go hungry.

Out here in Johannesburg, you come across fans from all nations. In the past couple of days we’ve met grumpy Argentinians, dancing Ghanaians, drunk Englishmen and boisterous Germans.

They all have their qualities. Ascribing them a single adjectival epithet doesn’t do them justice. There is variety, colour, and most of all, warmth. Sitting down to write this I’m conscious of not wanting to come across like R-Kelly, singing a song about how football can bring about World Peace. It can’t. Only Bono can do that. But there is a definite harmony among fans that is something to behold.

Thus far, one group of fans have impressed me enormously: the Mexicans. They’re here in droves. They sing, they dance, they challenge Argentines to impromptu kick-up competitions. They happily chat away to you in Spanish whilst you nod blankly and mutter “Si, si”. They dress in outlandish costumes and embrace national stereotypes by sporting sombreros, meaning they have to stand about two feet apart at all times. And their team play some cracking football. What’s not to like?

In about an hour I set off to Rustenburg to watch Ghana face the US. As predicted, all the South African fans have rallied behind the one remaining African side. Bafana Bafana and the Black Stars are, for as long as Ghana’s run continues, one. If they can overcome the USA today, the locals will embrace the opportunity to continue the party. My colours are pinned firmly to a Ghanian mast.