Demolition men

I watched all of the second game, although I saw the first hour of it quite a few hours before seeing the last half hour.

It started out like a deadly-serious chess match between two teams that were both out to win the game one-nil.  And for that time, Spain looked like the better team; they were possessing the ball more and doing more with it when they had it.  But what was interesting was just how clogged the middle of the field was; both teams were heavily pressuring the ball to force turnovers.

They managed to get the ball behind all but one defender twice; the first of those resulted in a ball out of bounds as that one defender blocked the pass across.  I think the other resulted in a goal kick when Spain missed the net.  Between those two, they did manage to take the lead on a penalty kick following a pretty-bad call in the box.  Knowing what both teams were playing for, I thought about tweeting, "Game over?" after that, but was glad I didn't.

And that's because, after that, the Dutch started to come back, slowly.  They only really got close to the goal once, but started to hold the ball a lot more and work it down a bit.

That one time close, however, came when one of the midfields, near the sideline and just inside the attacking half, saw van Persie make a run toward the net and lofted it towards the box.  van Persie had to wait for it to get there, but he had lots of time (I'm not sure what the goalie was doing, but I suspect he couldn't make up his mind whether to come out to challenge the pass or to wait for the shot) and calmly lofted it (from a hair inside the 17-yard line) over the goalie and into the net.  That was in the forty-fifth minute, and that considered tweet was already looking ill-considered.

Things seemed to stay about the same with the start of the second half, with a lot of pressure, Spain mostly looking better, and not much really happening.  But about ten minutes in, Robben was found making a run across the middle.  The ball came down in front of him, as he was running, but he corralled it with one foot, and pulled it back toward the middle, giving himself a little space from the two defenders on him.  He got half a step, and pounded it into the net, with a slight deflection from one of the defenders.

And from there, it was almost all the Netherlands.  They had a couple more chances (including van Persie putting a hard shot across off the crossbar right at the sixty-minute mark) before they started finding the net again.

Four minutes later, van Persie got the goalie's attention on a cross into the box.  The ball sailed over both, into de Vrij's head and then one of his feet, finally going into the net at de Vrij hit the post.

A minute or two after it became three-nil, Spain's last real chance came, and it ended with David Villa putting it into the net.  Unfortunately, he was called off-sides, and that was the end of the game seeming competitive.

Seven minutes after de Vrij's goal, van Persie scored again, and Robben finished the scoring eight minutes later on a very long and impressive run, that ended with him running the goalie to ground and calmly slotting it into the net.

That might have been the end of the scoring, but the Dutch had several more chances before the end (including at least one where the goalie went down, but they couldn't put the shot on net).

It ended in utter annihilation of Spain, and made you wonder if it is the end of Spain's dominance on the international level.  My suspicion is that it is, although I still see Spain as competitive for a while longer (perhaps until the next World Cup).  I certainly don't see Iker Casillas getting much more (if any) chance in goal.  We'll see, I guess.

And the Dutch, of course, are flying as high as they can.  We'll see how that carries over into their play in the next game.

Wretched start to World Cup

I watched most of the opening game of the World Cup yesterday.  Unfortunately, I turned it on a minute or two after Croatia stunned the hosts with an opening goal (yes, an own-goal, technically),
but watched the Brazilian methodical attack work its way down the field time after time.

And that's pretty much what was going on for the rest of the first half.  Croatia was almost entirely defensive in its posture, and wasn't passing crisply enough to mount a real attack in return.

Neymar did manage a goal on a combination of not-good defense (they gave him (Neymar!) too much space) and a well-placed shot (it went off the inside of the post, after the goalie missed it by an inch or two) to equalize ten or fifteen minutes later.

But beyond that, Brazil really didn't have much in the way of chances, either.  They had close to 70% of the possession (I do wonder how that's calculated; touches, completed passes, time?), but that was all they had to show for it.

So the second half began with the game still tied, though it looked like it'd be a stretch for Croatia to maintain that.

They did for a while, and even mounted a couple attacks of their own, but then things took a turn for the worse.  The Lusos mounted a quick counterattack, that looked fairly innocuous, but it ended with Fred taking a dive in the box and drawing a yellow card and penalty kick.  Neymar played some games in the run-up, and shot it high and to the side.  The goalie guessed correctly and got his hands on it, but it slipped through for a goal.

To make matters worse, five (or so) minutes later, the Croats put a ball into the Brazilian box, and a foul was called when the goalie backed into Olic (I think), who was heading it back into the middle.  By the time play stopped, the ball was in the Brazilian's net, but the (really terrible) foul call stood.

The Croats tried gamely, and put a bit of pressure on Brazil, but the Lusos were the ones who managed another goal in the waning minutes.  Oscar's run down the left side of center led to a shot that again found the inside edge of the net, just past the goalie.  Not sure what happened; the goalie seemed to react a bit slowly to the shot being taken.

And that was the end of the scoring.

There was never any doubt that the Brazilians were the better team in the game, but I'm not at all sure they deserved to win.  For sure, they got two huge, and undeserved, helpings from the ref, and that should dominate the game discussion.  It certainly should not have been a 3-1 final score.

And it doesn't get the competition off on the right foot, as it ends up looking like FIFA, through the refs, has a vested interest in Brazil moving forward.  You don't want people to start off talking about conspiracy theories and gambling fixes.  I don't think that's what was going on, but those were game-changing mistakes, both going in the same direction.  It doesn't look good.  I haven't looked yet, to see in what damage control FIFA has engaged, but I hope they've had something to say about it.

Update: It appears I might have been too generous in my interpretation.

Also, I forgot to mention the gratuitous use of the goal-line cameras on an unambiguous goal.  I think even the announcers were annoyed at that.

And I forgot to mention how entertaining Scolari was on sideline calls.  He was going ballistic over obviously-correct calls.  Gotta think the refs would hate having to hear that.