England - Paraguay

England 1-0 Paraguay

The first highlight came in the third minute by Michael Owen. David
Beckham took a beautiful and nasty free kick (from way out) right to
Michael Owen's head, but intercepted by Carlos Gamarra, who tried to
clear but misheaded it down where it took a nasty bounce in front of the
keeper and went in. So it was an own goal by Gamarra, but Michael Owen
starts waving his arms and accepting celebratory pats on the head (he's
a small fry) like he's just scored. He did run and join the pile on
Beckham, so it may be uncharitable to describe him as claiming credit,
but it is a lot funnier. Admittedly not as funny as the comparison of
England's star-studded team to the Real Madrid "Galacticos" era when
they bought an aging superstar every year, which is a really odd
reference since the English Galacticos (Owen and Beckham) did nothing on
the field, although Beckham at least sold a lot of knock-off #23 jerseys
in China. There's a definite theme of misapplying credit developing
too, as Marcello Balboa just complimented England's sportsmanship in
putting the ball out of play to allow an injured Paraguayan player to
get treatment, even though Paraguay kicked the ball out of bounds
themselves (England threw the ball back in to Paraguay, which was
sportsmanlike).

This team is arguably the best England has fielded since the 80s, so
their excuse if they lose will probably top Brazil's France'98 "Killer
Virus" bit... seriously though, they didn't win their group, weren't
dominating against Denmark or Holland, and then when they lose to France
in Paris it was clearly the work of a virus that strikes overrated
football teams without warning. To be fair the source of my bitterness
is Patrick Kluivert missing the sitter against Brazil in '98 and 2
penalties in '00 that denied the world a full-strength France-Holland
game when they were both peaking. (Maybe they should have put a car
with a case of whiskey and a naked 14 year old in it behind the net.)

There's also a theme developing in the three games I've seen, where the
Europeans are really hamming it up and working the refs. So far it's
only the euros doing that really prissy yellow card gesture, putting
their hands up to call offsides (saving the linesmen the trouble), and
cartwheeling or going limp like they've been hit with a cattle prod when
somebody makes contact. To be fair, I did just see Beckham get serious
hang time when his legs were swept out from under him at thigh level
right as he was following through on a long pass, so some of it is
real. Peter Crouch slumping like he got hit with the Vulcan neck pinch
because he got beat out for a header from behind is a bit much though.
England is making the case for why that's caught on in Europe though
with the constant studs-up flying karate kicks. At least 7 fouls called
on Peter Crouch alone, and he's a striker for god's sake. At one point
Steven Gerrard completely missed both leg and ball with a wild dive into
a studs-up sliding tackle, and as the Paraguayan player who had just
released the ball jumped out of his way with a confused look, Gerrard
leaps up in a panic and wildly throws himself at another player with one
foot aimed at the ball and the other at the guy's knee, and can't figure
out why he gets a yellow card. This is why Manu Petit (aka My Little
Pony), after leaving Arsenal, described them as confusing fighting
spirit with actual fighting.

Here's my solution to the problem of European cynicism in soccer: trade
it for basketball. Basically we have similar problems in the NBA as in
the top European leagues, that greed and cynicism have squeezed all the
fun out of the game, with time-outs being called every time an NBA game
gets exciting, endless one-on-one isolations, professional fouls, and in
Europe 10 men behind the ball, bunker down and tentatively wait for a
mistake, hard fouling encouraging diving and games being decided on set
pieces really make both games suffer. I think we just need to trade
games for a few years, and then maybe we can come back to it and figure
out what we liked in the first place. Because it sure wasn't Karl
Malone launching himself backwards and sliding 20 feet across the floor
because a 185 pound point guard bumped him and he wants to stop the
clock and shoot free throws, nor was it having some journeyman from a
relegation bound team during some meaningless game rip Francesco Totti's
leg off and beat him with it to keep him from getting a shot off. The
exception is France, they were the only team in the world with the
gigantic balls to send the whole team forward in situations where the
rest of the world played not to lose (France scored 3 golden goals
before anybody else had 1) and Henry and Trezeguet were the only ones
able to laugh it off when they kept hitting the goalposts and the
crossbar in the last World Cup.

That's my proposal, anyways. And don't call and tell me the score of
the Sweden-Trinidad or Argentina-Cote d'Ivoire games.