Spain v Germany thoughts

1. You would think it is trite to mention that Spain v Germany = Barcelona v Bayern Munich. Both sides are pretty heavily centered around those domestic club teams. Spain started the game with 7 starters from Barcelona (including David Villa, who hasn’t played a game for them yet), while Germany started Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Klose…although they finished the game with 5 Bayern Munich players on the field. This of course doesn’t count Lukas Podolski, who played at Bayern Munich for the last 4 years.

2. I obviously thought Spain was more likely to win, so the result wasn’t too surprising to me. Even so, after creating numerous decent scoring chances (and not scoring any of them), Germany very clearly deserved a penalty in the 43rd minute. Ozil was one on one with the Spain goalie Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos clipped his back heel to send him tumbling. If Germany goes up 1-0, that is a very different game. I’d guess that 80% of refs give at least a penalty (and maybe a red card) in that situation.

3. While Pedro clearly should have passed the ball in the 83rd minute or so, when Fernando Torres was standing wide open in front of the goal, I call a penalty there 100% of the time.

4. Spain created chances, Germany maybe created two: both of them involved Sergio Ramos. I can’t understand why Spain manager Vincent Del Bosque continues to start Sergio Ramos. He’s a black hole defensively, and is always caught upfield when the other team is counter-attacking. Given that Spain plays with the not super-fast team of Gerard Pique and Carlos Puyol at centerbacks, this baffles me.

Spain is playing a tactical system that leads to low scoring games. In a way, it is almost more of a defensive strategy than an offensive one. But they are definitely vulnerable because of the strange insistence to play Sergio Ramos…will Arjen Robben play on the left against Spain to take advantage of Sergio Ramos’ wanderlust?

5. Spain might be the worst team at scoring off of opponent mistakes. A few times Germany turned the ball over and Spain could have attacked with a numbers advantage, but instead decided to play for possession.

6. Leo Messi’s implication that Barcelona is better than Argentina looks a little bit stronger after Spain advances to the finals and Argentina is out in the quarters. Barcelona is essentially Spain, plus Messi, the best player in the world. There’s almost no better indictment of Diego Maradona in the world as that.

Leo Messi thinks Barcelona is better than Argentina?

Leo Messi talking about his surprise that Fabio Capello left Theo Walcott off the England squad:

If [Theo Walcott] could do that against Barcelona, think what he could have done against Germany and Algeria. Even if he didn’t start, he would still have been very important for England.

Maybe there was something lost in the translation, but Messi seems to imply that he thinks Barcelona is superior to Germany. And after the 4-0 Germany victory, one might conclude he thinks Barcelona is better than Argentina.

A leap perhaps. But perhaps also a message from Messi about what he really thinks about Maradona (or so thinks my Argentine wife).

Raining on Argentina’s parade

Argentina has three wins and a +5 goal margin. All the Argentines around me are quite enthused. Maradona is telling everyone who criticized him that they are idiots and should apologize.

Well, y’know, I hate to be a downer, but Argentina had one of the easiest groups. Argentina has the best players in the world right now, and the best player in the world in Leo Messi.

I thought Argentina was distinctly unimpressive, considering their opponents.

Good for Argentina: right now Argentina’s side of the bracket looks to be distinctly weak. It’s quite possible that one quarter of the bracket could be Holland, Italy, Brazil and Spain…and Argentina wouldn’t face any of those until the finals. If so, this would be extremely lucky, but so far Argentina has been extremely lucky. At the end of World Cup qualifying, every game fell Argentina’s way. That ball fell to Palermo in extra time. They draw one of the weakest groups.

But Argentina hasn’t really played flowing football. They’ve had possession, yes, but too often it has been pass it around a perimeter 30 meters away from the goal while the defense organizes and collapses. The off the ball movement has been underwhelming, and the team which supposedly is to play for Messi…has not created space for Messi. Besides having Messi, this team isn’t terribly well equipped to play against Jose Mourinho against Barcelona “park the bus” tactics.

Obviously I’m hoping Argentina wins the World Cup. If they keep getting as lucky as they have for the past 9 months, it should be no problem, considering that they do have the best players. Yet I don’t feel particularly convinced watching Argentina so far.

At this point in World Cup 2006, Messi had more goals

I have not seen that remarked anywhere, but it is true. Messi, then just 18 years old, came on in the 75th minute against Serbia and scored in the 88th minute.

So, after 2 games in 06, Messi had a goal in 15 minutes played. After 2 games in 2010, Messi has 0 goals in 180 minutes.

4 years and 1 day ago:

He has still been super dangerous though.

Recapping today’s games

1. I didn’t see Chile v Honduras. For whatever reason, I want Honduras to advance, so I was disappointed to see them fall to Chile. Chile, under Argentine Marcelo Bielsa, has looked awfully good.

2. Spain v. Switzerland. Looked alot like US v Spain in last year’s Confederations Cup semi-finals, didn’t it? Spain created lots of good chances, but not really many great chances. I know that some will attack me for saying it, but… when you play super-slow possession football, don’t be surprised when your opponent has about 9.5 field players in the box. It’s awfully hard to score like that when you don’t have Leo Messi. I’m not saying you have to play like Italians, but it’s possible to both pass the ball and play with a sense of urgency so that you don’t let the defense organize and the goalminder position himself.

Assuming that the decision wasn’t injury-related, I strongly disagree with keeping Cesc Fabregas off the pitch. [since reading this, I’ve read that it was due to injury.]

Any team with Sergio Ramos is vulnerable to a counter-attack.

Spain manager Vincent Del Bosque was pretty critical of Switzerland’s style of play. Whatever. I would note that Switzerland’s goal wasn’t even a counter-attack. The goal came from a goal kick, meaning that it was just sloppy defending by Spain. Don’t believe me? See below:

Switzerland also had a nice combination to hit the post when it was 1-0.

3. All that said, even though it was a bad loss, Spain should still be able to advance by beating Chile and Honduras. Interestingly, if Chile beats Switzerland, Spain would look fairly likely to finish second in their group and possibly face Brazil, assuming Brazil wins their group. That would be an intense round-of-16 game. Spain vs Brazil, the two countries favored to win the World Cup playing in the first knockout round.

4. I’ve said for a long time that Uruguay is underrated. I think this game showed why. Diego Forlan scores a deflection goal, then nails a penalty, followed by a nail-in-the-coffin third goal from Pareira in extra time. That 3rd goal is way more important than almost anyone realizes.

5. Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira, coaching South Africa, was furious at the referee following the game. To be honest, when I started this post, I thought he was dead wrong. But, in retrospect, having checked, he was right. The red card and penalty which gave Forlan his second goal should have been offsides. Watch for yourself at the 37 second mark:

Uruguay is the better team, but that seriously sucks to lose on a deflection and bad penalty call.

I understand that under current rules of the game the red card is standard (assuming the refs miss the offsides call, as they did), but I still think it is a travesty to give a redcard in that circumstance. A penalty kick is punishment enough for that foul. This highlights a current problem with football’s rules: yellow cards are meaningless; a red card is almost dispositive. Giving a penalty kick and a red card is like giving a 1.8 goal penalty.

Argentina v Nigeria thoughts

1.  Argentina created a ton of chances.

2.  Argentina needed Juan Roman Riquelme out there for free kicks and for playmaking.  Of course, he wasn’t because Maradona treated him badly.

3.  Maradona loves Angel Di Maria.  Alot of people, including Real Madrid, love DiMaria.  I do not, and have said it loudly for a long time (sick goal he scored against Canada though).  Di Maria is one of those flashy wingers who can’t finish and can’t cross.  He will advance the ball down the wing only to lose possession.  Argentina can do better, and today Di Maria was completely invisible.   My wife’s cousin at the 40 minute mark yelled, “when did they substitute Di Maria?”  He was being serious; that’s how invisible he was.

4.   Lots of folks have remarked that Martin Palermo probably shouldn’t be on Argentina’s roster.  Maybe not, but Palermo might have had 3 goals today.  Although he played for River (I’m a Boca season ticket holder), I like Gonzalo Higuain and thought he should start.  He missed a bevy of giftwrapped opportunities today though.  Palermo would have put those away.  He is the master of being at the right place at the right time and converting.

5.  Nigeria is missing a few players, right?  A decent performance from them.  Uche missed an opportunity to make himself famous.

6.  I wonder how much of a home-field advantage the African teams have.  Probably not much.  Would make for an interesting empirical look.

7.  Obviously a win is a win, and Nigeria is probably the second best team in Group B.   Somehow it was very unsatisfying though.  There were just so many chances that weren’t put away, and Nigeria had a couple great chances to tie it.  After the start and the beautiful goal by Heinze, no one would have guessed 1-0.

8.  This game supported all of my contentions: Jonas Gutierrez should not be on the 23 man roster, much less a starter for Argentina.   Di Maria should not be a starter.  And to be honest, I don’t like Juan Sebastian Veron starting either, but largely because Maradona should have humbled himself and asked Juan Roman Riquelme to return.