Sorry if my terminology is all wrong, but I am finding Argentina’s style of play much more exciting than the two games I watched yesterday. They seem to be much more adept at quick passes backwards so they can slash forwards, and it is a lot more exciting than the stuff of the France/Uruguay game. That reminded me of watching a New Jersey Devils game in the 90’s with their neutral zone trap that just slowed the game down to nothing. The Argentinian ball handling skills just seem better than what we have seen in the other two games.
As always, I may have no idea what I am talking about.
wengler
Nigeria plays a more open game than Uruguay so this one should be entertaining. Uruguay played very negatively yesterday and France is a loathsome team.
Every single other game in this tournament should be better than that one.
Jesse
Not to ruin the fun, but I just came across this: As the World Cup starts, conservative media declare war on soccer. WTF is wrong with these people?
burnspbesq
If Nigeria don’t start to defend, the score could end up looking like baseball. 5-1 or something like that.
SRW1
On the contrary, this makes it even more worthwhile.
Back to Argentina – Nigeria!
wengler
@ Jesse
And yet they support sports in the US that have drafts that give the worst teams the top picks. The NFL splits its profits evenly across all of its franchises. MLB where the Yankees have to pay a luxury tax every year to the poor teams.
In world football there are no drafts, no luxury taxes, no splitting teams’ profits. Hell, in La Liga the two top teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona, negotiate their tv broadcast rights separately than those of the other teams in their league. The socialist NFL negotiates these as a single entity.
I eagerly await a list of conservative-approved sports so I know what to like and what to hate.
J.W. Hamner
Well, pretty much anything would be prettier than France/Uruguay… as I actually don’t think Argentina is as fluid or as strong on the ball as I’ve seen them in the past. (Not that they’re playing poorly or anything)
New Yorker
@Jesse:
That’s because Real ‘Murkans don’t like sports played by brown people who speak in languages other than Jesus’ own English. In that vein, it’s time for Glenn Beck and company to declare war on baseball (too many Spanish-speaking players), basketball and football (too many players who are secret Muslims from Kenya), and hockey (yes, everyone is white in hockey, but too many of those white guys have funny, communist-sounding names or French names).
From now on, the official sport of Real ‘Murka is NASCAR and nothing else.
MikeJ
@Jesse: “Soccer is designed as a poor man or poor woman’s sport.”
No shit Sherlock. That’s why it’s the most popular game in the world. All you need is a ball and maybe jumpers for goalposts.
Unregulated capitalism will make it the most popular game in the US eventually.
Lisa
I think you’re confusing the 90’s Devils with their contemporaries from Philly, Florida, and Washington. The 90’s Devils actually scored and won stuff.
ps. the high-falutin’ 70s Canadiens also used the NZT, as did the 90’s Red Wings (except they were smart to rename it Left Wing Lock).
Dave
I’m an Americanophile in most things…
but its “football” or “futbol” for feck’s sake. Screw this “soccer” crap.
But Messi really is something isn’t he?
MikeJ
@Dave: What’s the name of the stadium in Soweto?
bemused
@SRW1:
Oh, for crying out loud. If it was up to rightwingers, they’d turn the entire US into Pleasantville without any charming quaintness. We’d be living in the most boring country on earth.
salacious crumb
Im watching BBC comment on Argentina’s style right now and they keep using the word fluid for the Argentinians. Maybe thats the word you are looking for John?
Dave
What’s the name of the stadium in Soweto?
That’s Sud Africa for you though.
Here in the Sceptered Isles, its football and that’s all that’s important. Cultural imperialism FTW
Glad to see Veron is as crap as always though.
meh
the south american style is based on in close ball handling skill and quick passing – europeans tend to be long ball fanatics while the americans are a bastardized version of the two – i.e. failing miserably at both styles. If you like the Argentina game, wait for Brazil.
scav
@Jesse: dear deah, we wouldn’t want all those grubby poor countries cluttering up our sports’ world series now, would we? I mean, just look what happened to golf? !
dmsilev
@wengler:
I believe NASCAR is the stereotypical answer here.
dms
Comrade Javamanphil
The South Korea – Greece game was actually pretty entertaining but mostly because Greece’s defense was bordering on inept. Nigeria is lucky to only be down 1-0.
MikeJ
@Dave: You may know soccer but you guys don’t know shit about oil drilling.
wengler
The Rightwing guide to sports:
Soccer: Foreign, socialist, no commercial breaks to talk about how Obama is destroying America.
Baseball: Good until it got taken over by Dominicans and *gasp* Venezuelans.
Basketball: Good until it got taken over by big black thugs. The white people that do play are all foreigners from evil socialist places like Croatia or Canada.
NHL: Canada’s national sport. Enough said?
American football: Popular in Real America. Just a good solid sport played almost entirely by Americans for Americans. Slight problem developing in growing amount of black QBs and coaches. Not enough white people playing also. The search for a white running back ongoing.
NASCAR: Popular almost entirely in Real America. Hated by liberals and other similar traitors. Conspicuous consumption of vast amounts of petroleum for the purposes of going around in circles. Definitely the only approved rightwing sport.
Miss Kitka's Comrade Wayne
yesterday’s dismal France – Uruguay was the sort of thing that gives this game such a dreary reputation.
Jude
No, you’re right…..Argentina’s (and most of South America’s) game is predicated on quick short passing and ball control – the original West Coast offence, I guess. West African football has the same principles – you’ll see similarities between this game and Ghana’s play – but like meh said above, if you like this, then wait for Brazil; they’ll have you drooling.
Go Naija!
Dave
You may know soccer but you guys don’t know shit about oil drilling.
*ahem* North Sea Oil.
MikeJ
@Dave: Fuck the North Sea. Until you clean up the gulf, we can safely say, “you guys don’t know shit about oil drilling. “
J.W. Hamner
Looks like Argentina has picked up its game even further in the second half… not just depending on Messi and set pieces, but being creative and aggressive all over the field.
scav
@MikeJ: Oh goody, competitive multinationals employing local employees under local regulations, there’s a subject to get your panties in a twizzle over. Go Naija!
stormhit
@Jude:
Ah Brazil, still riding on the coattails of 94. They haven’t had their alleged “flair” in years.
Davis X. Machina
As George Carlin pointed out, American football is the US in microcosm — violence, punctuated by committee meetings.
scav
@Davis X. Machina: ah, yes! but, mmm, how’d he forget the extreme padding?
wengler
@ Miss Kitka’s Comrade Wayne
In any sport there are going to be bad games. “This game” is the most popular sport in the world. It is not awaiting approval from Americans until it feels like it has made it.
That said even if you dislike the game, there is a strong case to be made for supporting the US side. The players have always had to take all the crap from representing the US internationally without getting nearly the benefits of players from other countries. There is no such thing as a home game for the US, while they have to venture some really hostile places(Azteca) to play. They also have to spend long time away from their families because the best leagues in the world are in Europe. And yet they win more often than they lose. They don’t seek pity when even tiny countries like El Salvador have more supporters for a game in the US than the US does. They just win those games and move on. They are certainly worthy of support from some fraction of their countrymen.
PeakVT
As always, I may have no idea what I am talking about.
Brooks should put this at the end of his columns.
Dave
Until you clean up the gulf, we can safely say, “you guys don’t know shit about oil drilling. “
Err, you do know BP (its been called that since 1993) is actually more of an American company than a British company?
The Nigerian Goalie is playing really well, he’s having one of those “thou shalt not pass” days.
salacious crumb
@wengler: I think that one the reasons people bash the US soccer team is that it is, at least in appearances, one of the few sports that hasn’t been monopolized and commodified by us ie Americans. its one of the few sports where we cannot pull out our USA #1 Foam Fingers and parade around the stadium with the “in yo face” attitude. The US soccer team has dramatically improved in my opinion and it wouldnt be that far out if one were to make the claim that they are clearly in a position to beat France and England, and even Germany or Holland. In 2006, they clearly made some of these mighty teams sweat. Anyways point is, if there is a reason people are hostile to the US soccer team, it isnt the soccer teams fault, just the obnoxious fans
wobblybits
@Dave: To be accurate
Linky here
ETA: Not blaming our friends across the pond for what the company did.
Turgid Jacobian
@Dave:
the word “soccer” was invented by the English. They later changed their minds, but so what? Sick of the idiotic chauvinism surrounding what the game is called: people playing soccer == people playing futbol
Jude
@stormhit
True, collectively they’re not the Brazil of old, but you have to admit that a good half of the team are ‘playmakers’ (I hate that term but can’t think of a better one) – they can make goal-scoring chances out of absolute thin air. That’s what’s exciting to watch…..a sudden flash of magic, a stepover, a shimmy, defenders kicking at air, and suddenly the goalkeeper’s picking the ball up from the back of the net. Most teams have one or maybe two players who can do that….Brazil has an entire forward line.
Oh, and go Naija!
Patrick
The group stage encourages tight defensive football. It is always better in the knock-out stage. Unless Italy is playing of course. If you like attacking and exciting football, root against Italy.
Devils teams were of two types. Those that would be in the top 3 in scoring and dominate; and those that couldn’t score and didn’t go far.
PeakVT
It’s kind of silly to turn the GoM oil spill into a UK-US spat. Large multinationals aren’t particularly accountable to any government – especially when they can buy off the regulatory agencies.
Plus, since the Piper Alpha disaster was on a platform owned by Occidental, the two countries are sortof even now.
wobblybits
@PeakVT: completely agree. Enough smack talking can occur without pulling this into it.
DopaMeme
@ wengler
Gatorade did a great ad a few years ago on that very subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm-rbwtkz9s The shot with the roof shaking in the locker room is great.
MikeJ
@Dave: “Around 40% of BP shares are held by UK shareholders, and 39% in the USA.” [1] The UK is 15th the size of the US, and yet own more shares in BP. Its HQ is on St James square, right across from the London Library. It’s a British company.
And everybody in the UK is going to have to fork over bobs and squids to pay us, and we’re going to beat you like we did in 1950.
[1]wikipedia
PonB
If we could just get those NASCAR guys to go clockwise around the track, it would be the perfect right-wing sport – all right turns!
Personally, I’m an F1 fan – small foreigners making all kinds of turns, and using brakes every lap…
Also a big Argentina fan – Messi es Dios! (Haven’t said that since Clapton!)
– PonB
Pooh
Part if what you saw, JC, was Nigeria being very lax defensively in midfield and basically allowing a lot if time to Argentina. That said, Argentina were much more active off the ball than say were Mexico yesterday which did allow them to create a lot more. And yeah, messi…
Randy Paul
@MikeJ: You don’t even need a ball. In my wife’s hometown in Brazil, if the kids didn’t have a ball, they’d go to the butcher shop. If a pig had been freshly slaughtered, the butcher would wash the bladder, inflate it and they had a ball for a while.
@stormhit: Who won in 2002 by winning all their games? Not to mention winning four of the last five Copas Americas and the last two Confederations Cups.
Yeah they suck.
frankdawg
@bemused:
THATS NOT TRUE – we would have Friday Night Lynchings to attend, Sunday cross burnings and the annual Torching of the Getto Kristallnacht Celebration! Toss in the occasional, impromptu, “make fun of the less fortunate or handicapped” flash mob thingy & it would be just like the 50s.
Ya know, that neutral zone trap thing that make the NHL unwatchable – I did see that sort of thing in yesterdays game – maybe thats why I hated it so much,
ThresherK
And yet they support sports in the US that have drafts that give the worst teams the top picks. The NFL splits its profits evenly across all of its franchises. MLB where the Yankees have to pay a luxury tax every year to the poor teams.
The word you are looking for is cartel, gummint-guaranteed in the case of baseball. Or as the slogan goes, “Socialism for the classes (owners), competition ‘mongst the masses (players).”
At least a few players, like union reps, and Charles “I used to be a Republican until they went crazy” Barkley, have a clue.
My guess about football and Americans is that it’s one sport that doesn’t benefit from my country’s particular fondness for coaching a team to the nth degree. When the spit hits the fan the coach can only put players out there and hope–fewer “coach as genius” headlines–more “player has to think on their feet”.
Oh, and if anyone else has read “Soccernomics”, let me know what you think. Beats the heck out of the climate-change-is-good-for-us Freakanomics, for my money.
PanAmerican
@stormhit:
’94 was a snore fest. Tim Vickery claims Brazil dropping the flair was a result of losing in 1982. Speed, size and strength.
Gotta love the reichwing. Phil Anschutz? Never heard of him.
The money guys profit and the rank and file get their hate on.
Occasional Reader
We’re getting ready to cheer on the USA against England here in London. Didn’t want to go to a pub for this one – there’s just too much pent up energy and potential for headbutting and other craziness ahead of the first England match. And the crowds are going to be nuts. Thought about the UT London alumi club party at Ye Olde Cock on Fleet Street, but in the end we found a jazz venue that’s having people in to watch the game on the big screen & dinner, followed by a gig by Brazil’s greatest living jazz accordionist. It’s shaping up to be an epic night!
Howard Y
Under Dunga, Brazil has taken a more defend-and-counter approach, so they don’t play quite as pretty as before. Spain and the Netherlands are where it’s at:
Spain v Poland friendly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSVosC73KAk
Netherlands v France (Euro 2008): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x0sVXDpIm4
Plus, if Brazil and the Netherlands both win their groups (as I expect them to), they’re on track to meet in the semis! Also, check out this post comparing World Cup teams to American sports teams if you want to get a feel for some of the history and style that they play with.
IronyAbounds
I for one have a problem with people who think think there is something wrong with America because soccer isn’t the be all and end all as well as with people who think there is something wrong with the rest of the world for embracing soccer. Why does anything have to be universal? Why does everything have to be a political statement? And if you disagree with me, go fuck yourself :)
mellowjohn
jude @ #22…
the brasilian women in the stands usually have me drooling.
Jude
@PanAmerican:
I would disagree, Pan. Romario and Bebeto rocking that baby to sleep? Maybe it wasn’t Socrates and Careca, but it was infinitely better than the 1990 team….now that was a snore fest. No flair, no will, just plain blah. For my money, the 1990 team was the nadir of Brazilian football….94 had Romario and Bebeto, 98 had imo one of the best teams of the modern era – Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Dunga, Rivaldo, and of course Ronaldo. That year is the reason I have so much difficulty supporting France.
That said, Spain’s team this year is glorious – if they don’t fall prey to their usual underacheiving, we should see some incredible midfield passing.
ThresherK
And yet they support sports in the US that have drafts that give the worst teams the top picks. The NFL splits its profits evenly across all of its franchises. MLB where the Yankees have to pay a luxury tax every year to the poor teams.
The word you are looking for is cartel, gummint-guaranteed in the case of baseball. Or as the slogan goes, “Soshialism for the classes (owners), competition ‘mongst the masses (players).”
At least a few players, like union reps, and Charles “I used to be a Republican until they went crazy” Barkley, have a clue.
My guess about football and Americans is that it’s one sport that doesn’t benefit from my country’s particular fondness for coaching a team to the nth degree, so authority figures can’t be hailed as geniuses after a last-minute miracle as in American football, baseball or basketball.
Oh, and if anyone else has read “Soccernomics”, let me know what you think. Beats the heck out of the climate-change-is-good-for-us Freakanomics, for my money.
r€nato
You know, there’s really not all that much keeping USA from being a football powerhouse.
Many kids play youth soccer… right up until high school, when they generally switch to the sexier sports that will get you chicks and scholarships and maybe even riches and fame.
So the problem isn’t that we don’t develop football talent; it’s that just as the talent is ready to bloom, they are shunted off into other sports, because that’s where all the incentives are.
Jude
@mellowjohn:
You have good taste. I had the good fortune to briefly date a Brazilian woman, and when she took me to a party, she said to me ‘It’s okay to look.’ I still remember that party.
bloke
John
talk about “ball handling” for any team managed by Diago “cheat” Maradona could be regarded as a Faux Pas. the Hand of God is one of tehmost infamous instances of game fixing ever in world cup history.
Randy Paul
@Jude: At my wife’s cousin’s wedding in Belo Horizonte fourteen years ago, I told her that if I were a single man, I would be convinced that I had died and gone to heaven at that moment.
In an earlier thread someone dissed the offside rule. I could not disagree with that more. The only change i would make in the offside rule would be that if a defending raises his arm on a possible offside call, the allegedly offside player would automatically be ruled onside, even if he were actually offside.
That would get rid of an ugly habit. Officiating should be left to the officials.
Stroszek
@Jesse: What I find funny is Glenn Beck’s belief that the rest of the world cares if most Americans don’t like soccer. He’s such a diva.
Stroszek
@r€nato: That’s true, but the problem for a lot of those kids is that someone who is talented at football isn’t necessarily talented at American football or basketball… and vice versa.
Just as Michael Jordan was a horrible baseball player, I’m sure there are plenty of potentially great American footballers languishing on their high school basketball teams.
Mike Lamb
@Jesse:
Anyone claiming that soccer is designed as a “poor man’s” sport, at least in this country, is utterly ignorant. The costs of playing for top flight youth club team are extensive. And if you don’t play on a team like that, the chances of playing college, let alone professionally, are slim.
wobblybits
@Jude: @Randy Paul: Yes, we are a beautiful people inside and outside.
Randy Paul
@wobblybits: Which is why I celebrated 16 joyous years of marriage to a Brazilian day before yesterday.
Mokichi
@Howard Y
I am so about the Dutch (have been a fan of the Dutch since ’94 and always hope they can recapture the elan they had in the 70s). They always struck me as the most “non-European” of the European teams. Also hoping Italy crashes and burns as quickly as possible.
wobblybits
@Randy Paul: parabéns! Wishing you many more beautiful years.
Randy Paul
@wobblybits: Obrigado!
Jude
@wobblybits:
Truly. If I believed in reincarnation I would want to come back as Brazilian. In the meantime, I’m learning to dance like one. It helps that I’m Ghanaian, and the beats are similar.
@Randy Paul:
Congratulations! That’s envy you hear in my voice, and happiness for you.
I lol’d at your new offside rule….half the world’s teams would be caught out on that one….hell, I would be.
West of the Cascades
Fuck terminology, it is great that you are watching and posting about it. And your instinct is right on – Argentina is just a more skilled team and deserved more goals (great game by the Nigerian goalie).
Maxwel
I’m amazed that noone’s mentioned the incessant. obnoxious air horns. In the past you’d hear chanting by the fans – now it’s airhorns.
Stroszek
@Maxwel: They’re not air horns. They’re some kind of traditional South African trumpet.
Hanspeter
The vuvuzuelas are traditional to SAfrica. However, Mexico and Latin America have been using them for ages (called corenetas there). So much so that the Univision announcer yesterday mentioned that Mexico was already used to the altitude and the cacophany and neither should be much of an issue for them.