footballspectator

We published our team of the tournament for games up to the round of sixteen a couple of weeks ago. Now FIFA’s Technical Committee have published theirs, only that rather than select 11 players, they have selected a full World Cup squad compliment of 23. As expected the squad is dominated by the semi-finalists, France (4 players) Germany (4 players), Portugal (4 players) and Italy (7 players).

The squad in full:

Goalkeepers: Buffon (Italy), Lehmann (Germany) Ricardo (Portugal)

Defenders: Ayala (Argentina), Terry (England), Thuram (France), Lahm (Germany), Cannavaro (Italy), Zambrotta (Italy), Carvalho (Portugal)

Midfielders: Ze Roberto (Brazil), Vieira (France), Zidane (France), Ballack (Germany), Pirlo (Italy), Maniche (Portugal), Figo (Portugal), Gattuso (Italy)

Forwards: Crespo (Argentina), Klose (Germany), Totti (Italy), Toni (Italy), Henry (France)

In our view there are some surprising omissions: Maxi Rodriguez of Argentina, Ricardo Osorio of Mexico and Lukas Podolski of Germany, who was voted Young Player of tournament. They are more worthy of inclusion than Maniche, Terry and Crespo.

The BBC has just launched its “goal of the tournament” competition. Like every “[ ] of the tournament” competition, it has been launched sometime before the end of the tournament, to capitalise on viewer interest. The risk of course is that the best goal of them all may be scored in the final. So we have chosen to call it “goal of the tournament (so far)“. Our favourites are: Esteban Cambiasso’s as best “team” goal, Maxi Rodriguez’s because of its importance, and Torsten Frings‘ goal against Costa Rica. I would also replace Steven Gerrard’s goal with Fabio Grosso’s semi-final strike.

If last night’s semifinal between Italy and Germany was a celebration of football, tonight’s clash between France and Portugal came close to being an abherration of the beautiful game.

Neither of the teams seemed to be overly bothered with securing a ticket to Berlin: after a lively start, the Portuguese were more concerned about perfecting their diving skills in the hope of being awarded a generous penalty (no presents from the referee but why didn’t he book them once for that?), while France looked like they were always in control, despite no texactly trying very hard.

All in all it was a very boring encounter that resembled more an average group stage match than a semi-final… There was a goal, for France, of course: Zidane coolly slotted in a penalty awarded after Carvalho’s foul on Henry in the 33rd minute. And that was pretty much it. Portugal never looked like a real threat, and the impression they gave was that had the match lasted 180 minutes or more, they would have still failed to put one in.

Maybe had they had a proper striker (can someone explain us how Pauleta managed to score 47 goals in 83 international appearances?), things could have been different. It wasn’t meant to be: the French curse continues for the Portuguese, and Zidane and co are now off to Berlin to face Italy on Sunday 9 July.

Make no mistake: they will have to step up one or two gears if they want to have a chance to beat the mighty Italians.

If anyone ever asks you why you love football, hand them a DVD of last night’s World Cup semi-final between Italy and Germany. To those that say “a goal-less match is dull” say “watch the first 90 minutes of this game” and then ask them if their opinion has changed. This match defined why football is called the beautiful game. It’s beautiful because it’s cruel, because a match can be decided in an instant, because a team can dominate and still be in danger of losing.

With one minute left to play, Italy fans were fearing that this would happen. Their team had dominated from the start displaying an attacking gusto not traditionally associated with Italian teams. They had created numerous chances but not converted them having been denied either by Lehmann or the frame of the goal.

To make things worse, Germany had played the role of villain, (usually played by the Italians) perfectly. There were decisions that went in their favour - notably a non-existent free kick on the edge of the box with minutes of normal time left. They did not return the ball when   Italy kicked the ball out of play for an injured player to receive treatment. Ballack dived constantly but was never booked. They also had chances in the dying minutes - Podolski’s free header which he put wide, his shot which was saved by Buffon. To score now though would reduce the torture. It was all set up for that classic sting in the tail. Penalties were looming and as every fan knows a penalty shoot-out against Germany equates to a defeat. The editors of La Gazzetta and Tuttosport were putting their finishing touches to their morning headlines: “Heroic Italy fall in penalty shoot-out“, “The curse of the penalties strikes again”.

Then in an instant, everything changed. Andrea Pirlo’s clever reverse pass found Fabio Grosso, whose curling shot beat Jens Lehmann to put the Azzurri ahead - euphoria. “But wait! this is Germany, they might still pull it back!“, cried the fans. The doubt began to set in.

Every great drama needs a hero and one minute later, Gilardino found Del Piero the man who is still blamed for Italy’s defeat to France in Euro 2000. The Juve man took the ball in his stride and shot the ball past Lehmann to become that hero and finally give Italy the victory that their performance deserved. If France win tomorrow, he will have a chance to take his revenge and complete his rennaissance in the biggest final of them all.

The penalty shoot-out is one of the most testing events that a professional footballer will have to endure in his career. Unless he is Belgian, or Korean or, of course, German. In fact most nationalities other than English or Italian.

This is according to statistics published in today’s “The Times“. Belgium and South Korea enjoy a perfect 5 out of 5. More remarkable however is the fact that Germany have only missed 1 of the 18 shootout penalties they have taken, Uli Stieleke’s in the 1982 semi against France. In contrast Italy’s and England’s success rate of around 50% looks pathetic. So if it goes to penalties tomorrow, there is only ever going to be one winner…

[from “The Times“]

Juninho Pernambucano and Roberto Carlos have both retired from internation football. Juninho, 31,who has been critical of Brazil’s performances at this World Cup, said it was time for the thirty-somethings to retire to allow the rebuilding of the squad for 2010 to begin. Roberto Carlos followed his team-mate’s advice, retiring after 132 matches and 11 goals for the Seleçao at the age of 33.

Finally, Asia’s first football superstar Hidetoshi Nakata retired from football altogether at the age of 29. Nakata was the original  pioneer, showing Europeans that the combination of the words “Japanese” and “footballer” were not a bad joke as he played for clubs such as Perugia, Roma, Parma, Fiorentina, Marseilles and Bolton. Nakata’s last match is probably going to be one he would want to forget, a 4-1 thrashing by Brazil….

Germany will have to do without influential Torsten Frings in tomorrow’s semi-final against Italy in Dortmund. FIFA suspended Frings for one match for “violent conduct” for his part in the mass brawl which started after Germany’s penalty shoot out win over Argentina. Frings was caught on camera directing a couple of “punches” at Julio Cruz.

If the following is deemed violent conduct, Maxi Rodriguez and Leandro Cufre should probably expect jail sentences for launching a flying punch at Schweinsteiger and karate kicking Mertesacker respectively..

In a poor match, Portugal beat England in Gelsenkirchen yesterday to make the semi-finals for the first time since 1966. The match really came alive following the dismissal of Wayne Rooney on 62 minutes for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho’s delicate region. It is difficult to know whether Rooney’s actions were intentional. The replay seems to indicate not and there wasn’t much space for Rooney to plant his foot elsewhere. However, if it was intentional his red card was fully deserved.

From then on, for England it became a matter of holding out for penalties, which they did quite comfortably mainly because Portugal lacked a cutting edge but also because of big performances from Terry, Ferdinand and the much maligned Hargreaves. Portugal themselves also seemed to be looking for penalties, with Scolari strangely taking off Pauleta to leave Portugal without a recognised centre-forward for several minutes. Eriksson brought on Crouch who once again showed just how far off he is from being an international player - his touch was awful and he kept falling over.

In the shoot out it was obvious that England would lose - they always do. Ricardo saved from England’s supposed “big game” players Lampard and Gerrard as well as Carragher before Cristiano Ronaldo slotted home to send the Portuguese wild. So another overhyped England team goes crashing out. The team contributed nothing during the tournament and their heroic rearguard action and penalty exit will probably alter this impression and many will believe that England were unlucky - they weren’t, they just weren’t good enough.

Much has been made at this World Cup about the size of Ronaldo’s waistline. He arrived at the World Cup weighing over 95 kg, 13 kg above his normal “fighting weight”. The question is what made him so fat? At footballspectator, we believe we have found the answer. He seems to have Coke’s slogan: “Eat football. Sleep football. Drink Coca-Cola” rather too literally……

An inhabitant of the tiny Bavarian village of Konzel discovered an eery correlation between German victories and a local festivity called “Kirta Sonntag”, a religious celebration which takes place annually on the first Sunday after 4 July:

1954: West Germany wins the World Cup in Switzerland on 4 July, the same day as Kirta Sonntag.

1974: The “Nationalmannschaft” lift the World title on home soil on Sunday 7 July, again Kirta Sonntag.

1990: Brehme’s penalty hands West Germany victory over Argentina in Rome on 8 July. Yes you guessed it, Kirta Sonntag.

This year’s final in Berlin also falls on Kirta Sonntag and the locals of the “modern oracle of Delphi” (as the Germans have taken to calling Konzel) are convinced that Klinsmann’s squad will be crowned World champions. So far their prediction is looking good with the team safely through to the semi-finals.

The Italians have had an easy draw with the Czech Republic being the only big name they have faced so far. The Ukraine proved no match as Italy breezed through 3-0, hardly having to break sweat. They now have a semi-final clash with hosts Germany on Tuesday to look forward to.

Italy opened the scoring early with the excellent Gianluca Zambrotta smashing a shot through the legs of a Ukrainian defender which Shovkovskiy should have saved. He only got a hand to it however and Italy were ahead. From the neutral’s point of view this was the worst thing that could ave happened as Italy sat back for the rest of the first half. The Ukraine were totally devoid of ideas and with little quality in their team never looked like getting an equaliser. Their one moment in the spotlight came early in the seocnd half when they created 3 chances in about a minute. First, Buffon made as superb save from Gusev’s header, smashing his own head against the post in the process, he then saved Gusev’s drive and Zambrotta cleared Kalinichenko’s effort on the rebound off the line.

Annoyed by the efforts of the Ukrainian upstarts, the Italians decided to put them back in their place. Serie A’s top scorer Luca Toni scored his first goal of the tournament, heading in Totti’s cross. His second followed a little later as he tapped in Zambrotta’s cross. Game over. As they celebrated, Cannavaro held up a flag in support of Gianluca Pessotto, ex-player and now Sporting Director at Juve who is in a serious condition in hospital following a suicide attempt earlier this week. Playing for Pessotto may just give Italy the motivation to go all the way.

Are Germany a better team than Argentina? No. So how did they manage to lose a game which was theirs for the taking? Jose Pekerman, made mistake after mistake.

The first half was a tactical battle. Argentina dominated possession and Germany, conscious of their defensive weakness, got eleven men behind the ball. Things should have opened up in the second after Ayala’s header gave Argentina the lead on 48 minutes. However instead of going for the jugular, Pekerman decided to try to hold on to his lead. He took off his creative fulcrum Riquelme for Cambiasso. He then compounded his error by bringing on the immobile Julio Cruz, who has hardly featured in this tournament for Hernan Crespo.

Riquelme should have stayed on the pitch - his passes could have unpicked the German defence. Further, Saviola or Messi should have come on instead of Cruz - both are small and quick and would have tested the tiring German central defenders more. As a result Germany gained the initiative and Klose’s header 11 minutes from brought the scores level. With three minutes to go, Lahm brought down Maxi and Argentina should have had a penalty. Instead, referee Lubos Michel booked Maxi for diving and the game went into extra time.

With both teams looking tired, penalties looked inevitable and when they arrived there was little doubt that the Germans would come out on top. When Cambiasso’s penalty was saved by Lehmann to hand them a semi-final berth, they celebrated a little too much for the Argentineans liking and Leandro Cufre showed his annoyance by launching a karate kick at Per Mertesacker, prompting a small fight.

At the press conference following the match, Pekerman failed to acknowledge his mistakes during the game but did resign. Argentina should have gone further.