Well, that was something. I agree that Henry should be ashamed of himself. Still, Vieira should never have been left unmarked like that on the far post. All-in-all a good game: not the most elegant footy, but a compelling contest of wills between two evenly matched teams on this day.
I would love to see France beat Brazil.
Again.
No no, I do think it was (just about) a free kick, although on replay there isn’t much in it; I was talking about the face-clutching, as were the commentators (I didn’t really listen to the pundits at the end). Poor.
Ah, okay… I’m with you.
Venables and Gullit (however you spell it) were trying to make out that it wasn’t a free kick. Or atleast that’s how they came across.
Anyway, that game makes up for the soporific Switzerland v Ukraine last night… I can’t believe I actually sat through 2 hours of that crap.
So no real surprises in the Group of 8 if you were taking bets before the tournament, except possibly Ukraine. I think if you were to make a list of the top 8 soccer playing countries in the world (not necessarily te best, but the best/tradition/fan fervor etc.) it would be pretty close to these eight, with Holland probably replacing the Ukraine.
Amazing how quickly 2 hours can pass by when you’re watching a good game (Spain/France), and how long it can be when watching Switzerland/Ukraine.
Terry Venables was very good as a Chelsea lad, but after he left he became Very Terribles.
If by “any team” you mean “most of the US national team roster, especially the coach and the ‘stars’ who forgot they were in the world’s greatest sports tournament and that the very future of American soccer could quite possibly be in their hands to fumble or to run all the way to the endzone”, I must agree.
And if you just mean in general, well, yes, defensive breakdowns belong mostly to bad defenses, but mistakes happen even to the best at times–especially when playing against an even better team. Is it your contention that defensive breakdowns, own goals, intercepted passes, wacky turnovers, etc. never happen to a good defense, and that there is zero percent risk of doing any of those for such a defense line? I’m just sayin’ you’re better off striking it at least to midfield, where the occasional mistake is less disastrous when it does happen.
Thanks! This is a big help. I’ve yet to analyze the remaining schedule to determine which games I can and can’t see, but I’m sure some will be in the latter category.
Have you seen all these on BBC? Is there a link that you have conveniently bookmarked or anything? I don’t mind Googling myself once the season starts, of course, but just sayin’ if you got it handy or anything…
Well, my classmates have seen me soldier through some tough days on the sinus front and study on through a bad burrito with whom my digestive system had a serious argument; yes, I did finish the whole chapter’s worth of derivatives and differentials before rushing home and succumbing to the misery. So I figured I’d need something better, like smelling like puke. Turns out all three of my study partners ended up going home to crash anyway, so I had an out.
Henry not so much, eh? The first goal by the youngster and Zidane’s goal were beautiful, even if heartbreaking. I thought the call that led to the free kick that scored the second France goal was open to interpretation although I could believe it was a foul, but France was very deserving of the quarterfinal seed; I really thought both teams played their hearts out, and of course the third goal made me feel better as I then knew the French basically would’ve won anyway. I was impressed by the reffing, as the game never got out of hand and the ref didn’t have to pull out any yellows for a long while. It was refreshing not to see players getting booked for giving each other dirty looks.
On the flip side, though, I was really disappointed by that face-shoving foul taken in the midst of a great run that could’ve led to an equalizer.
Missed out on Ghana-Brazil as my class starts exactly when that match (and the other first-games of each R16 day) started.
Yeah, I skipped out on Switzerland/Ukraine–the XM commentators were all about what a great match it was, but I think they’re only saying that because it was 1-0. I sat through Ukraine’s horrid yawner in their last game of group play and thought: if this is how they win, it must be awful when they lose.
[Posted this immediately after the game, but with so many W.C. threads running concurrently I didn’t know where to stick it. Making good that omission now. Interesting to see on preview that the doper mind on this match is almost as one. Now there’s a challenge…]
An evening on which football was the winner, as written-off, ageing France, with five members of their 1998 World Cup winning side, displayed much more savvy than their neighbours from across the Pyrenees.
How appropriate that the equalising goal should be scored by a man who plies his trade with Olympique Marseilles, Franck Ribery. Sallow cheeks, 4-inch facial scar, he looks as if he’s just gone 15 rounds with Popeye Doyle. Old masters Vieira and Zidane completed the scoring as Spain ran out of ideas.
A word for the officials from Italy: a true team performance, showing the importance of actually using all that gadgetry that’s taped to their heads. The decision early on to change the award of a corner to France was first communicated by the linesman to Senor Rossetti, and then by him to the players. Of course, the referee was helped by the fact that the match was played in a generally good spirit, with only one unsavoury incident, where Henry (frustrated by having a mediocre game, no doubt) went down under a challenge by “Captain Caveman” Carlos Puyol clutching his face, when no contact had been made with that particular part of his anatomy.
When will other countries, such as Spain, incidentally, learn that refereeing is an art as much as a job, a matter of building rapport with players and treating them with respect, though without favour or consideration for reputations? Italian referees, so often as young as the older players, have led the way in this regard for years.
Roll on Brazil on Saturday. Allez les Bleus!
Of course not. But the infrequency with which these things happen does not justify not making the effort to bring the ball upfield in a controlled manner. Just booting the ball upfield is mindless: add kicking with your toes and you have a game appropriate for very little kids. I would also add that the the longball has helped remove much of the one-touch game. I have hundreds of tapes and DVDs of old games, and what’s striking about the game of old is that the passing game was much more refined and sophisticated (at the same time, the defensive game of the old Football League was far more physical than it is now). The power game is all the rage these days in offensive tactics, and I suspect there is a bit of an unspoken assumption that playing the longball is a “manly” way to advance the ball. Well, belching at the dinner table is also “manly”—that doesn’t make it advisable. Possession is an important part of the game, and once I’ve won the ball, I don’t want to give it back. So just push the ball out past the area to me so I can collect it nicely and head upfield and I won’t scream and swear at you. 
I should add that the change in the laws concerning the keeper have contributed to the use of the longball, since keepers now can only hold the ball for six seconds, and so are often forced to get the ball out of the area while there are still forwards around the goal. This justifies using the longball in some cases, but doesn’t justify using it exclusively, as so many teams do. If there’s no pressure to get the ball out of the area quickly, then there’s time to bring the ball upfield in a controlled manner.
Subterraneanus, you make good points. I’m a big fan of the sophisticated passing game, and haven’t seen enough tape to see that they apparently don’t mutually agree, but I’ll take your word for it for now and see if I can pick up on a difference as I watch more soccer over the years. Hadn’t heard the manliness aspect to it–in my country the car-racing dudes and the linebackers* generally consider soccer to be a pansy sport anyway. This is the first World Cup where every game has been shown on live national TV with no interruptions (apparently in 1990 it was only a few select games on public television, with commercial breaks in the middle of the action!) and we’re just barely breaking the point of having a 5-minute pregame, 5-minute halftime show and 5-minute postgame, plus replays of the pre/half/postgame shows on SportsCenter along with the highlight reels where Stuart Scott and that big dude who does the NFL show make up silly new words when a Brazilian nutmegs a Croatian. (Of course, they make up silly new words when Edgerrin James dodges Brian Urlacher, too, in the football that doesn’t show yellow cards for intentionally handling the ball.) Any sort of in-depth commentary that goes beyond former World Cup loser Eric Wynalda blaming Bruce Arena for just about anything, former World Cup winner Julie Foudy trying to agree with him without sounding like an asshat** and that other guy egging Wynalda on by saying things like “Well, Eric, I wonder if it’s possible that Bruce Arena cooks ramen over burning kittens and not a stovetop?”, is at least four years away.
** To be fair, Bruce Arena is a living, breathing mockery of professionalism and good sportsmanship, and leaving good forwards at home and then playing a 4-4-1 with Brian McBride (who defines “washed up”) alone in front and an “attacking” midfield that plays Houdini and disappears? Speaking of not playing for possession! Come on Klinsmann, we need you!
Uh, we share the same country—I’m from Puyallup, Washington and now live in Los Angeles. 
I grew up with the old NASL, following European and South American footy via magazines (and Soccer Made in Germany with Toby Charles on PBS on Sunday evenings). I can remember when the only televised World Cup game in the US was the final, and that included commercials during play. I remember watching my beloved Seattle Sounders in the 1977 NASL final against Pele, Chinaglia, Beckenbauer, et al, and missing the Sounders’ equalizer because it was scored during a commercial.
Shit, I sound like a geezer.
P.S. I lived in San Diego for several years (PB, Clairemont, and La Jolla) while I taught at UCSD.
It was a fairly clean game in contrast to some others but as you say it was helped on its way by some very sensible refereeing. Some referees have forgotten that officially it is still a contact sport and it’s possible to tackle, get the ball and NOT commit a foul.
I was impressed by this referee although he was aided by two teams generally not out to con him.
About the Thierry Henry incident I thought it was a foul and it didn’t need any play acting by Henry to convince the referee that it was a free kick.
I imagine though that he had a little chuckle to himself when they scored from it, considering that it was the Spanish coach, Aragones, who was fined for making a racist remark against Henry a year or so ago.
Absolutely; I thought this was an excellent display of refereeing. Several times he could have whipped out the yellow in a facile attempt to take control, but instead he brought the two players together, got them to shake hands, and in doing so kept the match pretty calm. This is exactly what I was talking about in the Ivanov thread; diving is to a large extent bred by loose yellow cards, and this ref seemed to understand that, setting a calm tone for the game. Good to see.
Yeah, I’d forgotten what a shit Aragones was when deciding to back Spain. And the weird comments he made when invited to apologise before the match; he went on about how he had “black friends, Japanese friends, and one friend whose job is determining the sex of chickens, so what did [we] make of that?” Freaky.
I’m glad to see good refereeing pointed out, but are you sure it’s a good idea to be using Italian referees in general as a role model right now?
Could that really ever happen? Has there been any talk, speculation, anything? Geeze man, don’t get my hopes up like that!
(He lives 15 minutes from Home Depot Center. He’d be perfect!)
(STOP IT. It won’t happen. Don’t get your hopes up!)
A few Questions from a Football novice:
Well, lots of talk and speculation from powerless U.S. fans full of wishful thinking, but nothing in any way concrete. Klinsmann himself appears to plan to continue coaching Germany for the foreseeable future, though. It would indeed be nice, but I think the USSF will have to look elsewhere.
AFAIK, it’s mainly to avoid distracting the players on the pitch - these guys can be warming up on the touchline, and it’s potentially very confusing if they’re in the same strip as the players actually on the pitch.
Any other player can take over as goalkeeper - the only requirement is that they wear a different colour shirt (of which there will be spares) so that they are identifiable.
If it’s been deemed to be a deliberate attempt to stop the opposing team gaining opposition. And a red card if it’s deemed a deliberate blocking of a clear scoring opportunity.