I love the world cup because it invariably produces more drama, nay soap opera, off the field than most of the mundane group matches where minnows of the football world believe they can live with the big boys. Thanks to the French, this tournament proves to be no exception. The Frogs entered the tournament with senior players at odds with their coach. They drew their first match and then lost 2-0 to Mexico effectively eliminating them from the tournament.
The situation deteoriated over the weekend when the players, led by Captain Patrice Evra refused to train when informed that Nicolas Anelka was to be sent home. Anelka’s expulsion from the squad came after details of his verbal attack on Domench- in which he called the national coach “a dirty son of a whore” at halftime in his side’s 2-0 defeat to Mexico- were leaked to L’Equipe, forcing the French Football Federation to act.
In bizarre scenes, Domenech read out a statement from the squad in which they expressed their solidarity with Anelka and explained the strike was an attempt to “mark the opposition to those at the highest level of French football”. Domenech now admits he should have distanced himself from the statement.
Following two weeks of mixed entertainment and intrigue, the group stage of the world cup is over and now the real battles commence with the knockout stage comprising the final sixteen. In terms of continents, who are the winners and losers so far? Six African teams began the tournament and only Ghana survived the group stage and play little USA. South Africa is the only host nation in world cup history to fail to make it to the knockout round.
England improved on their opening two games and achieved a long overdue win over Slovenia. They missed several chances to increase their lead and have to be content with the runners-up spot which pitches them against the auld enemy Germany. I only hope it doesn’t require a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner, because England can’t convert penalties under pressure.
Ironically, the French farce helped minimize the John Terry saga. Basically this self-serving, two-timing reprobate attempted to instigate the biggest mutiny since Fletcher Christian crossed swords with Captain Bligh. Apparently, John Terry is not very popular with the rest of the England squad and he was forced to eat humble pie and retreated to the ranks with his I-Pad between his legs.
Back to winners and losers; two finalists from the last world cup were eliminated at the group stage: our friends the French, and the cup holders Italy. The Italians are notorious slow starters, but you cannot survive if you leak goals like a proverbial colander. France and Italy couldn’t muster a win between them. Europe still has some big guns in the fight: Germany, England, Holland, Spain and Portugal. The pre-tournament favorites, Spain recovered from a potentially disastrous loss against Switzerland and won their next two games to top the group; setting up an intriguing match with their Iberian neighbors, Portugal.
I have to give credit to USA. They were on the brink of elimination until they scored in the 91st minute to win the match and finish top of their group. Their reward is a knockout game with the last surviving nation from Africa, Ghana. Little old USA will be taking on a continent, but if 127 Welshmen could hold off 4000 marauding Zulus at Rorke’s Drift back in 1879, then Team USA’s task is a walk in the park.
The second round draw featuring the final sixteen is shown below:
- Uruguay v South Korea
- USA v Ghana
- Holland v Slovakia
- Brazil v Chile
- Argentina v Mexico
- Germany v England
- Paraguay v Japan
- Spain v Portugal
Some interesting sound bites to conjure with, while sipping your beer and chewing on your nails; Argentina are the only team with a 100% record, Portugal and Uruguay are the only teams not to concede a goal, and South America’s five representatives all survived the group stage.
I haven’t watched every game, but my particular favorite in terms of entertainment was Denmark v Cameroon, both of whom were eliminated. Each team threw caution to the wind and went for goal, which may explain why neither features in the last sixteen.
My favorite story of the world cup relates to the 30 young women (models actually) who showed up at the Netherlands-Denmark match wearing orange mini-dresses emblazoned with the name of a Dutch brewery — earning them a few hours in jail and a red card from World Cup officials who acted to quash what they called an ambush marketing scam. I wish I could have been the arresting officer.
Final footnote: my brother had an amusing line in his facebook yesterday which is very appropriate for one of the games featured to-morrow. “This world cup is like WWII: The French surrendered early, the Americans turned up late, leaving England to fight the Germans”
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