I Like 4 Thoughts and I Cannot Lie

How do you stop this?

1. Words Fail
Lionel Messi saved the game, the World Cup, the Argentine F.A. and maybe the whole of the Argentine government with this stoppage-time goal. And look at this play. The Iranians defend it well 2-deep, the keeper has a good angle. Messi is NOT OPEN! There are no words for this. Words fail. They just give up.

2. The better team lost
I do have plenty of words for Messi's team, however. Words like flat and immobile and uncreative and hideous and bad. It set up to be a fascinating game, since the field seemed to slope in one direction. Iran parked the bus from the outset – hell, it was more like a bus, a van, a burro and several mopeds. Argentina couldn't unlock it, so they seemed to try to coax the Iranians out of the shell by giving them more space with the ball – and exposed the fact that their back line isn't very good in the process, a fact which Iran couldn't quite take advantage of. All of a sudden, Iran started playing to win, and Romero saved Argentina's bacon with some excellent goalkeeping.

Argentina are something of a mess right now. They are playing too slow, and there is no movement. Everyone is standing around waiting for Messi to do something – which, I guess, is working right now.  A more ruthless opponent would've taken the Argentines apart today, and still might eventually, although they have time to figure it out. Argentina are lucky they have such an easy group and will likely have an easy matchup in the 16s – the best of their likely opponents, the Swiss, looked so disorganized yesterday that I cannot imagine them meticulously sticking to a game plan quite like the Iranians did today. Iran outplayed Argentina, outsmarted them and deserved better. But that's football. The better team loses a lot of the time.

3. Opportunity knocks
If you'd told me ahead of time that a win in the 2nd game v. Portugal would put the U.S. through to the 16s, I would've taken it. It wasn't the ideal result for the U.S. today, when Ghana and Germany drew 2:2, but the fact that the U.S. doesn't have to go chasing a result in their final game is near ideal.

And that was one helluva game today. The 2:2 draw is always a satisfying scoreline, implying an exciting and even match, and 2:2 was about the right result for what might've been the best all-around game of the tournament. Ghana and Germany played the second half of this one like a couple of impatient prizefighters who got tired of feeling each other out, said the hell with it and started throwing haymakers. Klose confirmed his place as the world's greatest 2-yard striker with his typical 2-yard strike where everyone else does the work for him and he taps it in, and the Black Stars offered up quite a bit for the U.S. to take note of ahead of the Germany game, exposing the German backline as the slow bunch of plodders that they are. Germany wants to play up tempo but simply can't do it. I'd like to see the U.S. take the game to them next week, regardless of what sort of result the Americans may need.

Bottom line – the opportunity is there for the U.S. tomorrow against a weakened, wounded Portugal and they had best not screw this up.

4. Open your eyes, ref!
Bosnia got screwed. No two ways about it. The goal called back was a terrible piece of officiating, and the disputed Nigerian goal, which featured a possible foul during the buildup, was somewhat iffy. Losing 1:0 under such circumstances, and also being eliminated from the tourney because of it, was a bitter pill for the Dragons to swallow. But part of what makes the game so compelling, in fact, is the inherent cruelty of it. The game is rife with grey areas and paradoxes. It's always spoken far more about human nature than other sports, simply because the results often do not seem just. And it's no consolation, of course, but the guys who officiated that game almost certainly won't be working any more games after the first round, given that they so drastically affected the outcome. Having said that ...

And now a moment of noise ...
Bosnia had their chances. Lots of them, in fact. Both teams did, and it was only some excellent goalkeeping on either side that kept it 1:0. Dzeko's touches seemed to get successively worse from the moment his goal was called back, and the Dragons seemed completely dead by the end of the game in the sauna that is Cuiaba. This is a weird team that is definitely a work in progress. They basically played a 2-7-1 formation in this game, lacking any sort of decent fullbacks. It still doesn't make any sense to me why they didn't play Ibisevic with Dzeko the whole game, but perhaps they felt the need to be a bit more cautious since depth was obviously a problem. Still, it seemed like they were a bit too cautious in this tournament. The Dragons are extremely young and are great with the ball at their feet, so there seems to be a bright future ahead. Combine this game with the bizarro own goal 2' into the game with Argentina, you can't help but feel like the Dragons were somewhat snakebit.

You Will Have 4 Thoughts and You Will Like It!

When you can do stuff like this, you are not a fluke

1. Ticos II: The Sequel!
I thought that Costa Rica were going to take some points from Group D, 1-2 pts. maybe, but certainly not six. Yet here they are with 6 pts. and a trip to the 16s and those 6 pts. were entirely deserved. Against both Uruguay and Italy, the better team won, and the Ticos were the better team. Costa Rica is not a fluke. They are sound on defense, yet they are not overly defensive. They want to possess the ball and use their great team speed. They play very well together, using that chemistry and continuity to make up for not having the superstar talent of their opponents (although both Campbell and Ruiz play high level European football, and Navas is an underrated goalkeeper who is having a great tourney). They have flat out, straight up, outplayed and outsmarted two élite opponents. CONCACAF is having a great World Cup so far, and have the realistic possibility of landing three sides in the 16s. We will discuss the reasons for that later, assuming the U.S. and Mexico hold up their end of the bargain.

2. Azzurri Worry
The Ticos clearly feel much more at home in the Brazilian climate than their opponents. The Italians looked completely gassed in the second half of the game today. No matter how many forwards they brought on to try and equalize, there was no spark. Balotelli's touches were heavy, but the rest of the Italians seemed a bit soft. Among the signs of unfocused play today were the fact they were caught offsides something like 11 times v. Costa Rica. I wonder if the game in Manaus really did take a heavy toll on them – both they and the English were pretty much dead by the 70' mark of that game. Italy's team fitness was definitely a factor coming into this tourney, and there was no way for them to properly prepare for the heat and humidity of Brazil, which is nothing like any of them have ever known. Of course, the Italians have also bitched about the conditions more than anyone, which isn't surprising. Shut up about the heat, guys, it's just as bad on the other side of the pitch. While I've never been a fan of Italian football (about the only thing I don't love about Italy, which is among my favourite places on earth), this new team has got my attention with their emphasis on playmaking, Were this tournament in a more friendly clime, I would think the Italians would be a favourite, but as it is, the Italians just seem to be getting slower and slower as this tourney goes on, and they are rapidly getting left behind.

And now a moment of noise ...
The win by Costa Rica means that England go home. Their World Cup lasted for all of about six days. And, quite honestly, they deserve it. England has a fundamental problem – they aren't very good. Look at that roster for a moment, and ask yourself if there is a single player in the starting XI that you would actually want on your team. Who would you want? I wouldn't want any of them. This team doesn't pass well and they're slippery in the back. So many of the goals they allow are plays where the defense just loses sight of a man entirely. It borders on inept.

I felt that when England in 2010 finished second to the U.S. in their group, it wasn't an upset. There were lots of typical English players like Gerrard and Terry and Lampard and Rooney with limited games and 1-dimensional profiles on that team. Sure, they have a high workrate, but everyone does at this level. England always seem to lack versatility, and if you take away whatever it is that they do well, they aren't able to come up with something better. This team was better than the 2010 squad, and had far worse results, in the end – but it came against better opponents, and the 2010 results weren't so great.

We had a discussion today on another thread about the EPL – an argument being put forth that having so many foreign players in the league hurts the English game as a whole. This argument is rubbish. Having the greatest collection of players in the world in your country should, in fact, raise the standard of your domestic game, since the greatest players also bring with them skills to be copied and ideas to be shared. Over time, your native players should theoretically improve and raise their own bar. It's certainly worked that way in Italy and Spain in the past, but that simply hasn't happened in England.

They need to blow the whole thing up in England, go young and take their lumps and see what happens. They haven't had a team worth getting excited about since 1998 – which they fucked up, anyway. This latest generation of players haven't achieved anything, nor have they been even close. As for those who support them, well, if England fails to meet your standards, your standards probably need to be lowered.

3. Vive Le France!
OK, show of hands. Who wants to play France in the knockout stage? Anyone? Anyone? Didn’t think so. Les Bleus are playing the best of any team in the tourney so far, and they completely overwhelmed the Swiss 5:2 in a game which wasn’t that close. The French are absolutely terrifying – big, fast, young, athletic, aggressive and skilled at seemingly every position on the pitch. This stampeding counterattack late in the 1st half pretty much destroyed what was left of Switzerland, who were already rapidly disintegrating:

Now that is how you run the break

The French have been somewhat surprising, and yet they really shouldn’t be. I’ve been watching the international game ever since Spain 1982, and throughout that time, France’s biggest nemesis has always seemed to be France. Their propensity for dramatic self-destruction is legendary. My thought was that the absence of Ribéry from the lineup would hurt the French tactically, but I’m wondering if it is helping them mentally. Ribéry was a breakout star in 2006, the final salvo from the most glorious era of French football which came to a rather inglourious end in the World Cup Final. Ribéry is also one of the few holdovers from the disgraceful French showing in 2010 – a team which, in chemistry and attitude, seems lifetimes away from this one. If anything, one less connection to the South African mess is one more notch for the good.

Benzema is making all the plays right now up front, both in terms of scoring goals and picking out the right passes. When skill players get hot, the confidence can spread through a team like a wildfire, and this team is on a absolute rampage, as they've scored 26 goals in their last seven matches. A French team truly playing as l’equipe has few equals in the world game, and the world should be a little bit nervous right now.

4. Slugfest
The Lose love the tenacity and competitiveness of the Big H, and appreciate their passion and zealotry. But, c’mon guys, you have to play some football at some point. Honduras appears to have come to Brazil intent on just being ruthless, cynical, and downright nasty in the way they go about fouling people. They’ve managed to get away with it so far, in the sense that they’ve only had one player ejected when they could’ve had about 5-6 in those two games. It’s clearly a tactical decision, since they seem to just foul anything that moves, and continued doing so today against Ecuador, when they got dinged for a reckless challenge all of about 4 seconds into the game. The referee had his hands full with this one, since the Ecuadorians weren't in too good of a mood. There were plenty of stoppages.

What’s puzzling about this is that all of us here in the CONCACAF part of the world have seen the H play some good football before. In The Hex last year, they beat the U.S. and the Ticos at home, and won a game vs. El Tri at Azteca. There is some talent on that team which has played at high international levels, even though they are somewhat simplistic in their approach to the game. It was something of a shock when the H concentrated on playing football long enough to score a goal at 31’ v. Ecuador today – their first World Cup goal since 1982. Had they continued to lead and continued to foul, I imagine tempers would’ve wound up flaring, as it was clear that Ecuador wasn’t thrilled.

In the end, Ecuador found their composure and netted a 2:1 win, but I’m still not sure why exactly Honduras thinks this is a particularly good strategy. Well, obviously, they think it’s the only way they can compete and that they keep getting away with it, but at 0 pts. and -4 and needing a miracle to advance, perhaps some rethinking is in order.