World Cup Rant

Rant Blog: [11/07/2010]

World Cup:

As the World Cup is almost over, I decided that I might as well put my thoughts across about what I thought about the tournament, especially with it being the first ever World Cup on African soil. Pele once said that by the year 2000, Africa will have had a winner in the World Cup, unfortunately, that has never happened, but now we’ve had a World Cup in Africa, things are looking up for them. The hosts, South Africa, were very impressive in the short time they played, holding their own against Mexico and France, but unfortunately being torn apart by Uruguay. The result against France will long be remembered by South African’s and they even finished above France too, just to rub salt into the wound, missing out on 2^nd place by a 3 goal deficit in the goal difference department behind Mexico.

The holders, Italy, and previous finalist, France, were both very disappointing and neither even managed to record a win in the tournament and both finishing bottom. It shows how much can change in 4 years. Both teams have since sacked their managers [Raymond Domenech, of France, was told before the tournament he was being replaced by Laurent Blanc anyway]. The French camp seemed like the new Holland, unease in the camp, bitterness, big egos clashing together. Nicolas Anelka being sent home after only his 2^nd ever appearance for France in a major tournament being the major event that pulled everything apart, the Physio gave up his job, the Director gave his up and the French players decided they weren’t going to train because of Anelka being sent home, some even said they wouldn’t play in the final game. Poor Thierry Henry got France to the final, thanks to a helping hand, but he got only a cameo appearance in the final match against South Africa.

Italy, on the other hand, were unfortunate not to get through, 1 goal would’ve made 2^nd place their own. Martin Skrtel’s block off the line being a major talking point as to whether the ball was over the line or not (in my opinion it weren’t over), not the first time this discussion would crop up, and Slovakia seeing off Italy, 3-2, in one of the best games of the World Cup was a brilliant match to watch and a shock result, I was expecting Italy to win given their experience and players they could have used, Daniele De Rossi and Alberto Aquilani not being called up for them, seeing as that De Rossi is a fantastic player, was also a major shock.

It was fun seeing Mexico’s 23 man squad, I thought it was giving away their intentions to have no midfield given that they chose to include 8 defenders in their squad, with 4 midfielders and 8 strikers, their initial squad included 11 defenders. Argentina’s decision to not include Esteban Cambiasso in their team was also weird. Brazil left out Pato, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo [yes the real Ronaldo!] and Nilmar. England’s decision not to include Theo Walcott was seen as absurd by the media, yet they forget he was injured for about 3-4 months and he had a mediocre season.

Many managers have either left their job or been sacked even before the 3^rd/4^th place playoff and the final have been played. Mexico’s manager, Javier Aguirre, has left for a new job, France and Italy’s managers [as mentioned before] have been sacked. Australia’s manager has been sacked along with Japan’s, South Korea’s, Nigeria’s and Greece’s. All in all, 11 managers [as of 6^th July 2010] have lost their jobs, or stepped down, due to poor World Cup performances. They are:

Dunga [Brazil]

Raymond Domenech [France] (Wasn’t quite because of the WC, he was told before the tournament he was gone)

Marcello Lippi [Italy]

Sven Goran Eriksson [Ivory Coast]

Paul Le Guen [Cameroon]

Gerardo Martini [Paraguay]

Javier Aguirre [Mexico]

Otto Rehhagel [Greece]

Carlos Alberto Parreira [South Africa]

Takeshi Okada [Japan]

Huh Jung Moo [South Korea]

I’m surprised the Paraguay & Japan managers stepping down as them 2 teams were quite impressive. I would say the same for the Mexico manager but I think he has a job lined up anyway and was due to quit regardless of how Mexico got on in the tournament.

A special mention to New Zealand, too, as they were very impressive in their first ever World Cup, despite not losing once, they went out 3^rd in their group, finishing above Italy, and drawing all 3 games.

Sad times at South Africa for being the first ever host nation to go out at the group stage. They enjoyed a great start against Mexico, drawing 1-1, and hitting the post at the very end. The were torn apart by Uruguay though, 3-0, but finished off convincingly, against France, winning 2-1, missing out on 2^nd place by 3 goals and showing how crap France are in this modern day and age.

I was disappointed with the first round of games because I think most of the games were only including 2 goals a game and for a World Cup, that is piss poor. It did pick up, though, and after that the goals were flying in, 7-0 win for Portugal against North Korea, Germany did win 4-0 in the first round of games although Australia did roll over terribly [Cahill’s red card was never a red card either].

Moving into the knockouts, this is where the controversy of referee’s was kicking in, and on the Sunday games of the 2^nd Round [Germany vs England & Argentina vs Mexico], 2 huge decisions went unnoticed [1 in each game] which either could’ve changed the game or did change the game. I won’t go on about Lampard’s “goal” because I did last week, but Carlos Tevez, for Argentina’s goal, was clearly offside to put Argentina 1-0 up and the Argies rallied on from there. If referees and/or linesmen aren’t seeing these incidents then they shouldn’t be at the World Cup. FIFA, though, have changed their stance towards goal line technology and have said that refereeing will have changed by the time the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 starts. This is really good news for football and goal line technology has been screamed about, for years.

Spain have been incredibly lucky to reach the final, given that Paraguay should have, and deserved to, win that game, they even had a penalty to put them ahead, they missed it, Spain belted down the other end and won themselves a penalty, which they initially scored but had to retake and they missed it. If Spain had to retake theirs due to players running in the box, then Paraguay should’ve been able to retake theirs too.

I’m made up Holland are in the final as it’s good to see an underdog get far and exceed expectations. Holland deserve to win it more than Spain simply because they’ve played better football, they’ve been overlooked by everyone and been ignored and because everyone just expected Spain to turn up and they’d win the tournament. Holland are my tip to win tonight because Spain are too big for their shoes and I’m not gonna listen to that Paul the Octopus and I’ve never tasted Octopus before so he might be on the menu in the next few days.

Sorry I took ages getting this done and I’m sure you were all scratching at the walls for me to put it up lmao. Everything will be back to normal this week. Next weeks agenda: Health [and a bit about the Leisure Lakes which I was asked to do today but this blog is long enough as it is and it’s taken ages to put up and would take longer to put up because I’d have to do a bit of looking up to do the Leisure Lake piece haha].