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Update, 11:52 a.m.: THE USA WINNNS!! THE USA WINS! AMAZING! ARGUABLY THE BIGGEST DAY IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN SOCCER! We booked our ticket to the next round with style and pride--I'm so proud of this group of players, who pushed the whole game and finally beat the referees, who seemed to want to disallow everything. Bill Clinton is whooping and hollering; Tim Howard and Jozy Altidore are weeping. We played an incredibly good match today, clearly outplayed the Algerians from the first whistle--and we finally broke down the catenaccio because, incredibly, the Algerians got caught on the break. Landon's weeping in the interview. What a day for American soccer, for American sports, and for the country in general. Amazing. Words cannot describe the elation that the Americans must be feeling right now.
Man of the Match: Gotta be men of the match--Landon Donovan and Jozy Altidore. Jozy set up every attacking set for the Americans in this game, constantly a source of attacking threats. And what to say about Donovan? Scores the game winner in minute 91. Not much more to say about that. Incredible.
images.google.com Iker, sans beard.
Update, 4:25 p.m.: Spain 2-0 Honduras. Well, what to say about this one? The Spaniards dominated from start to finish, and should've won by much, much more--we seemed to lose our drive, our focus and our interest. Depressing, but the result should stand, though David Villa will be pretty pissed that he missed his hat trick. It was a really really good game by Spain, which is why the created so many chances, but we seemed to sort of lose our cool in front of goal. Jesús Navas must've had fifteen, maybe twenty or more crosses; but only a few of them found good heads. We'll see how we hold up against a better team when we play Chile.
Man of the Match: David Villa. Yeah, he missed a penalty, but come on. He was fantastic today, though he'll be pissed he didn't score a couple more. Great game from him today, especially considering the impotence of Torres.
www.francesoir.fr
So a couple days ago I wrote a post titled "Dear Keepers, We Need to Talk." Well, I'm amending that title today: "Dear France, We Need to Talk"--think of this as my official France post. The embarrassing, disgusting (and honestly, pretty funny) situation rocking the French Football Federation has come to a head in recent days: from the beginning of the summer when Raymond Domenech (one of the most hated people in France, I imagine) decided not to call up Samir Nasri and Karim Benzema (two of my favorite young players in the world--not just in France), to the absurd underage prostitution scandal, to the most recent dismissal of Nicolas Anelka, the French side has been rocked with scandal throughout the World Cup.
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More awesome vuvuzela-based music today. This one's a superb piece of British rap featuring the fantastic lines: "Who developed the vuvuzela? / What a stupid fella / I'm sure musically you and I could do better / By amassing the larynxes of a thousand Japanese porn stars / and attaching that to an extractor fan." Incredible.
Oh, and because it's Monday, and about two hours before Spain plays our first real knockout game--A POR ELLOS! For Spain to qualify: we need to win both our next two games by relatively large margins to avoid Brazil in the round of 16 (i.e. not qualify second).
Oh, and one more thing: Iker Casillas shaved his beard. Good call. Here are two pictures that make my point.
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4:23 p.m.: Brazil 3-1 Ivory Coast. Post Game Wrap-Up: Well, good game for the Brazilians over all, discounting the terrible minutes at the end. Dunga was very responsible for the cards in a lot of cases--he was instigating everything from the sidelines. The cards and the whistles will be the story of the game; Brazil's play and Drogba's response should be the story. Brazil played a very pretty second half; the first half was mostly forgettable on both sides. The second half saw, for a brief period there, the return of the samba as les elephants just couldn't keep up with Kaká's runs down the flanks and through the middle--they didn't get any love from the French referee, who missed two obvious handballs on Luis Fabiano's second goal.
Man of the Match: You probably guessed this: Kaká. Despite his "red card" (totally undeserved), and Luis Fabiano's two goals, nothing would have happened for Brazil without him. He set up two goals and was a constant threat throughout the contest. Great job from Ricardo.
The New York Times Chaouchi's howler.
While the controversy surrounding the vuvuzelas seems to be dominating this years World Cup, a much weirder, more disturbing narrative has evolved: what's wrong with our keepers? From Robert Green's howler for England against the United State, to Algeria's Faouzi Chaouchi gifting Slovenia a goal, to Vincent Enyeama of Nigeria giving a victory to Greece, to Paraguay's Justo Villar's gift to Italy, this Cup has been totally filled with massive keeping blunders.
The real question, though, is why? Some might immediately jump into an argument about the new Jabulani ball; some might even blame the vuvuzelas (just to try to get them banned); some might blame the pressure. I'm not sure I buy the argument about the ball, because in a lot of these cases, the failures were 100% man-made: that is, the ball itself--and its' odd flight path--had little to do with the howlers. Green simply let Dempsey's shot trickle past him--he didn't put his whole body in front of the ball, a classic mistake; Chaouchi made the same mistake; Villar didn't even touch the damn thing; and Eyeama just didn't trap it. Reuters, in fact, even went as far as agreeing with Adidas that the ball is the truest ball ever made--a bit light, maybe, but very "true" in its' flight path.
As far as the vuvus--again, I just don't see why they would have anything to do with these particular mistake: they have nothing to do with these keepers ability to hear, and much more with their (in)ability to think.
While the "blame the pressure" argument seems like the most logical one to me it still seems lacking, mainly because all of these keepers play in very high level club competitions, where the pressure can be (almost) as intense.
So what do we think, people?
c/o Jared Gimbel
A true hallmark of any dominant entity is how much resentment people accord to it. Americans studying abroad face many of the same stigmata even after Bush’s presidency ended,
Among the many international communities I encountered in Jerusalem, despite being familiar with Arab/Russian/French/British/Australian/German/Israeli culture, I was treated the same way as most Americans: with a cool acceptance but also a barrier of distance. That was because I come from the one culture that unites the world, the one international community that unites all international communities.
This community is the United States, with an omnipresence in most developed countries that enables Americans to feel at home everywhere. This is definitely not the case for many foreigners here. The monolingual street signs in Connecticut gave me an eyesore after being accustomed to the trilingual ones in Israel.
America is balefully treated for being dominant and not accepting, and the English language gets equally criticized. The notion that English is complicated—perhaps the most complicated language overall—does not detract from some of the negativity. It is a language that American culture has forced many to learn, whereas Americans on the all live monolingual lives.
images.google.com I wish.
Some World Cup humor is long over-due, especially after an awful day for Spain/RSA supporters (like this blogger). Enjoy "The Vuvuzela Song," set to the tune of "Umberella" by Rihanna. (Thanks to our friends over at the New York Times for the tip).
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Update, 11:53 a.m.: Spain 0-1 Switzerland. Well, what to say about this one? The Swiss played a fantastic defensive game, and that combined with a bit of luck, has lead to the biggest upset of the tournament so far. Spain dominated the game from start to finish, but couldn't capitalize on all the chances--shots went wide, high, off the post; basically everywhere that wasn't in the net. The Swiss play was reminiscent of Greece's 2004 European Championship campaign--11 men in front of the ball, with one devastating counter attack. Maybe not the prettiest type of soccer to play, but it was certainly effective against a Spain team that just genuinely lacked any bite: Villa and Torres both lucked rusty, Iniesta was HAMMERED all game, and Xavi was a non-factor. Fantastic result for the Swiss, who will look to carry this momentum into their next matches; embarrassing for the Spaniards, who came into this World Cup as favorites, only to choke once again. The Spanish showed once again that it doesn't matter how much possession you have--the only thing that matters is the big number on the scoreboard.
Man of the Match: Swiss defense. I can't think of just one player to give this to because this wasn't a single-player game. The entire Swiss team should be classified as "Swiss defense," and thus, they all deserve man of the match awards.
images.google.com Photo caption
Update, 4:20 p.m.: Brazil 2-1 North Korea. Recap: Well, Brazil came out slowly and shakily in the first half and were totally unable to break down the Great Wall of Korea, who defended with guile, substance and heart. The South Americans came out fantastically in the second half, and finally broke through with a phenomenal play by Maicon. After Elano's beautiful goal, the game appeared over, though North Korea made it interesting at the very end, pulling one back in the 90th minute. Brazil managed to open the game up in the second half; over all, though, they looked a bit off, not the classic Brazilian side. At the same time, though, this game was more exciting than traditional first-round matches, and the Brazilians showed they were able to break down a total-defense style team. The North Koreans, on the other hand, showed that they were MUCH better than their FIFA ranking suggests--though they are clerly the worst team in the group, they did show that they won't roll over and die in the face of better opponents. So far, eight of the first 14 matches have been scoreless through the first half.
Man of the Match: Maicon. The right back looked fantastic throughout the game, as much of Brazil's play went through him. His goal was pure skill (with a little luck), and he was a constant threat throughout. Fantastic game.
2:00 p.m.: Welcome back to the Blargus' daily LiveBlogging of the 2010 FIFA World Cup; I figured I'd blog this game because it should tell us a lot about Brazil's mindset, how they come out, how they look, and whether they're poised to make a deep run. Earlier in the day Portugal and Ivory Coast played to an incredibly anemic, boring 0-0 draw, which told us more about their unwillingness to risk anything in the first game than it did about the teams themselves. This game promises some flashy play (probably), goals (again, hopefully), and some samba--the Brazilians need to come out and make a statement against the 105th ranked team in the world, and prove that they deserve to be favorites.
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