wc06: recap and lasting memories

The World Cup is over and, as I struggle to resume a normal sleeping pattern again, here are one man's subjective thoughts about the month-long footie-fest:

• the winners: Italy may be antagonistic, diving, whingeing jackasses, but I honestly feel they are worthy victors. They survived what turned out to be the Group of Death (each of the four teams had legitimate chances to qualify for the knockout rounds when the third match of the group stages kicked off), they turned aside a tricky Oz encounter (regardless of how dubiously they did it), they dismissed Ukraine, saddened the host nation, and held their nerve in a PSO. They had in Fabio Cannavaro arguably the more worthy Golden Ball winner. They had a goalkeeper in Gianluigi Buffon who nearly set a clean-sheet record. They had, except against Germany and despite all the attacking talent and flair available, a most boring, though effective, style of play. I still don’t like Italy. l”
• best one-game team performance: Argentina 6-0 Serbinegro. Mesmerising performance that was not to be duplicated, mostly because of coach Jose Pekerman’s over-reliance on Juan Roman Riquelme and squeamishness in going with his cast of talent on the bench that remained there for far too many minutes of the tournament.
• goal of the tournament: There were several candidates from which to choose: Torsten Frings’s goal v. Costa Rica in the Cup opener; Phillip Lahm’s in the same match; Joe Cole’s v. Sweden in the group stages; Bastian Schweinsteiger’s 2nd goal v. Portugal in the consolation game; Nuno Gomez’s goal v. Germany in the 3rd/4th place match; Maxi Rodriguez’s goal v. Mexico in the round of 16; David Beckham’s free-kick v. Ecuador in the round of 16; Darijo Srna v. Australia in the group stages; Tomas Rosicky’s v. USA in the group stages; Esteban Cambiasso v. Serbinegro in the group stages; Carlos Tevez v. Serbinegro in the same match; Fernando Torres v. Ukraine in the group stages. My vote goes to Maxi Rodriguez’s volley in the round of 16 v. Mexico. I still can’t believe it–and at what a time, too. Sensational.
• best team not to make the final 16: Ivory Coast. The orange-clad Elephants had the misfortune of making their World Cup debut in a difficult group (Argentina, Holland, Serbinegro), but they managed to play well, be entertaining, and leave us with a feeling of “What if they’d been in a different group…” They lost by identical 1-2 margins to Argentina and Holland, but managed a two-goal comeback to defeat the Serbs, 3-2. They, along with round-of-16 entrant Ghana and a host of fellow continentals who didn’t even qualify (among them, Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, and Morocco), give Africa hope to perform well in 2010 when the World Cup is played on African soil for the first time.
• most disappointing team(s): Czech Republic, Iran. Many people will say Brasil, England, Spain, Holland, USA or Argentina, but I disagree. You must know your history or be practical in analysing this: Brasil never do well (relatively speaking) in European World Cups and had an ageing defense, so they did as well as I predicted (one of the few I got right); Argentina had the misfortune to go against Prussian karma too early; though I’d always had England winning it since the crash-out at Euro 2004, I knew better when Sven only picked 4 strikers, two of whom were recovering from foot injuries, one of whom is still trying to figure how to shave, and the fourth of whom looks like the poster child for tall people with eating disorders; Spain never do well in any international tournament and the sooner people start realising it (until Spain actually do win something), the less dumb they’re going to look; Holland was a bit too inexperienced and have much to look forward to in ‘08 and ‘10; and expecting the USA to carry forth the momentum from ‘02 was as much due to FIFA’s world rankings as anything. My vote for most disappointing team is draw between Czech Republic and Iran. The FIFA rankings are a farce, and while I could give a damn about Czech Republic’s status as the #2 ranked team in the world, there were high expectations across Europe and many other parts of the world for this team to do well and go far, but, aside from their opening-match thrashing of the Yanks, they were, quite frankly, crap, injuries notwithstanding. As for Iran, remember, this is a subjective list–I’d seen this team play quite a few times in the lead-up to the tournament and was convinced they were underrated because most footie observers are mainstream elitists who looked haughtily down at African and Asian football. However, the Persians looked old, creaky, and uninventive, very different from how they looked in qualifying and at the Asian Cup in ‘04. And they complained about the heat and bemoaned their own fitness. I had no idea that Tehran was so refreshingly cool and/or balmy year-round, thereby making the German summer so difficult to endure for the poor Iranians.
• most disagreeable team: Hands-down, it’s Portugal. Sorry, you Portu-philes out there, but it’s true. While they are not the only team full of prancing phairy princesses who dive better than Greg Louganis or a battalion of steroid-enhanced Chinese women, they stand alone as the best at what they do, led by that new gay icon (not my idea to think so, mind you, but others’ conception), Cristiano Ronaldo. They created a whole new genre of footie that I never thought had existed and hope will be cleaned up. If FIFA are going to suspend Rooney for two matches for stamping on Carvalho’s figs, if they’re going to investigate the rumours of racist taunting by Materazzi that induced Zizou’s head to introduce itself to Materazzi’s breast bone, if they’re publicly going to censure referees for merely doing what they were told by FIFA to do, then they ought to start suspending players for their acts of impudent behaviour designed to induce calls in their favour. Yes, that might have meant some matches where there were only five eligible players for each team at the start of kickoff as a result of previous indiscretions, but I’d rather watch five-on-five, full-pitch footie than a match full of turf divers.
• best kits: anything designed by Puma, most specifically Ivory Coast’s all-orange, Ghana and Iran’s all-red, and Angola’s red, yellow, and black strip with black shorts. Puma designed their kits very simply–for most teams, all solid colour strips and shorts with a minimum of stripes, and with a designed coded into the background of the kit to resemble a national treasure of the respective nations (for example, if you look closely at Togo’s strip, there’s a large silhouette of the sparrow hawk, the team and nation’s symbolic bird, on the bottom half of the front). Excellent stuff. Kudos, too, to Nike’s efforts this year, as they were crap for the ‘02 Cup. Going away from the template design of before where each team had the same design, but in their national colours, Nike went with designs that were more tailoured to each nation and were often a look back at the past, retro-style. USA’s all-blue change kit with the red and white horizontal stripe was classic 50s, as were Holland’s home orange with the collar & their white change strips with the blue and red diagonal stripe, and Mexico’s home green with a white chevron-type across the chest and the white change with said chevron stripe in green. Korea’s all-white ensemble was very cool and classy, as well. And, as always, I liked England’s change kit, the red shirt with the white shorts, as well as Argentina’s dark-blue change kit.
• worst kits: Why is it that Brasil, Italy, and Germany are afraid to wear their change kits? Each of these three teams only wore one ensemble the entire month. Personally, I like Germany’s red change strips and Brasil’s blue change strips very much. I have no idea what Italy’s change strips look like, or if they even have one. Korea’s new red strip with white shorts is much better than before (for one thing, the colour of the strip is not PINK this year), but the blue numbers are crap; go with white numbers. France’s change white isn’t so hot, not with the blue-and-red spider-web effect on the front. However, the worst kits have to be the ones made by Lotto and worn by Serbinegro and Ukraine. The six talon-like stripes, three down the left side and three down the right side, give the effect of a pinwheel toy or a woebegone windmill with hemorrhoids. Lotto should be banned from further kit-designing.
• national team that earned the most respect: Trinibago. One of the smallest nations ever to grace the World Cup stage and given no chance to do anything–even given less chance than Botswana, Suriname, Luxembourg, and Burma, none of whom were even in the World Cup–they battled their asses off to swipe a point from Sweden, gave England fits of paranoia, and troubled Paraguay to the very end. They didn’t score a goal, which was less than they deserved, but they played resolutely, gamely, and with pride that I’d like to have seen from others (England, Brasil, Iran). Kudos, too, to their hearty fans who danced and sang throughout all three matches and were very generous and genuine in their support for their national heroes.
• most entertaining match: for my money, it goes to Croatia v. Australia. With each team having to go all-out to qualify for the next round, it had all the makings from the very beginning of entertaining us. Croatia needed a win, Oz a draw, so when Croatia scored first, it was game on because Oz were desperate. When Oz levelled, Croatia resumed the desperate mantra. After the Croats went ahead for a second time, the frenzied play was again switched back to the Aussies. A late, late goal secured Oz’s passage. Adding to the affair was the scene in the stands and the atmosphere in the stadium, conveyed so gloriously to us even on television. The Croats sang and danced all match long (I got motion sickness watching 25,000 checkerboard-clad maniacs dancing the entire match; how the hell did the players make it through without decorating the pitch, ala Beckham v. Ecuador?) while 25,000 Aussies downed pints and plowed blow-up kangaroos in return. The remaining 10,000, not affiliated with either nation, either watched in bemusement or chose a side and followed suit. And what made the match even more entertaining than it already was? The referee. I guess all the checkerboard movement or kangaroo-plowing cost him his rudimentary math skills, as he proceeded to book the same Croat player three times before finally expelling him just after the match ended.
• most boring match: Switzerland 0-0 Ukraine, round of 16; I don’t remember it, however, as I slept through nearly all of it, even though I had downed several Red Bulls and speed beforehand…
• best individual player performance: Zinedine Zidane v. Brasil in quarterfinals. Shaka Hislop v. Sweden in group stages. Owen Hargreaves v. Portugal in quarterfinals. Arjen Robben v. Serbinegro in group stages. Cristiano Ronaldo as Superman in semifinals. Ricardo v. England in quarterfinal PSO. Okay, so the Ronaldo entrant is not a serious entrant, but it was quite an audition for the next Superman movie. My pick is a toss-up between Zizou’s and Hislop’s, with the nod going slightly to Zidane because his came on a much bigger stage and was arguably more unexpected. Hislop in goal was amazing for the ten-man Soca Warriors against Sweden, as the Swedes pummeled him for nearly the whole of the second half of their match. He was up to the occasion time and again and thoroughly frustrated the Swedes so much that the nil-nil draw had the look of defeat to the Swedes and unbelievable victory to the tiny island nation. Though Zizou had done well in the round of 16 match v. Spain, no one expected the performance against Brasil, which was a transport back to the late 90s/early 00s when Zizou was unquestionably the greatest player on the planet. His performance was scintillating and he controlled the midfield and the pace of the match nearly by himself. It was an unexpected legendary performance that not many saw coming.

The World Cup was a lot of things, but it’s going to be a long time before it’s remembered for anything other than Zidane’s momentary loss of consciousness. Even Italy’s championship is nearly being overshadowed by most of the international media. And with rumours swilling around about what Materazzi said to provoke Zizou, Zizou set to speak publicly about it in a few hours, and the fact that his Golden Ball award might be stripped from him, the furor is not going to die down soon.

It’s too bad, though inevitable in today’s world of mass media and the frenzy it produces at times. Hopefully, with our recap of the World Cup hardly broaching the subject, you, the Reader, will be reminded of all the wonderful and wacky things that happened in this World Cup. And, of course, remember that the above comments were purely one man’s opinion; if I was remiss in leaving some things out or in neglecting to mention other things, my apologies in advance. Perhaps you’ll introduce your own ideas in the “comments” section for us all to ruminate over.