France can probably not be saved (from herself). A self-destruction of historical proportions is happening right in front of a world public that can barely disguise its schadenfreude. While I do believe that they will convert all their anger and frustration into a hammering of South Africa I also believe that the Uruguay v Mexico game will somehow end in a draw after a hard-fought match in which both teams desperately played for the win.
Sometimes stats really sum it up best: until now, England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France have won only one of their nine games (this would obviously sound less impressive if one was to include the two Dutch wins). In particular, England, France, and Italy also looked absolutely terrible over the course of their first two games.
Yet, this should not lead to the hasty conclusion of some form of European decline (surely some clever neoliberal scribe is already making comparisons to the European debt crisis -- it'd be kinda funny if Greece were to go through then, though). In fact, I have a strong feeling that all the Euro giants of the game (other than France) will make it to the next round. I simply can't see them choking when it really matters against the likes of Ghana, Algeria, or Slovakia (I don't want to pass judgement on Spain until after their second match).
Moreover, once those teams are in the knock-out stages it doesn't really matter anymore how poorly they played in their groups. Now, after Italy's capital stinker against the Kiwis, do I really believe this geriatric and unimaginative team can achieve anything this time around? Absolutely. I know it sounds strange but Italy and even England just need one game to click (see France v Spain in 2006) and we might see completely different teams for the rest of the tournament. Again: the World Cup is first and foremost about peaking at the right time.
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Ein Torfestival
2 days ago
Possible, yet, wishful thinking in part, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteEqually interesting though is that all Central (except for Honduras) and South American teams look at least solid and hard to beat, some of them even quite impressive. You don't really want to play Uruguay, Paraguay, Mexico, or Chile in the last 16, do you? Yeah, I know, you gotta beat them all if you want to win the whole thing...
I certainly don't "wish" for England or Italy to reach the next round. I just think they'll find a way.
ReplyDeleteThe Guays and Mexico had one decent game each. Certainly didn't look like world-beaters. Would rather play them than Italy or England.
I've seen three good Mexican halves out of four. Uruguay played well in the most intense match of game day 1, not giving away chances cheaply against France (ok...), creating themselves. The South Africa match was nothing but dominance.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they shouldn't have peaked that early ;) but you can't dismiss the overall quality shown by the Americas so far.
You're right about Mexico although I wouldn't be surprised if the France game was already the highlight of their tournament. The Urus sucked big time against ghastly France, though.
ReplyDeleteI've read some speculation that the South American teams are more used to dealing with altitude because of Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. And Mexico obviously plays at altitude in Mexico City.
ReplyDeleteThat seems like a pretty tiny thing, though, especially since I don't even know how many of these 'unexpected' performances happened at altitude.
I also wonder whether the length and energy of the big European leagues is taking a major toll. Who are the teams that have seriously underperformed: Italy, England, France. To a lesser extent Spain. Those are 4 of the 5 big leagues and the players from those countries almost across the board play in the five major European leagues.
Germany seems to have avoided this mostly, but they're playing a pretty young team, which might help deal with the exhaustion problem.