WE’RE on to the Round of 16 now, knockout soccer played with tremendous intensity and, usually, a whole lot of bandages. A large part of advancing in a tourney like this depends upon managing your personnel – you need a lot more of them than you may have first thought, given injuries and suspensions and such. As has been evidenced by the run of play in the first round, with so many late goals and a good number of them by substitutes, you can never have too many good options on your bench. In World Cups of years gone by, teams beset with personnel issues would simply pack it in, play for a draw and hope to advance to the next round on penalties. Given the wealth of attacking talent in this tourney, and also the fact that the high heat just wears people out, the idea of weaker teams holding on for a draw seems extremely unlikely. Which is a good thing, because penalty shootouts suck, an uncreative play sucks.
The knockout phase of this tourney is intriguing because, with such short preparation time between matches, coaching can really come into play. How quickly you come up with a game plan and implement it (and, more importantly, get your players to buy in), is a huge factor. Some adept tactics can steal a game here or there, which is really all that matters at this point.
Here are the eight matches to come over the next four days, complete with our Why The Lose (WTL) answers as to why I should write about these games. Unlike the preview show, the answers during which were three sentences in length, we’re gonna go with four sentences for each game in the Round of 16. Why four? Why not? That’s how we roll here at In Play Lose World HQ:
Brazil v. Chile
WTL: because the Chileans have an axe to grind, having been knocked out of the World Cup three times by the Brazilians, along with engaging in this nonsense which cost Chile a shot at qualifying for two more; because the Chileans lose to Brazil by being a quixotic lot of swashbucklers who damns the torpedos and then charges ahead – and when Seleção pushes back against you, it usually ends quite badly; because there is a decided lack of confidence in Brazil about this team, which hasn’t been up to the nation’s deservedly lofty standards and which seems to be counting on the fact that it hasn’t lost a relevant match in 39 years in lieu of actually playing well; because Seleção aren’t about to have that streak end – at least not yet, anyway.
Colombia v. Uruguay
WTL: because the Luis Suárez suspension has now brought into play the Uruguayan persecution complex, and also the Liverpool persecution complex (since he will miss about 13 games for his club), and both are really annoying and I’m sick of hearing about them both and hope he takes a long vacation during his time away and gets his head screwed on straight; because the Uruguayans now think everyone is against them, at this point, and are going to be defiant and probably play an ugly game because of it; because Los Cafeteros play with such speed and selflessness and really make the sport a joy to watch; because we all saw the Suárez-less game plan in action v. Costa Rica – Forlán lobs crosses and set piece balls into the box for Cavani and hopes something happens – which actually worked in the first half, but we saw in the second half that the game plan didn’t work so well, and Colombia are way better than Costa Rica.
France v. Nigeria
WTL: because Enyeama has been terrific and has gone a long way to dispelling one of the most annoyingly persistent stereotypes in the sport, which is that African goalkeepers are rubbish; because it’s a good thing Enyeama is so good, since he is going to be busy; because the only real concern about the French is whether or not they lost some of that sharpness by essentially taking the day off v. Ecuador; because that isn’t going to matter against the Super Eagles, who are probably the weakest team to advance to the 16s.
Germany v. Algeria
WTL: because the Algerians have been waiting 32 years to get this chance at revenge, and that may seem silly to drag around since it was forever ago and since most of the Fennec Foxes actually grew up in Algeria, but people have long memories when it comes to this game; because Halilhodzic has shown himself to be a terrific tactician on the bench, and he’s going to need to cook something up in a hurry; because the Germans have put on a similar display to 2010, where they went out and so overwhelmed an opponent in the first game that it masqued some deficiencies elsewhere in the team, and I wonder at what point their opponents are going to figure them out; because while I think the Germans will win, it won’t surprise me at all if the Fennec Foxes make them really uncomfortable.
Netherlands v. Mexico
WTL: because El Tri’s lack of physicality and athleticism up front has to catch up with them at some point; because I’m starting to think that van Gaal is simply smarter than everyone else in this tourney, since he’s managed to get the Dutch to actually play together and also outfoxed a couple of opposing managers in the process; because Rafa v. the Robben & Robin Show is a really bad mismatch which Herrera is going to have to figure out how to cover for, and which is likely to hinder his excellent team defense in doing so; because the Mexican resurrection in Brazil has been great to see, but I really feel like the Oranje do everything in the game that El Tri wants to do and simply does it better.
Costa Rica v. Greece
WTL: because at some point I need to mention that there are three CONCACAF teams in the 16s and that one of the biggest reasons for this is the continued growth of MLS, since having a second quality league in the region affords more players throughout the region the chance to play professionally at a high level and develop their games, whereas in the past you had representatives of the region at the World Cup like the U.S. college kids and the part-time players for the Ticos in 1990 (one of whom I believe was an electrician); because Campbell and Ruiz remind us that having a tandem up front who plays well together is often more important than a tandem who are über-talented; because the Ticos have been running circles around square, slow teams all tournament, and Greece more than fit that bill; because I have no real thoughts whatsoever about Greece other than that they are a cure for insomnia, and would like them to be eliminated as soon as possible.
Argentina v. Switzerland
WTL: because I’ve read an awful lot of writers and pundits still picking Argentina to win the World Cup and I’m wondering if they are watching the same team that I am, or if they are simply enamoured by the name on the jersey, which goes a long way to explaining why if you have Argentina or Germany on your jersey people think you shit rainbows even if you don’t play that well, but if it reads Belgium or France you’re suddenly a disappointment when you’re 3-0 or take a meaningless game off; because Argentina are currently Messi and 10 guys who are a letter short of Messi, but it’s been good enough so far against overawed and underaggressive opposition; because the Swiss have been all over the place, and have been so schizophrenic that you don’t know what to expect from minute to minute; because if the Swiss figure out where they are supposed to be on the field for 90’ or so, this has the potential to be the most entertaining game of the Round of 16.
Belgium v. United States
WTL: because one of the things which would help the U.S. is if they stopped treating the left side of the field like a toxic waste dump, given that the Germans figured this out pretty quickly and clogged the right side of the pitch and took away as much of the Johnson/Jones runs and combination play as they could, and surely the Belgians can figure out to do the same thing as well; because assuming the Belgians can figure that out is questionable, since Wilmots has looked out of his league coaching v. Cappello and Halilhodzic, and Klinsmann is a better tactician than either of them and also has better players than those two coaches do; because I think that what the U.S. wants to do in this game is more or less what the Belgians want to do as well, which is play up-tempo and try to pressure through the midfield and down the flanks; because unfortunately, when two teams want to do basically the same thing, the one with better players generally wins, and also the one with more of them, and that’s the Belgians.
I will gladly, willingly be wrong on the last one. Please don’t take any of this to the bank, and always remember that gambling is a sin.
“... everything is complicated by the presence of the opposing team.” – Jean-Paul Sartre
