I am a fan of Ghana since their good performance in the 2010 World Cup. So I stayed up late to watch them take on the Yankees. Although they conceded a very fast goal from Dempsey they kind of dominated the game -- Ghana had a 62% possession rate. And it was evident that they would probably put one in the second half. Which they did in the final eight minutes of the game. But then some really sloppy defending gave their opponent a corner which John Brooks deflected into the net of Kwarasey.
I hope they will bounce back because there's a lot of talent on this team. Go Ghana! Go!
I hope they will bounce back because there's a lot of talent on this team. Go Ghana! Go!
Mexico's goalkeeper prevents Brazil from scoring. And what a good match by Australia.
ReplyDeleteYes, Australia came on with hunger and can be credited with scaring the Oranje.
ReplyDeleteBut the non-surprise comes from Spain: ousted after conceding 7 goals in 2 games only. They suffer the same fate as 2006's Italy and 1998's France, which all conquered the trophy and the continental follow-up two years later, and were probably comforted by the saying which goes by "you don't change a winning team". They did not see themselves becoming predictable and failed to evolve. Voilá!
I think it's a lot more complicated than this. See I used to never understand why people would be impressed with Spain until I started watching them carefully: they had a frightening rate of successful streaks of passes. Combined with total football they were quite an impressive side. I also never understood why the selecao of the late Socrates (and a few others) didn't win the World Cup.
ReplyDeleteFootball is very multi-dimensional and if you don't do well in enough dimensions you don't go as far as teams who do.
Speaking of which here is a nice article about how difficult it is to play futebol.
ReplyDeleteInteresting answers from a multi-country online poll:
ReplyDelete1. football fans from every one of the 19 countries polled think Brazil will win the 2014 World Cup save fans from Spain (the poll was conducted before their two defeats in as many matches), Argentina and the USA who think their national team will;
2. fans from all countries -- save three -- think Brazil plays the most beautiful football. The three think Spain does and they are Brazil, Costa Rica (who just beat Italy) and Japan.
Finally here is an article that I've been trying to read over the past few days.