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| That one is gonna be hard to live down |
MYSELF and The Official Wife of In Play Lose were eating our way through the Napa Valley during this long holiday weekend, and the weekend also offered up a scrumptious meal of footballing losedom to take stock of. And there were plenty of other tidbits of losedom as well, but we’ll dine on bad baseball and the folly of NBA free agency here later in the week. In the meantime, let’s contemplate the 5-goal feast from Sunday:
1.
I said yesterday at lunch that not only was the U.S. going to win against Japan, but that they were going to win big. My reasoning for this was that the U.S. could do every single thing against Japan that England did, and do it better, because the U.S. has better players than England (and pretty much everyone else, for that matter). The best counterargument anyone offered up was, well, that it’s a 1-game situation, and anything can happen in a 1-game situation, and that soccer is a stupid fucking game because the wrong team wins an awful lot of the time in 1-game situations. And yes, the U.S. found that out the hard way four years ago in the final against Japan, dominating the game and then basically throwing it away. But Japan wasn’t as good as they were four years ago, and the U.S. was arguably better. And in truth, in 1-game situations, the better team generally does, in fact, win.
Japan, of course, love to possess the ball and play defense with their offense, slowly driving their opponents mad in the process. They can do some truly awesome stuff. They were the defending World Cup Champions for a reason, and against the uninitiated, mesmerized opposition they faced in their first five games, it always seemed inevitable that they’d prevail:
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| This goal is just sick |
But in the semifinal, the English didn’t give a shit. They just went out and knocked the Japanese around and took the game to them, and should’ve won the damn game. So it stood to reason that the U.S. was going to try and do the same thing. And a good way to attack a team that wants to play defense with their offense is make them play defense with their defense. Watch any match that Spain has lost in the past decade – granted, there aren’t very many of them – and generally what you see is a direct approach to the game that forces the defense to be honest and minimizes comfortable possession in the midfield. Up until the England game, no one really attacked the Japanese with any sort of authority, but the U.S. love damning the torpedoes and charging straight ahead. It is their favoured way to play, in fact. Their size and athleticism made them a terrible matchup for Japan.
And really, if the U.S. was going to lose this tournament, they were going to have to get nicked early on, when they couldn’t figure out what sort of a lineup to play, but other than a goalless draw with the tepid Swedes, that didn’t really happen. While the offense was finding its way, the U.S. defense didn’t give up a goal for nine hours. When you don’t give up a goal for nine hours, you have plenty of time to figure stuff out. The defense really won them the tournament, affording them ample amounts of time to fine tune and tinker under the hood. And once Jill Ellis found a lineup and a formation that she liked, everyone else was in trouble.
I figured the only way Japan could win this game is if they got to halftime nil-nil and some nerves started to settle in on the U.S. side. Instead, it was basically over in 15 minutes.
2.
I flashed back to January 1990 while watching a full replay of this match last night. I was in the U.K. at the time, and we American exchange students were starved for some “real” football, so stayed up late to watch the replays of the NFL playoff games, which I think were on ITV. The 49ers played the Rams in the NFC Championship in San Francisco, and the field condition was absolutely terrible, like it always was at Candlestick. (Which mercifully, is no longer. RIP Candlestick my ass.) Heavy rains in the run-up to the game had turned Candlestick into it’s usual muddy mess, and the players were slopping all over. And yet, amid all of the slop and the mud, the most striking image of that particular game was the jersey of Joe Montana, which was perfectly clean. Montana would drop back to pass and no Ram defender ever came near him. He was 26-30 for 262 yards and 2 TDs in the game, and never once was even as much as touched by a Ram defender as the 49ers won 30:3. Montana was a maestro conducting a symphony. The 49ers were near perfect.
And two weeks later, the 49ers basically were perfect. We had a Super Bowl party which started at something like 12:30 a.m., and it was over pretty quickly, because the 49ers were up 34:3 on the Denver Broncos at halftime. Mick Luckhurst, the British former Falcons kicker, was the host of the British TV broadcast, and I remember him trying to give a justification as to why people should keep watching such a blowout even though it was well after 2:00 a.m.
“You’ll probably never see a team play football this well again,” Luckhurst said.
The U.S. Women’s 5:2 win over Japan was like that. I would also liken the Screamin’ Eagles’ performance yesterday in Vancouver to the Seahawks 43:8 win over Denver in the Super Bowl a couple of seasons ago, or maybe Spain’s emphatic 4:0 win over Italy in the 2012 Euros. Great performances by great teams, triumphs of great talent but also great preparation.
We love the tension and the drama of close, competitive games, of course, but sometimes one team is clearly better than the other going into that final, and when that team plays to its maximum potential, and simply blows away the opposition, it really is beautiful to watch. You don’t get to see that very often.
In the end, this was a landmark performance by the U.S. Winning in 1999 was cool, but that match was still 0:0 and decided on penalties. This match in Vancouver, meanwhile, was dominant and emphatic. This is the gold standard in women’s soccer, just as Brazil’s 4:1 win over Italy in the 1970 final is the gold standard on the men’s side. (Colossal Brazilian defensive faux pas aside.) It simply gets no better, and sometimes you just have to be thankful that you got to see it.
OK, there, I’ve done some gushing and praising. Now it’s time to trash some shit.
3.
WTF Japan? Play some defense! That team just didn’t look ready to play in a lot of ways. The Japanese had to expect a U.S. onslaught at the beginning, and yet they seemed woefully unprepared. Like I said, the U.S. game plan was to make Japan play defense with their defense, and it was a wise game plan, because as it turned out, Japan’s defense was absolutely horrible.
The goalkeeping, in particular, was miserable. The defining moment of this game, and of the entire tournament, was Carli Lloyd chipping Japanese goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori from 60 yards. Props to Lloyd for having the audacity to even try it, but that was exactly the right time to try something like that – up three goals after a full-on barrage to start the game, Japan forced to press forward, etc. Also, the high ball in the sun is actually really problematic for a goalkeeper, but it almost never happens that the ball gets up high enough to cause that problem. The art of goalkeeping is all about employing the right sorts of techniques in an instant to cope with a split-second of panic when a shot comes your way: how you dive, where you place your hands, how you guide the ball if you cannot take hold of it, and so forth. So when you lose sight of the ball, you can get all crazy legs and get yourself tangled up. (This may or may not have happened to me before.)
Now, I don’t know if Kaihori lost it in the sun or what, but she’s at sixes and sevens on that chip from Lloyd and she gets herself all screwed up. The end result is a truly terrible play. It was a stamp of incompetence on a truly inept all-around performance by Japan. This play was so bad that it, in retrospect, it almost makes you forget how badly Kaihori flapped at the 5th American goal, a fairly standard cross on a corner that she turned into a mess. The fourth and fifth goals were a case of just awful goalkeeping, plain and simple.
And look, Hope Solo is a lunatic. There isn’t any doubt about it. She’s absolutely a crazymaker. But she is also about the best female goalkeeper we’ve ever seen – even when she doesn’t have to make the save. Solo clearly put the ziggy on Sasic in the semifinal, getting into her face and into her head, and the German promptly shanked the penalty. You never feel like Solo is going to make the big mistake. She’s like Neuer is for the German men, that rock at the back you can count on, one who can afford you the chance to make some mistakes on defense, and thus also provide you some freedom with which to take risks. The Japanese didn’t have that rock. Quite honestly, few teams do.
Of course, Kaihori can also sue her teammates for non-support. The Americans scored three goals on set pieces, and the Japanese basically didn’t mark anyone on any of them. And hey kids, if you’re watching at home, here’s an important safety tip: don’t ever do this …
Egads. Lauren Holiday should’ve yelled “fore!” with a ball so nicely teed up as that one.
Pass the Hot Sauce
Andrés Cantor should call every match, ever. Thank you, that is all.
4.
Scoring in open play can be really damn hard. Most of the time, you either have to do something brilliant, or have the defense completely gift you one. The set piece, meanwhile, always provides great opportunities for goal scoring. But time and again, you see the opportunities go wasted owing to a lack of imagination. As dramatic as the swerving free kick around the wall can be, most of the time it doesn’t come close to working. Likewise, the corner floated into the box doesn’t often amount to much, in part because the defense knows exactly what’s coming.
The set piece offers up the chance for the element of surprise, and a chance to use the defense’s tendencies against itself. I was going to make mention of this at some point, anyway, and it’s fresh in my mind after Real Salt Lake worked this masterpiece in the MLS recently. Great goalscorers have outlandish egos, of course – in fact, that sort of outlandish ego is somewhat necessary to be that brilliant – and it can take some coaxing to convince them that the arrogant approach of shooting from a free kick position isn’t the best course of action. Sometimes, the right ploy is to use the element of surprise. Watch that Salt Lake video again and notice how the Columbus defenders have no earthly idea what’s going on. Some of them don’t even move.
But this sort of ploy seems to go ignored a lot of the time when it comes time for a set piece. Soccer isn’t a game where people break from conventional wisdom nearly as often as they should. Well, this is the World Cup Final, so you may as well empty out the arsenal.
The U.S. ran two brilliant set pieces in the first five minutes of the game which were triumphs of imagination, but also clearly the result of some film study and some messing around on the practice pitch. There had been suspicion throughout the tourney that Japan would be susceptible to the set piece, and the Americans had some very definite ideas of what to do.
On this first corner, they catch the Japanese not paying attention. Carli Lloyd is lined up 30 yards from the goal at the start of the play. Now, if you’re Japan, the red flags need to be going up all over the place. Lloyd is the hot hand for the U.S. in this tournament. She’s scoring all the goals and making all the plays. You need to know where she is every single minute of this game. So what the hell is she doing 30 yards away from the goal? She ain’t there to play defense. That makes no sense. Something is up. Sure enough, here she comes charging like a bat out of hell:
And the play works, of course, because the service is perfect. It’s a wormkiller skidding along the astroturf, the type of ball you never see on a corner unless it’s a mishit, and one which also uses the playing surface to an advantage, since you can skid the ball and make it move a little quicker than on grass. It’s a genius play all the way around, one you would’ve had to have practiced ahead of time, given that it flies in the face of all accepted soccer logic and you wouldn’t be inclined to make it up in the game on the fly. Chalk this one up to superior preparation.
The U.S. had so much fun with that one, they thought they’d try something even nuttier a couple minutes later, this off a free kick from the right flank. The U.S. run a pretty standard pick play on this one, the idea being that you free up someone at the near post for a flick-on using the back of the head – only the cross comes in at the feet of the server, Julie Johnston, who then backheels it. This is flat-out, let’s-make-mayhem stuff. It’s based upon the idea that the defense isn’t going to be looking for this kind of ball, that they are just going to ball watch instead of maintaining their marks, and that chaos can overcome inferior numbers. I mean, count the numbers in the box here. It’s four on eight on this play. This play should not work.
And yet again, find #10 Carli Lloyd for the U.S. on the field at the start of the play, because the Japanese sure didn’t. She’s open before the play even begins, and no one picks her up amid the frenzy:
Now, most of the time, this stuff doesn’t work. But it’s soccer, for heaven’s sake: most of the time, nothing works. You’re always at a disadvantage in this sport when it comes to scoring goals. Sometimes a little unorthodox thinking goes a long way.
5.
The single-best thing FIFA can do to improve this tournament going forward, apart from never having it on astroturf again (and FIFA has said it will be grass only from hereon) is to put some money into the development of better officials. The officiating in this tournament was absolutely awful. Where you see the amateurism of it stand out the most is through the continual awarding of penalties on fouls which occurred outside the box. There was way too many of those. These are the best players in the world, these are professionals, and one of the things professional defenders actually know how to do (somewhat cynically, some would argue) is to know when you do and don’t commit fouls. Too much of the officiating on those types of plays was guesswork. There was too much decision-making based upon what was anticipated to happen on the pitch, rather than in response to what actually went on.
And it certainly made an impact upon the matches. There were five penalties called in the last four games, and three of them were downright awful calls, while the fourth probably should have resulted in Julie Johnston getting tossed from the game. Now, to the Germans’ credit, they didn’t bitch about the officiating after they lost the semifinal. Germans generally don’t bitch about officiating, and a good rule of thumb is that you don’t get to complain about the officials when you shank the penalty chance you’re given.
Part of the problem is that there is just not enough worldwide depth yet in terms of talent. Most people would agree that the Americans and the Germans and the English have the better officials, but we can’t have those teams’ refs on the pitch when those teams are playing in the meaningful games. The referees wound up having far too much impact on the games in this tournament. We need more good officials. Simple as that.
Mmm, Delicious Chile
Lost in the shuffle over the weekend (at least in this country) was the fact that, after 99 years of complete futility, Chile finally won a Copa America. Chile has always been a good footballing nation, but never quite good enough. This being South America, football and politics are impossible to separate. Chile’s Copa America triumph came on their home grounds, Estadio Nacional in Santiago, a venue which has a truly terrible place in history. This victory for La Roja was definitely something of a national catharsis, and their achievement, on many levels, should be celebrated.
The game itself was pretty lousy, a 0:0 draw with Argentina that La Roja won 4:1 on penalties. There were a lot of goalless draws in the tournament, and not a whole lot of creative play on display, whereas there were plenty of bad tempers to be found and quite a bit of strange officiating going on – Chile’s triumphs being aided somewhat by curious red cards awarded to Uruguay in the quarters and Peru in the semis. That said, you’d expect Chile and Argentina to put up some goals, given Argentina’s attacking talent and Chile’s frenetic, up-tempo, hell-bent-for-leather mindset. It was a compelling final in terms of tenacity, but lacked some creativity.
La Roja breaks their terrible jinx and props to them for doing so, while Argentina’s drought in international tourneys is now up to 22 years. Not even having Lionel Messi, the greatest footballer in the history of the planet, can get La Albiceleste over the top. Which is what Messi is – the greatest footballer in the history of the planet. And some of the dumbest narratives coming out of this game are about how Messi’s legacy is somehow tainted or lessened by his inability to bring home trophies for Argentina from big tournaments.
The goalless draw with Chile in the final was fairly typical of the recent plight for Argentina and also for Messi when he slips on the Argentine shirt. He sets up two chances for this teammates late, and neither one materializes in a goal. Messi then steps up and drills his penalty, just like you knew he would, and then the next two guys wearing the blue and white stripes promptly flub theirs. Game over. Yet in the eyes of many in the realms of the footballing media and punditry, this is somehow Messi’s fault.
You have to get your best XI out there on the pitch for these types of matches, and Argentina’s best XI these days is somewhat top heavy – lots of forwards, but not enough good link-up play. As such, Messi has to play the creator role on this team, playing deeper than he does at Barca, where he can just run at anyone and make shit up as he goes. If Messi doesn’t take on that creative midfielder role on this team, no one will and they’ll likely spin their wheels. Now, Messi can fill that playmaker role, because he’s also a great passer – he notched three assists in Argentina’s 6:1 throttling of Paraguay in the semis – but time and again, he does everything but put the ball on a silver platter for his teammates, and they constantly squander the chances. What more can he do? He can’t take penalties for them, for goodness sakes. He cannot make them not screw it up.
Messi’s game is a wonderful combination of imagination and a motor that just won’t quit. He simply moves in directions others can’t fathom, creating space for himself to shoot and make plays which others can’t even think of trying to do. Barcelona’s great triumph of this past season was putting Messi together with two other forwards – Suárez and Neymar – who think the game in a similar fashion and can key off of him. They’re a whirling dervish out there, they constantly move and shift shapes and create new angles. You simply have no idea how to defend them because the attack can come from any space and in any direction at any time.
Now, Messi has certainly not had his best games when it comes to playing in championship finals, but he was pretty damn spectacular at times last summer in Brazil. He’s done enough to put his team in a position where they very easily could be currently both World and South American champions. But at some point, someone else from Argentina has to step up and make a play.
The Copa America’s 100th anniversary is being celebrated next year with a centennial tourney to be held in the United States. Assuming this tourney doesn’t become a casualty of the ongoing CONCACAF/CONMEBOL/FIFA scandal, it has potential to be a great event. Oh, and speaking of that FIFA mess, notice who was conspicuously absent from both Santiago and Vancouver over the weekend. Uncle Sepp apparently had too many other things going on. Uh-huh. Sure he did.
