World Cup Special: Soccer! Soccer! Soccer soccer soccer!
My impressions from having watched bits and pieces of a handful of World Cup games:
Team USA: Shame on you. Awful performances. Yes, there was a lot of guts and glory in the game against Italy, but it wouldn’t have hurt the Americans if they had interspersed the near-brawling with a few minutes of soccer every now and then. Sure, America was in tough group, but it wasn’t tough because of the American team.
Germany - Sweden. I missed the first few minutes of the game, which was just as well. Beating Germany was a tall order, but collapsing like a bunch Mediterranean divas is inexcusable. Blaming the ref for the defeat is equally inexusable (even though, in all honesty, he was terrible). How Henrik Larsson missed the penalty-kick is a bit of a mystery. He explained to Swedish newspapers that he was actually aiming for the other side of the goal. No matter what he aimed for, he hit nothing but air. Would have been good for three points in football.
Argentina - Mexico. You have to hand it to the Mexicans: They played hard, and they played well. With some luck they could have beaten the perhaps overly confident Argies. Unlike the Americans, the Aztecs can return home with their heads held high.
England - Equador. The English were clearly better but they were shockingly bad at finishing off their attacks. Quite hilarious that Beckham won the game by bending a shot just past Equador’s goal keeper. I watched a few minutes of England’s game against Equador on Univision. That whole “Goooooooool” crap gets old really fast.
The same was true for the Dutch against Portugal. In fact, time and again I found myself thinking that one of the reasons I just don’t care much soccer is that so many almost exciting situations just fizzle. That, plus all the times when players lay writhing on the ground in excruciating pain even though replays show there was little if any physocal contact preceeding the grievous injury. That, plus a bunch of other things. A rather amusing aspect of the Dutch - Portugal game was the fantastic ball control play by the Portuguese during the last couple of minutes of play, where they simply toyed with the exhausted Dutch.
I hope England and Germany do well through the rest of the tournament. A word of caution to the English: Sweden scored only three goals in its four World Cup games, and two of them came against your side.
