Well, That Was Different

Lunacy

NOT sure what to make of those two games, other than to say that the better team won each of them, and neither was particularly inspiring.
 
1. Game Management
Game management doesn’t make for the most exciting viewing. For the third time in as many games, the favoured side pushed forward at the start, got an early goal and then hunkered down as the upstarts tried to figure out what to do. For the third time in as many games, the upstarts failed miserably.

Argentina had a clear plan for how to thwart the Belgians after Higuain’s well-taken goal at the 8’ mark – square four in the back, with a square three holding midfielders right in front of it. In essence, seven defenders. The Belgians want to run at you from every position on the pitch, but they aren’t a side that goes about crafting a goal very well. From whatever angle they attacked, they promptly ran into two guys, and most of their crosses were of the awful variety. Argentina could get away with this, in part, because of Messi, who more or less roamed about well up the pitch. The threat of a Messi counter was so great that the Belgians could never quite commit the numbers forward they may have needed. In a sense, Messi was playing defense simply by being on the pitch, exuding influence over the game while rarely touching the ball.

It made for a fairly dull game, as the Argentines spent 82’ taking the air out of it while frustrating the Belgians. The Belgians wanted to make everything complicated, often trying to dribble through three blue shirts and not creating any sort of useful movement. It wasn’t until the end, when they started lobbing crosses in the box for their big men Fellaini and Lukaku that they started to make headway. It seems like a low percentage play, but the low percentage play is better than the no percentage play. In a game so stiff and lifeless, sometimes your best chance is to try to create some chaos in front of the goal and see what happens.

The Belgian inexperience really showed in this game, and I think everyone on their side would agree that it will prove a worthwhile learning experience, albeit a rather painful one. Both they and the French learned valuable lessons this weekend which will serve them well in the future – and given both the youth and the raw talent on both sides, I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of those two teams over the next decade.

2. Yes, That Game Actually Happened
For the first 70’ of the fourth quarterfinal, it was the worst game of the tournament, as Costa Rica did nothing and the Dutch took a leisurely stroll along the canals of Amsterdam on a Saturday afternoon. Then it got weird.

There are days when the ball just won’t go in the damn goal no matter what you do, and the Dutch were clearly having one of those days. They hit the woodwork three times, Navas got a touch to everything else, the Dutch were all over Costa Rica and it got more and more absurd with each attack that somehow didn’t produce a goal. I swear, on the van Persie shot cleared off the line/off the face/off the crossbar, it seemed like there were about 18 17 people in the box scrambling after the ball. It was pure, glorious mayhem.

And then van Gaal substituted a goalkeeper for the penalties, having saved his third substitution until the end. My comment at the time was, “van Gaal obviously thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. what a waste.” My comment 15 minutes later was, “like i was saying, van Gaal is god.”

In hindsight, the move made a lot of sense. Krul was a taller keeper, and one who also had fresh legs. Krul had plenty of time on the bench to study the Costa Rican shooters and know their tendencies – he dove the right direction on all of the Ticos kicks, saving two of them. The Dutch hadn’t expressly needed another attacker on the pitch, since they were creating boatloads of chances. And let’s be honest here – it weirded out the Ticos. It weirded out everyone, to be honest. Given the likelihood of being skewered, flambéed and served with a Hollandaise sauce on the side by the press if it didn’t work, it was probably the ballsiest managerial move I have ever seen in a World Cup. (But, apparently, being ballsy is nothing new to van Gaal.)

Everything van Gaal does turns up trumps in this tournament – he brings on Huntelaar late v. Mexico and Huntelaar sets up a goal and scores another; he brings on Fer v. Chile and Fer’s first touch is a header on a set piece for a winning goal. Clearly he has a great feel and a hot hand on the bench, and the players have bought in. The Lose has been quite amused reading a variety of critiques from former Oranje players speaking of how the Dutch aren’t playing attractive football in this tourney. Jeez, guys, I don’t know, they’re undefeated and scoring more goals per game than any Dutch team in World Cup history, what’s not to like about that? Frankly, to hell with style. Win the damn game, and do whatever you have to in order to do so. Costa Rica certainly did.

Which wasn’t much. To be perfectly blunt, that was about the most fundamentally negative performance I’ve seen in a World Cup in 24 years. Costa Rica didn’t have either a corner or a shot on goal until the 115’ mark of the game. They had no intention of doing anything more than playing for penalties from the beginning (and given that Campbell had no legs at all up front, I can’t say I’m surprised). Take away the backstory of the plucky, feel-good Cinderella, and put something like Italy or Germany on the front of the shirt, and that team would’ve been villified for a performance like that. While I’m pleased the Ticos achieved so much in this tourney, I’m glad we don’t have to watch any more of that, because don’t think for a minute that, had they won on penalties, they wouldn’t have tried the exact same thing in the semifinals, given what they had left in the tank. The better team wound up winning this game, albeit in the most confounding manner imaginable.

I didn’t even watch the penalties, having resigned myself to the outcome of this game. The Dutch failures in penalties, often comically awful, are as much a part of their history as their beautiful style of play. But van Gaal somehow found another ace up is sleeve, one which could trump even history. Or maybe the solution all these years was for me to go do the dishes during the shootout. Who knew I had the magic touch? I’ve just become even more of a legend in my own mind. I didn’t think it was possible.