The Best and Worst of the 2010 FIFA World Cup

I am interested in fairness.  Impartiality is not in my nature, but it interests me. 

So, Spain won the World Cup. Congratulations to that long-suffering country, with its brutal history of imperialism, pogroms, expulsions, and inquisitions and its culture of colonial mineral wealth extraction, decrepitude, and unemployment.

(For the record, Barcelona is one of my favorite places in the world and I actually adore its café culture and the fact that Roberto Bolano , though Chilean, wrote his best fiction in Catalonia, primarily up the Costa Brava ). 

I’d like to say that I’m pleased for the team, that it was a victory of quality football. But those would be false sentiments.

Other pundits can stand up and crow about the beautiful game winning over Northern European tactical dourness.  Not me. 

As far as I’m concerned, there is only one real problem with international football, one plague so endemic that it turns even me, much less the casual fan, off from the game. 

Diving.  That’s what you saw from every single Spanish player who ventured forward whenever they lost the ball or their positioning—especially the goal scorer, Andres Iniesta .

This Guy Did Not Do His Job Well

I want to blame Howard Webb, England’s sole meaningful contribution to this year’s World Cup.  After all, he’s the one who consistently gave fouls when players went down untouched or when they somehow fell dramatically forward, despite being barely held back, like the dive that got Heitinga his second yellow card. 

But it’s not Webb’s fault—although he horribly officiated a poorly-played game.  The fault lies with FIFA and culture.

First, FIFA .  Referees are supposed to yellow card players who dive .  But the rule is interpreted such that no player is ever carded unless he falls down without being touched at all.  So now you have what you saw today, which is a little bit of contact in the form of an honest attempt to win the ball, followed by some jackass rolling around on the ground like he’s just been punched between the eyes by Javier Bardem’s cow-killer. 

The ref, according to FIFA , is supposed to give the foul and may not punish the overacting player.  That needs to change.  We can’t have games like today’s broken up by playacting. It kills the tempo, distracts from the football, makes it impossible to justly punish offenders, and adds a HUGE element of estrogen to the whole proceeding.

So the simple solution is to allow referees to also caution players who overreact to fouls.  And my God, it should have happened before this final.

Second, the culture.  I hate to do this, but it’s Mediterranean (and colonies influenced thereby).  Maybe the quality of life is such that any affront or physical contact FEELS worse than it actually is?  I don’t know. 

But I do know it is not a part of the English, Scottish, Scandinavian, or German games, Klinsmann excepted.  It’s a huge part of Italian, Spanish, Argentinian, and Mexican games. 

Dives have become the norm because it is what the refs, coaches, and fans in those leagues expect.  You can never tell whether someone is hurt.  Winning an unjust penalty is considered part of the game.  It is so pervasive in these countries that only FIFA can address it.  And it should be easy to do in international tournaments, because it is entirely predictable as to which teams are going to be doing it. 

Let’s face it—Iniesta was a complete and utter embarrassment today.

I’m on record for disliking the full extent of the violence permitted in the English game.  And it may be that the diving in other leagues keeps that from happening.  But there has to be a way to do it right.  You have to let the referee have the tools to call the game properly and you have to require that he do so.    

Now today’s game: Briefly, it went about like I expected, although I thought Robben would bury one of his one v. one chances against Casillas .  He didn’t, so the Dutch lost. 

Otherwise, the Dutch game plan, while cynical, was perfectly executed.  Van Bommel and De Jong kept the game in front of them and rattled Iniesta and Xavi throughout.  Villa got very little service.  Sneijder did not dominate, but he did create enough opportunity for the Dutch to win—it was his through ball that played Robben in when he choked in the first half. 

Spain was boring and showed little inventiveness until Fabregas came on and took advantage of tired legs.  Spain never played with any width and continued to butt against a strong Dutch middle.  The eventual goal was a nice one. 

But Iniesta should have received a straight red card for his off-the-ball foul in the second half, for which he did not so much as receive a yellow card!  That was the worst of Webb’s decisions.

Webb had his hands full.  It was a physical game.  That was the Dutch plan.  Webb tried to walk the tightrope between not letting the physicality get out of hand and not sending players off in a World Cup final. 

He kind of succeeded.  But he did so by getting far too whistle-happy and not letting the teams play.  He lost control of the match for long periods of time and dealt out some dumb yellow cards, while also failing to deal with serious infractions like Iniesta’s.

It was a dour match, as finals usually are.  Neither team wants to lose and each becomes so focused on not losing that it forgets to try to win.   That’s what happened today. 

The chances were few and far between.  Spain dominated possession without ever looking dangerous—excepting Sergio Ramos missing an open header from five yards out and Stecklenburg saving nicely from a one-on-one with Fabregas. 

The Dutch played to fast break, and their best chances were through balls to Robben off of strong tackles in the midfield.  They did enough to win without ever looking coherent offensively. 

And that’s that.  The 2010 World Cup in the books.  I wanted to finish with a quick best and worst list:

Best:

1.  Diego Forlan —a welcome dash of class.  His goal against Germany yesterday was the best of the entire tournament for degree of difficulty and perfection of technique.  His running off the ball was immaculate and he created Uruguay’s most dangerous chances.  He is a wonderful player at his peak and this was the performance of the tournament for me.

2.  Bastian Schweinsteiger —truly a force of nature and already a better player than Michael Ballack ever was.  He is strong, fast, technical, and tackles well—there is nothing he doesn’t do well.  This was quite a coming out party for him.

3.  Argentina—they just went after goals every time they played.  Their weakness was at the back and rather than trying to paper it over, they just attacked.  A pleasure to watch and welcome change to the defensive cynicism to which we’ve all grown accustomed.

4.  Michael Bradley—dude made himself some money this tourney.  He had a brilliant goal against Slovenia, had great play throughout the tournament, was solid in possession,  and had good passing, good tackling, and great positioning. He can be the first real box-to-box midfielder the US has produced since Claudio Reyna and has the ability to be even better than Reyna.

5.  Chile—a really fun team to watch.  They attacked in waves and fielded a bunch of young, fast, and talented players.  They suffered for lack of a striker.  If they could finish, they could have had a wonderful run.

6.  Wesley Sneijder —the best Dutch player since Dennis Bergkamp .  He outshone Arjen Robben (who reminds me of a rec-league basketball player who shows up 20 minutes before the game, stretches his entire body, wears a giant knee brace, and then shoots 80 percent from the arc—how he is fast I will never understand) and Van Persie.

7.  Barcelona’s youth program—everything good about Spain’s Cup-winning team started on the Catalonian training grounds from which Puyol , Iniesta , Xavi , Pedro, Pique, and Fabregas emerged.  A victory for the most successful system in Europe and the most successful system since the Ajax youth teams of the 1980’s.

Worst:

1.  Italy and France— don’t bring old players to a young player’s tournament.  The problems on both teams had a lot to do with selection.  They underperformed and embarrassed their respective nations.  I’m pleased by this.

2.  England—ugh.  Terrible.  Get younger and get technical or you’ll never have a chance.

3.  Officiating—horrendously awful, uniformly.  The players are bigger and faster, but the referees are the same.  The game has evolved to the point where no one person can keep up with it, even if ably assisted by linesmen.  Something has to give .

4.  ESPN’s bizarrely racist intros to games — You know, the whole “Circle of Life” thing they had going with the young, black, African children running around in loincloths.  It was painful.  It was only fitting that they chose Bono to do the theme song. 

5.  ESPN miking the players while they struggle to sing their national anthems off-key — Ugly.

6.  North Korea—everything about them: the fake fans, the terrible players, the weird coach, the whole thing.

7.  The Argentinian goal keeper—I’m not even bothering to Google his name.  He looks like a woodman in a 70’s porno set in New Jersey.  He plays goalie like one, too.

So, tell me what you liked, didn’t, etc. 

Oh, this is directed to the Spaniard: I understand the long-term psychological effects of the successful Moorish occupation of Spain and know that it explains much of what I mock the country for getting hilariously wrong.  I’m mostly kidding anyway.

This article is from the blog : Pitchmen

Follow on Twitter: @PitchmenGoal