This game is being held under the somewhat hyped up controversy of Luis Aragones' racist remarks about France star Thierry Henry. I'm not defending Aragones, and I think he probably has to be a bit of a moron considering the circumstances, but his remarks are now two years in the past. I say he has to be a moron for referring to Henry as "that black shit" in front of TV cameras, when following the game one of his players had to go back to London, where he and Henry are teammates. Now, two guys on the Spanish squad play for Arsenal, so it's triply dumb to talk like that in front of them, in front of cameras, and pretty much just in general, so that's why I say he has to be a few squids short of a paella. Of course now when Henry does work against racism in football now he has a televised incident to point to, thanks to Aragones.
This and other incidents really do point to a generation of important people in football that really needs to be put on an ice floe and pushed out to sea, as modern society and the game pass them by. Van Basten and Klinsmann had it right dumping over the hill legends with attitude problems, and Arena and Domenech might have done better not to lean on past-it guys who played in previous World Cups. I'd like to get rid of more people, like the players from the 1990 US team who keep moaning on TV about how in their day kicking the other team's best player in the kneecap 30 seconds after the game starts was just good strategy. I know the brighter stars of English sporting journalism have said the same about using the 1950's British style as a basis for analysis, with the result being that English managers can't cut it even in England. Seriously, the closest they've got is like one Scotsman who's about to retire, and if you don't believe me, google for the pessimism of England fans regarding their new boss, Steve McLaren. Case in point, Rooney looks like he could play a much more sophisticated, controlled game as a mezzapunta behind either a speedster or a centre-forward, so they played him up front on his own against Ecuador. But he's the spearhead of a generation that can play a different style and will coach a different style. In my opinion, anyways.
On a related note, there's a lot of concern over France's rigid adherence to a 4-5-1 with two defensive midfielders and a playmaker, especially since they have basically one classic playmaker left, and he doesn't do anything else like tackle or run. They looked a lot sharper without Zidane against Togo, but to be fair, Togo's a slightly easier nut to crack than Switzerland. Keeping Zidane on the field also means benching David Trezeguet, a guy who compliments Henry's wide roaming really well and has scored a bucketful of goals for France.
Now with all that pre-match moaning out of the way, here's what actually happened. Frank Ribery played a fantastic game, coming through in a way he hadn't up to this point, and Zidane was really a force as a playmaker, and considering the number of offside calls for France, his awareness of who was on and off and ability to hold the ball up waiting for better timing probably helped France out a lot. Henry spent the whole game way up front, and Spanish defenders were letting him get out there then moving up to put him offside, and Henry would stay there. His tactic for the day was to let the defenders count him out as offside, drift so he'd have space and they couldn't catch him, then jump back even with the defenders when the pass was made, and take off like the speedy little motherfucker that he is. The linesman was evidently in serious disagreement about his sense of timing, though, and Henry got about 80 offside calls.
Spain took an early lead on a really tight call, where Patrick Vieira came up a bit slow on a challenge on Pablo, and got to him as Pablo turned and shielded he ball from him. Vieira held up, but stepped on Pablo's foot, sort of, a bit, you know, barely, but in a game that was being called tight, it was a penalty. No card though, thank god, since it was neither reckless nor intentional. David Villa easily converted the penalty with a pretty nice shot, just inside the left post where Barthez had no chance. This World Cup has been low-scoring and stable, with no real come from behind wins except Australia against Japan, but if anybody was going to do it, it would have to be France, who never seem to care what the score is. I really couldn't believe France hadn't scored a bit before that, when Ribery burned the whole defense and then squared the ball across the goal, and Vieira just barely missed getting a foot to the ball to put it in, so I figured they'd come back.
In the 41st minute, Ribery streaked between two defenders chasing a ball sent through by Vieira, and drifted left as Iker Casillas came out of goal to meet him, dribbled around Casillas and went far post. Both defenders had given up on chasing him and headed for the goal when Casillas came out, and Ribery's shot went tantalizingly close in front of them, which has got to be the ultimate French goal, "I put zee ball past your feet so zat zere can be no question zat it is I who 'ave beaten you." Also classic was Henry, way offside on the far side of the field when Vieira made his pass, stopping hard, putting his hands up to indicate he wasn't pursuing the play, and gesturing to the linesman to keep his flag down, so Ribery's goal wouldn't be blown by Henry's passive offside position.
The big controversy of this game was definitely when Thierry Henry suffered a severe facial injury from Carlos Puyol's left arm brushing his chest. Apparently there are some significant nerve clusters very close together that sometimes cause Henry's face to hurt when somebody hits his chest, it's all very technical. As much of an Henry fan as I am (and I'm not even saying there wasn't contact) that was a Cesar winning performance. It was a long free kick, taken by Zidane, deflected to the back post where Patrick Vieira headed it down just in front of the line, and the downward header and resulting bounce up into the goal were too hard for Casillas to get to, and France went up 2-1.
In injury time a surprisingly deft one-touch pass by Sylvain Wiltord (described by Arsenal fans as having the first touch of a rapist) went to Zinedine Zidane coming in from the left. Zidane faked Carlos Puyol out of his boots, and as Zidane went around Puyol he made like he was going far post with his shot, and Casillas played the shot that way, setting up a tough shot. Zidane instead hooked his right foot around the ball sufficiently to send it near post, and that was all she wrote. Wiltord was arguably offside in the box, right by Casillas, which could have been interpreted as screening the keeper or interfering with play, so that's two controversial goals for France, but also one for Spain, and that just leaves Ribery's "Ha Ha, stamp collection!" first half goal.
France will play Brazil in the quarterfinals, where I think all the lasagna obviously accumulating around Ronaldo's waist will be the decisive factor.
France 3-1 Spain
'27 David Villa (pen)
'41 Ribery
'83 Vieira
'92+ Zidane
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