Ghana, by far, has been my favorite team to watch. Just a very nice flow to their game, and they seem to have a distinct plan of attack and strategy (use speed and an opportunistic passing game to push the ball down the wings, and try a centering pass), something that wasn’t very apparent in the Slovenia/Algeria game nor from the French or Americans.
Also, Ian Darke sounds like Eric Idle, and I feel like the whole match is a Monty Python sketch.
Additionally, you can count me as a supporter of the vuvuzelas. With them, all the dancing and chants, and the awesome hats, it really makes this into something special and unlike any other sporting event. Also, unlike American sporting events, there is a sort of look of unbridled joy in the crowd shots at the World Cup.
*Obligatory warning that I have no idea what I am talking about, just noting my observations.
stuckinred
Just how do you hear them? I can’t.
El Cid
Watching on Univision HD is pretty fun. Great commercials too.
Toast
The vuvuzelas are stupid and annoying. I like noise at a sporting event. Cheering, chants, shouting, whatever. But a monotonous, droning, irritating background noise that never varies, never stops, and is not generated in response to the events on the field? The upside of that evades me.
The Disgruntled Chemist
West African countries are usually fun to watch. Portugal vs. Ivory Coast on Wednesday should be a hell of a game.
zzyzx
@Toast: Actually it does vary. It gets a lot louder during dangerous free kicks. In general though I never quite understood that either…
The Disgruntled Chemist
@The Disgruntled Chemist: Make that Tuesday, which sucks because I’ll be teaching. Damn!
Zach
I like all of those other things, but not the constant horn drone. They are the thunder sticks of spherical football. If they’re going to provide a method of being obnoxious without screaming yourself horse they might as well permit megaphones. I do approve of the people who bring and play actual instruments, although I worry about the utility of a trumpet in a soccer riot.
Face
The amount of scoring in these games is similar to that found at a BYU frat party.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@The Disgruntled Chemist:
I’m hoping that ESPN3 is working at the office this week. The boss is out of town tomorrow so I can watch pretty much all morning.
I’m a slacker’s slacker. If I have work to do I might as well hold off until there’s someone around to notice me doing it.
wobblybits
I like the Vuvuzelas as well but that might be because we have the same thing in Brasil (corneta) and they are just part of the game. To be honest, I don’t even hear them after a few minutes have passed.
Randinho
Thank you, ESPN for leaving out Tommy (“bulge in the old onion bag”) Smyth.
The Disgruntled Chemist
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: I forgot about ESPN3! I’m done teaching at 10:30, so if I run back to my office I can catch the end of the first half.
wobblybits
great save (I’m a bit behind watching the match. I was referring to Ghana’s save)
Nemo_N
Most teams have been so timid; I hope that by their third game they will be pressed to go out.
Tim P.
Type “those fucking horns” into google. Ten out of ten of the first page results are about the vuvuzelas. They’re awful in every sense of the word.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Hand ball in the box!
JenJen
Wooohoooo Ghana!!
@Toast: You know, I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about the vuvuzelas that I find so annoying, but then yesterday, it hit me: They sound like cicadas. On steroids. And I freaking hate cicadas.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Wow! Today I have seen two of the dumbest hand balls I’ve ever seen.
wengler
Ghana winning this game is really going to shake up this group. Awesome finish on that PK.
The Disgruntled Chemist
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: And a totally unnecessary one at that. Ghana wasn’t putting that ball on goal.
wobblybits
woohooo Ghana!!!!
valdivia
Go Ghana! I am actually in Costa Rica where everything starts at 5 am local time to watch the games and life stops for the games. Pretty fun. Everywhere I go the games are on. Every channel is futbol all the time with great commentary. I watched the Argentina game yesterday on an Argentinian channel and the announcers were hilarious. Can’t wait for the Germany game a little later on.
JenJen
@valdivia: How fun!!
During the 2006 World Cup, I was in Washington, DC for a two-week business trip for a new hotel opening. None of us would show up to work until noon, preferring to head to DuPont Circle to watch the matches. Every corner bar was like a mini-UN. It was just so awesome.
Bootlegger
An offensive primer, there are basically five tactical offenses in football:
Attack the flanks and cross the ball into the middle. Used by teams with speed to burn and a powerful forward or two. Ghana uses this, the US tries to. A key to this offense is the overlapping fullbacks (outside defender) that give the attackers a numeric advantage on that side.
Play through the middle of the field. Used by teams with strong passing skills and a well-developed short passing game. Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Holland are in this mold. Serbia tries as well.
Play over the top, aka “Route 1”, “direct” Bypass the midfield by playing the ball directly from the defense to the forwards over the top of the opponents midfield and defense. Used by teams with little speed or ball skills, can be effective with good arial forwards that can win the ball and either turn toward goal or lay it off for a running teammate. The US once relied solely on this tactic and sometimes fall back on it. The Danes will use it and the English are masters of using the “target forward” but are also able to play other tactics.
Defend and counter Possession is conceded to the opponent and the defense packs all 10 players in their own half with two lines of four compressed close to the penalty box. The attacking team gets lots of possession but find no room to get close to the goal and if they do they find no room to shoot. The offensive strategy is to draw your opponent upfield, win possession, then break out on a counterattack with superior numbers. Almost always used by a team that has an extreme technical (skill) disadvantage, but some teams use it as a primary tactic. Italy won the last World Cup using it and in this cycle Brazil has employed it more. If it can work for an inferior team, what could a more skilled team do with it? Play a game as ugly as the Azurri’s.
Of course good teams combine these and can play any of them depending on the circumstances of the game. Often defenses will try to take away a team’s primary tactic and force them to play one of the other tactics. When the US beat Spain in the Confederations Cup we clogged up the middle of the field and took away their midfield passing game. This forced them outside where they delivered cross after cross into the middle, where they were met by our super-sized defenders. Probably Bob Bradley’s best tactical decision ever…even a blind squirrel and all that.
Joel
I hate the vuvuzelas. I hope the world cup does them in Mike Veeck-style.
burnspbesq
@Randinho:
He’s on ESPN Radio.
Svensker
They drive me fucking nuts. We had to turn off the tv yesterday, even tho we both wanted the games in the bg, but it was like having a bad 70s film — Attack of the Killer Bees — on for 4 hours. They have no mouths but I must scream! The only thing good about vuvuzelas is the name.
Flugelhorn
Yes. The World Cup and vuvuzelas. What a winning combination. The boredom of paint drying crossed with the sound of fighter planes in a diving freefall in the midst of an attack of Africanized “killer bees”. What is there not to like?
Hanspeter
@wobblybits: Thank you!! They’re common in Mexico as well, and I’m amazed at the number of commentators who suddenly discovered them this year (or at the last Confed Cup) and claim they’re this new evil. In the RSA-Mex match, the Univision announcer even stated that neither the altitude nor the vuvuzuelas would affect the Mexico team much because they’re used to both.
debbie
Those vuvuzelas have made the World Cup unwatchable for me. It’s like the other morning, when I got to hear The Concerto from Hell, composed from the combined efforts of a jackhammer breaking up sidewalks, a street sweeper/cleaner idling outside my apartment building, a car siren, and a leaf blower. Individually, I might have tuned them out, but all at once was just too much.