Who's signing who?

It seemed as though as soon as the World Cup was over, the world of football returned to normal and everything I read was about who was signing who, as it invariably is at this time of year.  And of course, predominantly it’s about the big, powerful teams picking the bones of the smaller teams, the ones that punched above their weight.

That’s what I love about the World Cup and International football in general: that money has so much less of a bearing on success.   A 7-1 scoreline happening to a big team in Europe, would, at worst, result in a manager sacking and one of better pedigree coming in, who would then be provided with the funds to put it right.   Much more often than not, it would be put right, be it after a week, a month, a year or whatever; but everything is in place for it to happen, everything is in that big club’s favour, which is why the same clubs dominate year in, year out: the teams with money and tradition. 

But the problem of Brazil’s mystifying capitulation in the World Cup will have to be sorted from within.  A nation, however powerful, can’t just ‘buy’ players to put it right, there is no instant fix.  They’ve parted company with manager Scolari of course, but I believe that would’ve happened no matter what.  I predict there will be a long period of re-building and soul-searching before Brazil has any chance to return to the top.  I have no doubts that they will, eventually, but unlike in club football it will be down purely to hard work, along – of course – with getting the right players of the right quality together to play for that famous shirt again.

As for Germany: what worthy World Champions!  They did it playing the right way, with attacking and expansive football that is both easy on the eye and fascinating to watch.  Spain’s reign came emphatically to an end in Brazil, but don’t be at all surprised if this is the start of a new period of dominance by another of Europe’s powerhouses.  Playing like this, I don’t mind if they do.

Neymar's heartbreak and Van Gaal the Brave

So Brazil march on, but, alas, without their ‘golden boy’ Neymar, who will be out for the rest of the tournament with a broken vertebra.  Before the Brazil vs Colombia match I was so excited by what I’d seen from both him and the ultra-talented James Rodriguez, but by the end of the game we’d lost them both.  It was such a cowardly foul by Zuniga, who knew exactly what he was doing.  At only 22, the young lad must be absolutely heartbroken.  This opportunity will never come up again.  But perhaps the referee was partly to blame?  There were more fouls (around 54 I believe) in this match than in any other game at the tournament and yet foul after foul, some of them malicious and definitely cynical, went by without a single yellow card being brandished until the second half of the match.  Had the referee had the balls to show a few cards, especially towards the end of the first half when the game was starting to boil over, then maybe the game would’ve calmed down in the second half.  As it was, it WAS a crazy and entertaining game, I’ll admit that, but now we have a situation where if Brazil DON’T win the World Cup, people will always say: ‘What if…’  'What if Neymar hadn’t got injured, surely it would’ve been different?' And that is sad for the tournament. 

I really really don’t get ‘Fred’.  He’s done almost nothing in the tournament – he’s not quick, he doesn’t make clever runs and barely works at all.  I’m yet to find anyone that rates him and it’s a mystery how he is the best striker Brazil have?  I realise that often it is all about finding a partnership, a ‘tandem’ that works, and perhaps with Neymar being the explosive, quick and tricky player that he is, he does Fred’s running for him and is the perfect foil for him.  But I just don’t see it.  Certainly with Neymar now out it will be interesting to see how Scolari juggles his team for the semi-final clash against Germany.

Although the BBC has beaten ITV hands down once again in the Commentary and punditry department throughout this World Cup, I was very frustrated at the collected opinion of the so called ‘penalty incident’ that Costa Rica had in extra time of their Quarter-Final against Holland.  Was I the only one who thought it was never a penalty?  I’ve watched it from every angle as they all did and although Vlaar did slightly step across Urena there seemed to be no contact and then Urena trod on the tip of Vlaar’s toes, took a couple more steps (going nowhere) before deciding to throw himself to the floor.  Honestly, if we’re going to be giving penalties for that to decide a World Cup Quarter-Final then we might as well all switch off now.  And yet the whole BBC team as one seemed to think it should’ve been a penalty.  Alan Hansen even saying it was ‘stonewall.’  Really?  Not for me.

I was also annoyed at the criticism (at the time) of Van Gaal’s decision to bring on reserve goalkeeper Tim Krul for the penalty shootout.  Sure, it was a little bizarre, we’ve not seen it before, but what a move!  Arguably it won them the game.  Who on the BBC staff knows what’s going on in the Dutch camp?  Krul has obviously been looking sharp on penalties in training so why not take advantage of that?  He’s also fresh as a daisy coming on then, whereas most of the other players were completely spent.  A very brave decision of course, and one that could’ve backfired, but that’s why Van Gaal’s a top manager: he has balls.  And look at Cillesen during the shootout!  He didn’t seem to have a problem with being taken off – on the contrary, he was leading the cheers as the shootout swung in Holland’s favour.  Good for him.

So it’s now down to a battle of some of the true heavyweights of World Football: Brazil v Germany and Argentina v Holland; repeats of the finals of 2002 and 1978.  I can’t wait!

Is it James or Ham-es?

Well, around four hours ago my blog was going to be about the somewhat disappointing (certainly long!) Round of 16 matches that we’ve had – with lots of slow, stalemate football (although some good, dramatic) and more than enough extra time; but I’ve just seen the most exhilarating thirty minutes of the World Cup so far (the extra time drama between Belgium and USA of course) which has re-invigorated me about football and this World Cup!  What an amazing fightback and effort from the U.S.A. team that looked completely down and out at half-time of extra time and almost, almost, did enough to force another penalty shootout.  It was certainly right up there with the best games of the tournament and it certainly re-asserted the old adage in football that there are nil-nils and there are nil-nils.  How there wasn’t a goal in normal time I don’t know (well I do: Tim Howard) but even so, just for their fighting spirit alone, not many people would’ve begrudged the Americans a late equaliser.

Ham-es Rodriguez

So what did we learn from the other second round games?  I learnt that Brazil still don’t really look all that.  They played a decent game but they look too open to me and some of their lackadaisical passing out from defence is surely going to cost them against a real quality side (not that Chile weren’t excellent – I thought Alexis Sanchez was outstanding in this game, my man of the match.)  We’ve learned (if we hadn’t already) that James Rodriguez really is some player.  And what a goal by the way!  You know the one… (and is it pronounced James or Ham-es?  The BBC insist it’s the latter, which I would go along with, but Clive Tyldesley on ITV certainly couldn’t be bothered with that against Brazil).  He (Ham-es, not Tyldesley) could be the key to Brazil’s chances of progressing, for surely if he plays up to that level again, the hosts won’t have enough to contain him.  It should be a fascinating encounter.

Girls, girls and more girls!

But enough about football – let’s talk about girls!  Have you noticed how the cameraman (or TV director or whoever is responsible for these things) has been constantly picking out young, attractive girls at nearly every match so far?  Not that I’m complaining - far from it - but is he (i'm presuming, of course, that it's a he) in the stadium hours before kick-off, picking them out as they take their seats?  And why do so called ‘fans’ do that ludicrous thing, where they’re sulking (and rightly) because their team is 2-0 down and going out of the World Cup, but then when they see themselves on the big screen, break out into a big smile and wave their arms around like a mental person?  Honestly, what is all that about??

Just a quick note about the Round of 16 victors here – nice to see all 8 group winners get through to the Quarter-Finals, giving us some mouth-watering ties to look forward to.  Last time I blogged I predicted that the tournament may have still been ‘bubbling up’ and that we were going to see at least one real ‘humdinger’ in the Round of 16.  On the whole, perhaps the round has been a little disappointing, so this time I’m going to stay quiet!