4 Pennies for Your Thoughts

Dr. Strangegloves

1. Mexico wins 0-0!
Ochoa was a beast. His brave performance kept it level and earned El Tri the point. El Tri seem to treat goalkeepers in the same Flavour-of-the-Month manner that they treat coaches, so Ochoa has been bouncing in and out of the lineup for years. He’s had a strange career. Not only has he suddenly established himself as the #1 guy in Mexico, but he’d be wearing the number 1 shirt on the World Cup Best XI right about now as well. And El Tri need that stability and that sanity. That was an outstanding effort today to take a point in hostile territory, but Seleção always do bring out the best in Mexico, as El Tri have had more success vs. Brazil across all competitions than pretty much any other nation has.

2. Brazil loses 0-0!
Quite honestly, if this tourney wasn’t being played in Brazil, I would expect this team to go out in the 16s. Even at home, Seleção still might. Before the tourney, I would’ve suggested that there were maybe only 4-5 teams who realistically would’ve thought they had a chance to beat the Brazilians on their turf. After these two games, that number is probably closer to 10. To be blunt, Scolari’s system football worked in 2002, in part, because the tourney was so bad. Lots of teams were injury prone, moving up the schedule wrecked preparation time for others – and Brazil still had better players than anyone else. If they have better players than anyone else in 2014, well, Scolari might want to put them in the game sooner than later. The highest level of Brazilian soccer has always seen the triumph of imagination, creativity and grace – if Plan A didn’t work, they’d run through Plans B-Z until they found one that worked, and usually did so within a few possessions. This team’s m.o. seems to consist entirely of Neymar inventing something out of nothing. After that, they seem out of ideas. El Tri showed today that Seleção truly are vulnerable, even on their home pitch, and given the way clubs have been aggressive throughout this tourney so far, it seems unlikely a 16s or 8s opponent – one which likely played confident, attacking football to get them to that point in the tourney – is suddenly going to become scared of playing Brazil. Which I think is an excellent development, having watched opponents cower before the Brazilians for much of the past 30 years. Brazil could still very well win this tourney, but they are truly going to have to earn it.

3. If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium
The Belgians had the sort of match going today which can make you hate the game of soccer. It can be a cruel game, and chasing a game can be among the most frustrating of sporting endeavours. The Belgians held the ball for 70% of possession, outshot Algeria 17-3, but there they were looking at a shock defeat with 20 minutes remaining, as Algeria’s one shot on target had found the way into the net. But once they got the first goal at 70 minutes courtesy of Fellaini – captain of the World Cup’s All-Hair Team to be sure – the second seemed almost a certainty. Which is sort of how it felt like it would go last night in the U.S.-Ghana game – and thus, the quick response by the Americans and the U.S. win seemed even more shocking in the moment. The Red Devils are everyone’s “darkhorse” and “surprise team” this year, so much so that the only real surprise surrounding Belgium would’ve been if they’d lost this match. Given the hot garbage that passed for a 1:1 draw between Russia and South Korea later in the afternoon, it would appear the Belgians have already survived their toughest test in Group H.

4. Afrolicious
The Fennec Foxes acquitted themselves well in defeat today. They are a savvy side, much more European in style of play than the other African sides (which I suppose makes sense, given that so many of the players grew up in France). With the exception of Nigeria, all of the African sides have looked good so far. As I’ve documented before, I love me some African football. I really would like to see more slots allotted to Africa in the World Cup, since I do think the quality is there to back it up. What would help the CAF to plead that case, of course, is more positive results in the tournament, which continue to be hard to come by. The Elephants are in a good position to advance, and their game with Colombia should be terrific. And I actually think Ghana poses some interesting problems for the Germans, given that they’ve got so much speed and the Germans have been reduced to playing four centre backs in their injury riddled back line. (Of course, Germany will pose big problems for Ghana as well, since the Black Stars had all of five minutes in the game vs. the U.S. they needed to defend, and couldn’t mark the grass they were standing on.) Cameroon was always going to be up against it, but they had good moments early v. Mexico. I won’t even pretend to guess what the Nigerians are doing.

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