Three and in – not just another football blog

A little overdue – this write-up looks at the semi-finals and the pointless yet entertaining third/fourth play-off.

WINNERS

Diego Forlan
A loser in the semis but a winner across the tournament.  Almost certainly the single individual who has exerted the greatest influence over his side.  Two more great goals take his total to five, and his reputation to an unprecedented high.

Carles Puyol
Scored the crucial goal in the semi, but was also extremely solid at the back to deny a freescoring Germany side.

Wesley Sneijder
Might just be wondering if his name is on the Golden Boot after another jammy goal against Uruguay.  Sneijder had an extraordinary domestic campaign with Inter, and if he can help Holland lift the World Cup at the third attempt then he’ll be the favourite to win World Footballer of the Year.  And, more importantly, he’ll have pissed off Real Madrid something mighty.

LOSERS

Miroslav Klose
Quiet in the semi and injured for the third-place play-off, Klose failed to score the one goal required to match the all-time World Cup record held by the original and fatter Ronaldo.

Fernando Muslera
Uruguay’s keeper was beaten from long-range twice against Holland, then made a hash of a simple cross against Germany to gift Marcell Jansen a goal.

Fernando Torres
Dropped for the semi and denied a simple tap-in by Pedro’s selfishness when brought on as a sub.  It will hurt a player of his quality to begin on the bench tonight.

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The biggest winners and losers of this World Cup might yet be decided today.  Come back tomorrow to see who they are.

Service stations have proven fertile ground for meeting renowned football folk at this World Cup. On our way to England v Germany we met former Aston Villa centre-half Martin Laursen and ‘Sir’ Les Ferdinand, still awaiting conviction for impersonating a Knight of the Realm.

On the six hour drive from Johannesburg to Durban to attend our fourth different stadium for our fifth game, we topped even that by stumbling in to Bafana Bafana’s opening day hero: Siphiwe Tshabalala.

As we stopped to get some petrol, we noticed a small crowd gathering around a gigantic pair of sunglasses, behind which there appeared to a tiny man. And not just any tiny man. This was Tshabalala: scorer of a scorcher of a left-footed strike that defied the otherwise problematic aerodynamics of the Jabulani to breathe hope, life, and expectancy in to the tournament. Plus, he had a funny name. A hero was born.

Tshabalala was also on the way to the game, accompanied by another Kaiser Chiefs player. He handed a child a pair of Bafana shorts, prompting tears of joy. He high-fived and posed and pretended to be a rapper, and then, as quick as he had arrived, he was gone. I had grabbed a few seconds of his starlight. And when it’s only due to last fifteen minutes, a few seconds has to go down as a significant percentage.

There follow a few other photos from the day.

Other than cult figures of African football, there isn’t a huge amount to see on the six hour drive down to Durban. It’s a distressing feeling when you realise you’re desperate for the loo and look out the window to see this:

Not a Little Chef in sight. Still, this is a stadium well worth the trip.

It’s Wembley-esque arch heralds your arrival at an arena which matches Joburg’s Soccer City for aesthetic excellence.

The only disappointment is the distance between the fans and the pitch at either end of the stadium – one of the inevitable downsides of making provisions for athletics tracks and the like.

What makes a stadium, more than the architecture, are the fans.

Some can’t help but look stupid.

And some can’t help but be stupid.

But they all make up a bigger, brighter picture.

Most of the locals and neutrals seemed to be siding with Spain, and so went home happy.

The match itself was a little under-whelming: Germany’s defensive unit was impressive but unable to understand the sheer weight of Spanish pressure. It sets up an exciting final which will crown a new Champion. I’m as yet unsure where I’ll be watching, but barring a miracle, it won’t be in the stadium.

Start praying now.

WINNERS

Miroslav Klose
Two more goals takes Miroslav ever Klose to Ronaldo’s World Cup scoring record of 15. Yesterday he moved past another Brazilian, Pele, to within one goal of joint top billing. He might not be everyone’s cup of tea – club manager Louis van Gaal included – but you can’t argue with his stats: 51 goals in 100 international appearances.

Bastian Schweinsteiger
Remember the petulant winger who irritated fans everywhere with his poor-man’s Ronaldo stepovers and terrible haircut? Me neither. Schweinsteiger’s transformation to pivotal central midfield player has demonstrated remarkable maturity from a player who is still just 25. Yesterday, he was imperious.

England
It happened to Argentina too, it seems. Don’t feel so bad. Maybe the Germans are just a bit good.

David Villa
Spain’s hero, yet again. Barcelona’s €35m signing is beginning to look an absolute bargain.

LOSERS

Diego Maradona
A day after Luis Suarez took the ‘Hand of God’ from him, Maradona may now be set to lose another prized asset: the title of Argentina manager. It’s no disgrace to look comparatively disorganised next to a German team, who tend to make the Beijing Opening Ceremony guys look a bit of a shambles. That said, when faced with their first serious test, Argentina’s “playground” formation finally came a-cropper. They swarmed after the ball in numbers, leaving themselves vulnerable to Germany’s counter-attacking style. Maradona has provided the tournament with loads of entertainment, but is likely to pay the price for this crushing defeat with his job.

Penalty-taking
It’s not been a good couple of days for the art of spot-kicks. Yesterday there were three penalties within as many minutes in the Spain v Paraguay game. Only one was scored, and that was disallowed for encroachment. Paraguay’s Oscar Cardozo was left to wonder what might have been.

Fernando Torres
Withdrawn without a goal yet again, there must now be serious questions over the suitability of Torres to start the semi-final against Holland. The Liverpool striker is out of both form and luck, and his characteristic confidence looks to have deserted him. Moving Villa to a more central role and dispensing with Torres seems a more sensible move with each passing game.

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Your own Winners, Losers, Drawers and Abdicators are, as ever, welcome.

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.

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.

However poor Australia were (and they were), it was hard not to be impressed by the free-flowing football Germany produced yesterday.  They started the game at unusually long odds, and ended it being lauded as the best side on show so far.

I texted a friend to say how impressed I’d been with the teutonic team.  He agreed – but said he felt that our national team, England, were just as capable of producing a similar performance if lined up in the same shape.  The shape in question, as expertly analysed by ZonalMarking here, is a 4-2-3-1 formation which can shift to a 4-2-1-3 in attack.  It’s a formation England used consistently in qualifying, with Gareth Barry and Frank Lampard replacing Schweinsteigher and Khedira as the holding midfielders, and Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and one of Aaron Lennon or Theo Walcott operating behind the bludgeon-like Heskey.

With Barry returning to fitness, England have the option of reverting to this system against Algeria on Friday.  But even if they do, they won’t recreate Germany’s smooth passing game.  There is one vital ingredient missing: a playmaker.  Whoever England deploy behind the striker, be that Wayne Rooney or Steven Gerrard, they will lack the canny craft of Germany’s Mesut Ozil, undoubtedly the star of Monday evening’s 4-0 victory.

I’m not disputing that either Rooney or Gerrard are great footballers.  But in my opinion, they’re impact players.  They’re more “WHAM!BAM!” than “pass+move”.  Ozil reminds me of an Arsene Wenger quote about Robert Pires, whom he called “the oil in our engine”.  Gerrard and Rooney are more like pistons.

It’s a cultural problem in English football.  We obsessed for years about the peroquial ideals of ‘box-to-box midfielders’ and ‘old-fashioned number 9s’.  In the meantime, the rest of the world was developing ‘playmakers’ and these things called ‘holding midfielders’.  The closest thing we have to the former is Joe Cole, and at the moment he sits behind James Milner and Shaun Wright-Phillips in the pecking order.

England may rack up their own four-goal victory in this tournament.  They may even progress further than the Germans.  But without a playmaker of Ozil’s calibre – without any oil in the engine – they’ll never match the flowing football of Joachin Low’s side.

WINNERS

Germany’s strikers
The first six games had brought just eight goals – an average of 1.33 p/game.  At Italia 90, the World Cup’s goalscoring nadir, they managed a comparatively whopping 2.21 in each match.  We needed goals from somewhere, and happily Germany obliged.  Podolski and Klose discarded their poor domestic form to resume their impressive international exploits, whilst the supporting cast of Muller and Brazilian-born Cacau also got in on the act.  The flurry will have pleased everyone except Australians.  And if there are any Aussies out there accusing me of bias, I’ll have to plead guilty.  Just like your ancestors.

Mesut Ozil
Those who watch Ozil regularly, such as The Guardian’s Raphael Honigstein, won’t have been surprised by his display last night.  But the Werder Bremen playmaker announced himself to the wider football public last night with a Man of the Match performance against an admittedly feeble Australia.  Quick feet, incisive passing, and dangerous movement.  An old-fashioned number ten and a new name on the big stage.

Africa, apparently
Ghana became the first African side to win at this summer’s tournament, and no sooner had the final whistle blown that pundits were queuing up to call it ‘a victory for all Africa’.  I’m all for their continental brotherhood, but would like to see Ghana recognised as a force in their own right first.  Should Cameroon lose to Japan today, I doubt Ghana’s 1-0 win over Serbia will serve as any consolation.

LOSERS

Goalkeepers
I don’t know whether or not the Goalkeepers Union had decided to make a collective effort to make Robert Green feel better, but they were all over the place yesterday.  The most notable gaffes were by Algeria’s Faouzi Chaouchi (a man who gives a clue towards his slapstick antics by having the word ‘ouch’ buried in his name) and Mark Schwarzer.

Tim Cahill
Picked up the third red card of the day for a clumsy but not-altogether-evil tackle on Bastian Schweinsteiger.

“You can all see how upset I am, I’m sorry to be like this. I don’t usually cry but I’m just hurt. To have my World Cup shattered in that way is one of the worst things I have ever experienced. I have been through a lot of different things in football but nothing this painful and I have to admit it’s hit me really hard. I don’t have a clue what will happen now but what I can say for certain is that it’s the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with as a footballer. Nothing comes close to this. It was my dream to play in my second World Cup and it was something so special for me to represent my country. To have it snatched away from me so quickly is a feeling I never want to experience again.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think he felt particularly good about the whole thing.

Zdravko Kuzmanovic
Playing in a Serbia team which may be the only thing at this World Cup more over-hyped than James Milner, Kuzmanovic took the proverbial cock-up flavoured biscuit with a needless handball to give Ghana the penalty which settled the tie.