World Cup Thread

[Straight-8]

Nice way to finish your career, Zidane.

Yeah, he went out with class - unfortunately, all of it 'third'.

Between the dive for the pk goal and Zidane's antics I'm glad Italy won!

 

[Weird Harold]

Zoot, I'm kind of stupified that you say you understand ice hockey, but not football. When it comes to strategy, game structure and, as you call it, setting up "plays", they are quite similar, and the difference in tempo and style is mostly due to the physical limitations of the field.

It occurred to me while watching the World Cup that one reason those who understand hockey and basketball but don't get soccer is that a soccer pitch, hockey rink, and basketball court all look the same size on TV.

The actual difference in scale makes something as simple as a "give and go" or "lob pass" more difficult for the players to execute and for the viewers to perceive.

If soccer would do away with the goalies, Americans might find it as interesting as basketball -- or conversely if basketball allowed goaltending it would be as "boring" as as soccer and hockey without the fighting.

 

[rgraham666]

I'm not a hockey fan. I'm a fight fan.

 

[NoJo]

Zidane Mystery Solved

Here's what made Zidane head-butt Materazzi:

The latter said to him:

"I wish you and your mother an ugly death",

followed by:

"Go Fuck Yourself"


this is according toan Italian lip-reader, who services were called in by the BBC today.

 

[Huckleman2000]

...
Most goals are either scored in modern football by 'set piece' plays, a ball delivered from a corner of free kick near the goal area on to a target striker, or by rogue long distance strikes where the ball curves in flight to deceive the goalkeeper, or the goalkeeper is unsighted by other players in the penalty area or the ball is deflected into the goal by a player of either team.

Playing the long distance ball to a lone forward (England's tactic) is almost a worthless exercise: defenders have become atheletes (this wasn't always the case) and the dreaded 'Offside' rule. The offside rule is essentially there to stop the long ball being punted down the field to a lone forward (someone forgot to tell England). ...

Indeed, the corner kicks seemed to have the most strategic aspect. You'd think they'd get to the play quicker instead of waiting for the opponents to figure out who's guarding whom. Unless maybe the field is just too big.

The second thing is just mind-boggling. That would be exciting to watch (the fast-breaks), and make defence something more than circling the perimeter of the goal area and converging on the ball if it gets close.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Here's what made Zidane head-butt Materazzi:

The latter said to him:

"I wish you and your mother an ugly death",

followed by:

"Go Fuck Yourself"


this is according toan Italian lip-reader, who services were called in by the BBC today.

Hmm, I rather expected more profane creativity. or creative profanity.

 

[neonlyte]

Hmm, I rather expected more profane creativity. or creative profanity.

It was worse, the babblefish screwed up

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Huckleman, I think you misunderstand the off-side rule. Fast breaks are spectacular and require skill because of the off-side rule. There's nothing spectacular or particularly skilful about sitting on your ass up in front by the goal all match and wait for the ball to come to you, which is what would happen without off-sides.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Congratulations to Lauren who won the Literotica World Cup League by 29.5 points

Thank you for the great contest, Neon, and to Charley and Liar as well. I'm looking forward to the next.

 

[Huckleman2000]

I don't know if this is a very educated commentary for fans, but I found it to be a fun read, from Barry Yourgrau :

So much for scenarios.

Yesterday was supposed to be the Grand Au Revoir to the Great Man, regardless of outcome.

Instead, disgrace. Creepiness. A sense of culminating disgust.

Here on Monday, waiting for Zizou's account of the infamous words from Italy's Mazeratti that provoked that red-card hooligan nuttery---I gotta say: That was one of the most bizarre, and again, creepy moments in sport I've ever been party to.

I watched the game in restaurant on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, jam-packed inside and out. We were screaming and roaring for I-TAL-IA!!

Then the whole thing went sour, and weird, when Zidane did his thing. The game dwarfed by this "act of tragic suicide" (as someone in shock said at our table.) And in front of one billion viewers, no less.

Maybe this World Cup, so hyped, so dud-crammed, got the final it deserved.

Consider the ironies yesterday. Zidane ends his resurrected career, from useless old geezer to hero to bad-sportsman ignominy. How will his career ever be recalled without this bit (and butt) of infamy? (My friend Andrew, a cultural studies professor, says "the lofty hermeneut within me saw it as the supreme existentialist gesture---le grand refus---at the very moment of being inducted into multicultural sainthood by Chirac.")

But what if Materazzi, whom an Italian friend of mine calls the dirtiest player in Italy (for what that's worth) had said something racist?

This is, after all, a World Cup where games start with a reading of an anti-racism proclamation by each team's captain. The soccer authorities will be investigating this red card, as they do all red cards: What happens if they learn that Materazzi played the race gambit? (Not to forget the story going round now that he had tweaked Zidane's nipple). (Cute, these soccer fellas).

Also: FIFA made a big point today that video review was not (repeat in a Claude Rains accent: NOT ) involved in spotting the head butt, even though many commentators said the refs hadn't a clue. (It was so loud in our restaurant, we never heard any commentary on ABC, a small blessing). FIFA, you see, is very sensitive on the issue of the video replays and the refs' authority.

The refereeing has been, of course, terrible this tournament, in good part because FIFA instructed the zebras to crack down on fouls and unsportsmanship by flashing cards. Apparently this caused most refs to surrender common sense of any kind.

Refs seem unable to follow the game properly. For instance, on TV replays the penalty awarded to France last night sure looked phony. This is a ruinous issue: the modern style of forward play is to bring the ball into the penalty area with the purpose of drawing any kind of contact or phantom contact, and then going down, to draw the foul.

So after a month, some thoughts:

Italy is very good team, not a great one. (And when the new season starts in fall, for what new clubs will half of them be playing, thanks to their football scandal at home?)

In terms of soccer, this was a tournament of duds, a beautiful expensive bouquet of flowers whose buds don't open. Glorious joyous (yawn) Brazil and Ronaldhino. England and its "best midfield in the world" (what a dreary appallingly managed joke). Spain, so teasingly marvelous in the first game, and then, como siempre. The US of A, rated how high again? And those flying Czechs...

Mexico-Argentina did give us a great match, Mexico playing with such valor and energy and force (how come not all the time?) . Maxi Rodriguez's perfectly struck lucky cannonball from distance was best-of-the-tournament individual shot; Argentina's 24-pass-and-a-back-heel beaut was the best of the group efforts.

But then Argentina's coach, Pekerman, lost his nerve and kept his best players on the bench against Germany.

Germany gave us maybe the most entertaining team, offensive, exuberant and always attacking. A German team of good spirits, what a strange thing to say after me Yankee-hating Germany for so many years. (Though the Germany-France match of 1982 was the greatest world Cup match ever).

Portugal and Holland gave us an unforgettable match, thanks to the ref mainly. Though the Dutch fouling on Ronaldo was truly disgraceful. (Van Basten, Holland's coach, was a glorious player whose career was shortened by fouling!) But then a Portuguese player committed an egregious, and uncarded, foul on Holland's flying flopping Robben too.

Portugal has some great talent, a wonderful character of a coach in Big Phil Scolari. But maybe a "moral deficit," as an American friend put it. Their diving and flopping was like a Saturday Night Live skit. And let's not forget their disgraceful behavior in the last EuroCup (was it?) when they surrounded the referee in over-the-top dissent and were punished (I'm recalling this on seat of pants).

But floppers were everywhere, of course. Henry of France against Spain. The Italian who flopped to get the penalty against Australia. Ukraine's Shevchenko swanning in the box. The roll call goes on and on.

Maybe for a year or two soccer needs to have video examinations after every game and dispense (and rescind) calls here that the ref got wrong. Maybe we need a second ref too. And a long talk with the players.

I think also the actual new fancy football was too much, a veritable plastic beach ball out there. A problem not just for goalies but for field players. Maybe that partly caused the wonderful Ghanaians to shoot so wildly when they got into the penalty area against Brazil. (Er, maybe not). But Ghana certainly would have benefited from their best player, Michael Essien, being on the field. But he was suspended, thanks, naturally, to a dubious second yellow card earlier.

My happiest memories, really, are of the places where I watched here in multi-ethnic NYC: the Argentinean steak house and the Ecuadorian bar, in Queens; the Austrian restaurant in Tribeca, jammed with delighted and delightful Germany supporters... and yesterday's madhouse in Little Italy, unmanned in its fun by one bald grizzled Frenchmen.

Oh, Zidane Zidane, what have you done?

 

[NoJo]

I don't know if this is a very educated commentary for fans, but I found it to be a fun read, from Barry Yourgrau :

I thought there was some great football this world cup. The only team that didn't really live up to expectations was England, who never do.

 

[fieryjen]

Well at least the Germans got a nice review. Go us.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I think people in North America will always have trouble understanding the game if they insist on only watching the World Cup every four years. The World Cup tournament is not where the best football is played, far from it. It is a huge event because of the tribal aspect of it, but the quality of play at national-team level is ridiculously low when compared to what happens in the professional clubs. There are a handful of national team matches each year, the players get together for a few days, a couple of weeks at the most, before a major tournament. The coaches can do little more than select players and try to motivate them to individual performances.

At club level, however, both tactical and technical aspects are worked on daily to exhaustion, there are matches every 4 days, the players could almost play with their eyes blindfolded.

If you have a chance, try to catch some Champions League matches and you'll see the difference.

Oh, and there really aren't that many matches decided on penalties in football. The first round of matches during the group stage at the World Cup only had one penalty, in Spain's 4-0 victory over Ukraine. Penalties only appeared when matches became knock-out. The final prize at a World Cup is so huge, it's such an important goal, that everyone is too afraid to lose.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Zoot, I'm kind of stupified that you say you understand ice hockey, but not football. When it comes to strategy, game structure and, as you call it, setting up "plays", they are quite similar, and the difference in tempo and style is mostly due to the physical limitations of the field.

What I love about both sports is that they allow for an endlessly varied drama, where many different factors can win the game. One man's artistry, or a battle of wits and character strength in the midfield, or the best follow-through of tactics, or the ability to think outside the box when in attacking mode. It's lika that box of chocolate, u nevah know wut u gunna git. You can collect your troops and arrange a set up play, if you want to, and sometimes that is the best tactics, other times the best tactic is to turn the play over fast and surprise the pants off the opponent's defense. Wanna be a roman legion, or a ninja? In football (soccer...sigh), you need to be able to be both and every player needs to have the eye for making that call in a split second.

It's not like american football (the way I precieve it, and I've wtched a bit of it), which is a game for coaches, that arrange beefy chess pieces on a board and unleash them at each other. The individual player can have short bursts of inspiration and make an irrational move, but the game itself is designed to take him down.

I think you might have hit on the big problem we Americans have with soccer. It's a bit too individualistic and anarchic for us. It goes against our national character.

Despite all the American chest-thumping over the value of the individual and personal freedom, we're basically a nation of conformists. We love our organizations, from our worship of the military to our admiration of corporations, and we're taught from an early age to fit in and obey authority. They even teach it in the schools now, where kids are made to work in groups to foster "people skills", which actually works to stifle individual creativity and development.

We find the semi-chaotic rhythms and individual inititiative of soccer bewildering and kind of incomprehensible. We don't get it. You're absolutely right that American football is like a chess game, with each position having only certain limited moves he can make, like pieces on a chess board. (Or maybe it's more like a military campaign, with the linemen being the armor, the running backs the cavalry, the receivers being the air force and the quarterback the commanding officer.) Each play is a little battle for turf, and we expect players to do just what they've been told to do. The play starts, the battle commences, and then someone's tackled and the smoke clears and everyone looks to see what's happened and regroup and plan the next move.

Soccer's totally unlike that. It's fluid and continuous, and the game is up to the players and not th coaches or managers. That's hard for us to accept.

One of the things I remember from my stay in Europe is how much more individualistic and non-confoming Europeans are than Americans. They don't make a big deal or cult out of their individualism like we do here (of course, we couldn't use "freedom" as such a slogan over here if we really knew what it meant), they just take it for granted. I think soccer depends on this kind of individualism and initiative in a way that no American team sport does. (Well, maybe hockey comes close, but that's really Canada's sport. Maybe basketball to some extent, but even a player like Michael Jordan who copletely dominated the sport was accused of "not being a team player" quite a bit.)

Soccer is a popular sport over here with parents of kids of a certain age because at that level of play it's not very rough and it doesn't require a high level of skill. Everyone gets to play and feel like part of the team and the parents like that. But we have a nickname for that kind of kids' soccer. It's called "swarmball", because all that happens is that all the kids gather around the ball in a group and start kicking away at it. Coaches tear their hair because they can't get kids to play positions, and it's not uncommon to see one kid somehow get alone with the ball and outside the swarm and just stand there bewlidered, not knowing what to do next.

So I admit it, when I watch professional soccer, the American in me is looking for the teamwork, the 3-on-2 attack, the picks and plays of basketball, and I don't see them. When you see someone breaking away and magically evading defenders and making a brilliant shot at the goal, something in me is saying "what a showoff! No wonder he didn't score!"

--Zoot

BTW, those kids who grow up playing swarmball ususally leave the sport once their parents get off their backs and go on to baseball or football. I still don't know if America has produced any real world-class soccer players, an I understand the knock on them is that they don't have enough inititative.

 

[NoJo]

So I admit it, when I watch professional soccer, the American in me is looking for the teamwork, the 3-on-2 attack, the picks and plays of basketball, and I don't see them. When you see someone breaking away and magically evading defenders and making a brilliant shot at the goal, something in me is saying "what a showoff! No wonder he didn't score!"

Er, soccer is completely a team game. But there's a lot of opportunity for flair. Note that when you watch the World Cup you're watching a bunch of players who don't usually play together. You need to watch the league games to see the team element (for example, Arsenal, who play Thierry Henri in the same position as he plays for France, but make much better use of him).

The speed and fluidity of soccer means, as you say, that it's easy to focus on the individuals. But basically you're seeing it the way a lot of non-enthusiasts do, you just see a bunch of individuals running around. Playing the British board game (!) of Subbuteo gives you get a very good idea of the tactics that make certain teams do well.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Playing the British board game (!) of Subbuteo gives you get a very good idea of the tactics that make certain teams do well.

Do the winners get to tear their shorts off?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Do the winners get to tear their shorts off?

oh please god say it's so!

 

[Liar]

So I admit it, when I watch professional soccer, the American in me is looking for the teamwork, the 3-on-2 attack, the picks and plays of basketball, and I don't see them. When you see someone breaking away and magically evading defenders and making a brilliant shot at the goal, something in me is saying "what a showoff! No wonder he didn't score!"

Ah, but what you fail to see is the teamwork that made the individual display of brilliance possible. I guess you are still looking at the game with "swarmball" eyes, where the ball is the only focus. But for every player with the ball there are a whole bunch without. And their job is to create uncertainty in the opponenets defense. They are possible revievers of passes, and goal shooters too, so the defense must also follow them. Which means less defenders against the striker. Which means he has better odds of working his magic. Or pass another player in a better position, if he gets too heavily attacked.

And then he can tear his shorts off, if that floats his boat.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Only after the match is over, though, or else he may get a yellow card.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

The new and revised FIFA ranking. Not as much of a joke as before, but there a few things that are still pretty funny.


· (1) · 1 Brazil
·(13) · 2 Italy
· (9) · 3 Argentina
· (8) · 4 France
·(10) · 5 England
· (3) · 6 Netherlands
· (5) · 7 Spain
· (7) · 8 Portugal
·(19) · 9 Germany
· (2) ·10 Czech Republic
·(11) ·11 Nigeria
·(15) ·12 Cameroon
·(35) ·13 Switzerland
·(22) ·14 Uruguay
·(45) ·15 Ukraine
· (5) ·16 USA
·(11) ·17 Denmark
· (4) ·18 Mexico
·(33) ·19 Paraguay
·(32) ·20 Côte d'Ivoire

·(27) ·21 Colombia
·(16) ·22 Sweden
·(23) ·23 Croatia
·(51) ·24 Guinea
·(48) ·25 Ghana
·(25) ·26 Romania
·(14) ·27 Turkey
·(39) ·28 Ecuador
·(17) ·29 Egypt
·(29) ·30 Poland
·(21) ·31 Tunisia
·(20) ·32 Greece
·(42) ·33 Australia
·(37) ·34 Russia
·(28) ·35 Senegal
·(44) ·36 Serbia and Montenegro
·(37) ·37 Bulgaria
·(42) ·38 Honduras
·(31) ·39 Republic of Ireland
·(36) ·40 Morocco

·(59) ·41 Scotland
·(66) ·42 Peru
·(63) ·43 Bosnia-Herzegovina
·(41) ·44 Slovakia
·(26) ·45 Costa Rica
·(64) ·46 Chile
·(23) ·47 Iran
·(61) ·48 Togo
·(18) ·49 Japan
·(60) ·50 Uzbekistan
·(49) ·51 Israel
·(40) ·52 Norway
·(62) ·53 Guatemala
·(83) ·54 Canada
·(57) ·55 Angola
·(29) ·56 Korea Republic
·(56) ·57 Belgium
·(74) ·58 Wales
·(81) ·59 Panama
·(79) ·60 Austria

·(71) ·61 Slovenia
·(57) ·62 Zambia
·(66) ·63 Mali
·(47) ·64 Trinidad and Tobago
·(85) ·65 Albania
·(55) ·66 Zimbabwe
·(69) ·67 Congo DR
·(71) ·68 Venezuela
·(93) ·69 Lithuania
·(49) ·70 Finland
·(91) ·70 FYR Macedonia
·(53) ·72 South Africa
·(65) ·73 Belarus
·(89) ·74 Burkina Faso
·(96) ·75 Northern Ireland
·(78) ·76 Qatar
(104) ·77 Moldova
·(46) ·78 Jamaica
·(86) ·79 Libya
(107) ·80 Malawi

·(34) ·81 Saudi Arabia
·(70) ·82 Latvia
·(77) ·82 Estonia
·(76) ·84 Hungary
(102) ·85 Bolivia
·(82) ·86 Oman
(101) ·87 Georgia
·(52) ·88 Iraq
·(68) ·89 China PR
·(71) ·90 United Arab Emirates
·(88) ·91 Korea DPR
(100) ·92 Cyprus
·(87) ·93 Algeria
·(54) ·94 Bahrain
(154) ·95 Equatorial Guinea
(105) ·96 Gabon
·(80) ·96 Cuba
·(84) ·98 Jordan
·(97) ·99 Uganda
·(74)·100 Kuwait

 

[Weird Harold]

The new and revised FIFA ranking. Not as much of a joke as before, but there a few things that are still pretty funny.

Almost looks like they just drew the names from a rusty coffee can.

Do you know how they purportedly compute those rankings?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Almost looks like they just drew the names from a rusty coffee can.

Do you know how they purportedly compute those rankings?

It's based on all matches played in the last 4 years, with gradual decline in importance of results. In addition to points for win (3), draw (1) and loss (0), there are multiplication factors for type of match (from friendly to world cup), for regional strength, and ranking of the adversary (which turns the ranking into an ouroboro ).

Seems hard to believe, though, as Portugal (8th), for example, has won every match played against Spain (7th), Netherlands (6th) and England (5th) in the last 4 years, and progressed further in every major competition.

PS: Actually, never mind. Portugal didn't have to play qualification to Euro2004, so all their matches in 2003 and 2004 were friendlies, with lower multiplication factor. That's one of the reasons for odd ranking positions, like Germany's - and Brazil's and Argentina's (for the opposite reasons)

 

[Lauren Hynde]

The best time-waster ever!