Allright, this blog has been a long time coming.
It is time for a recap of the tournament, some looks to the future, and some ideas about where this blog will go in the future.
It literally took me a week to recover after the final, I'd been spending so much time watching, writing about, reading about and talking about the world cup, I just needed a week or two off.
There was so much to take in, but not enough time in my life to truly do it all, so I needed a week to relax. I need a job that will allow me to take a sabbatical any time there World Cup or the European Championships are running. Also, if it is possible to take off early during every Champions League match that would also be great. I should be able to find that kind of job on Monster don't you think?? Does anyone know of any recruiters? I don't care what kind of work it is, as long as they have air conditioning, no blocking of the internet, and coffee.
Allright, I'll talk about the most publicized moment first.
The Head ButtFirst off, I will say this, as long as Barthez was the goalkeeper France was not winning a penalty shootout at all. Regardless of who was shooting. But, France did have a bit of momentum going, and could have scored in extra time...probably not, but they could have.
Secondly, There is no excuse for doing what he did. You are letting your team down, on the biggest stage in the world. Your team was already without a big star in Patrick Viera, due to injury, and they were close to losing Thierry Henry who ran around for almost 120 minutes before hitting the wall. You need to keep your composure, get into a fight after the game if you want, you are retiring after anyway. Grab his nuts Vinnie Jones Style, but don't do something that is a guaranteed red card, because it's guaranteed to be seen by one of the officials on or off the field.
Finally, I know the guy must have said something awful, you just don't react that way unless they do, but I think the funniest thing is that all these media outlets are using lip readers to figure out what he said...Do they even know what language he said it in. I'm assuming Italian, because they both probably speak Italian...but I'd assume they both spoke English too, Materazzi played in England with Everton, and as an ignorant Yank, I'd think everyone must get taught English. Zidane played for Juve, so he probably learned Italian. Who cares what he said really, we'll never know probably, it's over, and it's too bad that for many the World Cup will be remembered for nothing more than this one moment of insanity by one of the greatest players of all time.
I guess it's better to be remembered for a head butt than for Cristiano Ronaldo's incessant diving, or Dave O'Brien's awful commentary though.
and although I'm sure everyone's seen this already, I have to post it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSBQLaNfvss Ok, my thoughts on the final, headbutt excluded. What balls it took for Zidane to chip that penalty, it probably wasn't a penalty by the way, but one later in the game certainly was, so I guess it works out.
Henry may not have done much to the untrained eye, but he was busting his ass and making runs right up till the time he was substitituted. I'm so glad he signed with Arsenal, if I had to see him play for Barca, I would have been pissed.
Overall I think the tournament was a bit dissapointing. For one, there was very little goalscoring. I would have expected the leading scorer to have around 10 goals for the tournament, not 5.
The excitement came from watching teams like Ghana and Cote D'Iviore battle against foes with much bigger names, and in the case of Ghana, stun them to advance further than anyone would have expected. Players from Ghana should be very proud of their performance, and they will be rewarded, both financially (through the inevitable post World Cup signings) and emotionally by the amount of joy they brought to their nation.
All we heard about before the tournament was this new ball. The ball that was going to be the undoing of the goaltender. If this was the case, where were the goals? Sure there were some goals that were spectacular that were no doubt helped out by the ball and it's knuckling spin (Lahm, Frings, Rodriguez, and Cole all come to mind) but it seemed to me that the light ball led to a more difficult time crossing the ball, and more shots over the bar Frank Lampard style.
There were four teams that dissapointed more than any other in my opinion. Those four teams were:
England: Poor tactical decisions, poor decisions regarding personnell, poor conditioning, poor execution, poor, poor and more poor. Thing is, I don't know how well I see this team in the future. I do see a midfield of Cole, Gerrard, Lampard (he has to be better than he was in Germany) and Aaron Lennon, that will have one more serious go at glory in 2010 , and will be hard to match in terms of skill. And they seem pretty tight at striker with Rooney, Crouch, Walcott and others. At defense, who will fill in for Gary Neville? HAHA you see, that was a joke, because Gary Neville is Awful, and anyone could fill in and be better than him! Oh, I make myself laugh so much sometime. John Terry will be there, and Rio will be there, although they will both then be on the other side of their careers. Ashley Cole should continue to be a World Class player at Left Back for years to come, but this has to be it for Neville. Who'll fill in...Konchesky maybe? I don't know.
USA: They had the chance to get over the hump and bring some fans (besides the fans that were always there for them) into the sport. They blew that up, and it will probably take 2 more world cups before we have that opportunity again. Hopefully the new coach (PLEASSSSEE KLINSI!!!!!!) will come in realize that Landon Donovan isn't someone you can build the team around, and rebuild this team from the ground up. With Donovan as a piece of the puzzle yes, but not the key piece you need in order to finish off the puzzle. I think this team should really build around Clint Dempsey, Bobby Convey and Oguchi Onyewu. Jonathan Spector is another player I expect to join the ranks and make an impact in the USMNT. All of these players will have European competition under their belt ...Hear me Landon? EUROPEAN COMPETITION!!!! ...and should be ready to lead the team in S. Africa.
Brazil: Most talent in the tourney, breezed through the first round, snuck by Ghana, and lost to France in the quarters. It isn't often you can say that a Quarterfinal appearance is dissapointing, but you definitely can here. Besides Ronaldo surpassing Gerd Mueller's career WC goal scoring record, they had nothing. They should have dominated the early rounds they didn't, they should have imposed their over abundance of talent on the rest of the teams, they didn't, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Kaka, Adriano all had dissapointing matches. They will still be the favorite to win 2010, but they didn't show me much this year.
Czech Republic: Much of the dissapointment can be attributed to an injury to Jan Koller, cause I guarantee he would have caused more problems against Italy and Ghana than whoever else was playing forward for the Czechs. Tomas Rosicky played so great in the first game against the US, and didn't seem to be able to get anything going in the later matches. Patrick Nedved I mean, Peter Nedved, I mean Pavel Nedved was less than the world class player he has been in the past. Peter Cech is still the best goalie in the world, and he can hardly be faulted for the losses, but the team overall dissapointed.
I've already given my list of best goals of the tourney and nothing really supplanted those, so I don't need to comment.
Oh, yeah, the referees. How horrible. I know fifa gave them a directive, and that very well could have been to blame, but there were missed offsides, phantom offsides, missed penalties, phantom penalties, too many yellows, too many reds, and funnily enough not enough reds. Any time a referee in a major tournament, doesn't realize a guy has gotten his second yellow card, and he is wearing a head set so he can contact the linesman or the fourth official, and the captain of the opposing team asks him if the player has had two yellow cards, and you still don't send him off until the end of the game when he picked up his third yellow card. You need to be embarrassed. Games like Holland and Portugal got away from the ref's control, USA was hurt by bad officiating, none worse than the momentum sapping penalty given to Onyewu against Ghana. And worse yet, I remember like two cards given for diving. 2!!!! There should have been at least 300. Against Portugal...Alone!
Something needs to be done about diving and feigning injury, too much of the World Cup was effected by this. Yes, I'm looking at your Cristiano Ronaldo! I'm Looking at you!
Yellow Cards for dives. No questions asked. 3minute touchline bans for anyone that requires the stretcher. Ask them once do you need a stretcher. If they aren't up, call it out, and that person doesn't get back on the pitch until 3 minutes later.
I've said these before, but they need to be reiterated. The only thing that seemed to be handled correctly was time wasting. If the goalie walked to get the ball for a goal kick, then walked to the other side of the box to take the kick, and reset the ball 4 times, they got carded. Keep it up.
If there is anything I hate it's seeing teams hand the ball off three times before throwing the ball in when they are ahead by a goal in the 90th minute. Or for the afforementioned goalie situation. Or for free kicks. Whatever, it needs to be stopped and it appears they did it.
Here is my team of the tournament:
Goalie Lehman (his match against Argentina brings him over buffon)
Defense
Lahm
Cannavaro
Thuram
Midfield
Viera
Gattuso
Zidane
Maniche
Forwards
Henry
Klose
I really look forward to the Euro's in 2008. I think Host Switzerland is going to be a great team to watch, with young stars, and tremendous team work. Why can't they be the next Greece?
Will Steve McLaren have the stones to sit Beckham and play Lennon? Will England be able to play a formation and stick to it, and not change it up midway through a major tournament.
France, are they all done? I didn't see enough young blood to take over for the older aging vets.
Will the Italian scandal hurt the Italian National Team? I doubt it, as much as it sucks for fans of Juve, Lazio and Fiorentina for having douchebag's running your teams causing you to be relegated and penalized points next year, those players are still going to be playing against the cream of the crop in Europe. So I see the players actually improving. Because they will be exposed to other leagues and other styles of play.
I didn't include AC Milan, because they didn't get relegated...and I don't think 15 points is enough for them to worry about being relegated, so I don't see them losing players.
So, I'm looking forward to August for the Prem to kick off again. I doubt I'll be posting much here, but will if anything big comes up. Any big signings, injuries, coaching changes etc. Also, please check out my other blog The Duffless Foundation, I'm going to start posting there again now that the Cup is over. It's kind of a Pop Culture Thinktank, and I should be posting there 2-3 times a week. About any number of topics.
Anyway
Good Bye
Farewell
Auf Wiedersehn
Adieu
