World Cup is gaining momentum and adding intrigue
The World Cup in Germany, until recently, really wanted to compare with the autobahn. Chic expensive car, and you as a passenger in the back seat and do not even feel the speed. The landscape outside the window merges into a single whole: if you want, look at what rushes past, if you want, take root. After all, the next hour of the road is still unlikely to differ from the previous one.
So it went until Saturday. Readers of “Gazeta” and I parted on how the national teams of Germany and Ecuador legitimized their access to the playoffs, and made a small halt. The championship continued to sweep, no reports of any special incidents on the autobahn were reported.
One could wake up, say, during the break of the match England - Trinidad and Tobago. And marvel at the zeros on the scoreboard, which in the end the British will nevertheless podrihtut in their favor. Those who have not seen the game can glue a clever mine, grin and say: “Well, I would! Who would doubt it!”
However, in the homeland of football, they are watching the games of their team, and after the final 2-0 there was a decent amount of noise. Ericsson had to release Rooney during the match (the nation’s hope looked clear so far, he didn’t win a single speed combat), and the questions of the British journalists were more like advice: “Rooney is forever, right?”, “Owen will now sit on shop? ". Michael Owen freed Ericsson from the need to bustle and admire the fortress of the English defensive bastions. The footballer said that in his career he had to experience a lot, sitting on the bench - including. I agree, therefore ...
The British agreed among themselves. But to convince the armada of sympathizers (after all, the English team has a dark fans all over the world) has not yet succeeded. "Armor is strong" - that's for sure, but that "tanks are fast" can not be said. And since it so happened that reaching the playoffs by itself was not considered a special merit at this time, the number of predictors of the imminent demise of the English national team grew and grows. Although the British reached the playoffs, without any nerves, moreover. Unlike the same Swedes. “Yellow” play in Germany so far quickly and sharply, but unpretentiously. Not least because Ibrahimovic (their main venture), it seems, intends to “fill up” the season to the end. In a match with the Paraguayans, the Swedish mentor Lagerbek replaced Zlatan already during the break. Ibrahimovitch immediately began to nod at the injury, but what else should he nod at?
The Swedes have squeezed Paraguayans, and now the option of reaching the next round of Trinidad is, as they say, fantastic. Which, as you know, is on the second floor. The British and the Swedes - as ordered. Why wake up something? We go and drive, you can sleep ... And we will dream. About how in Munich in a match of one-eighth Germans will play with the British. It, of course, may not be with the British, but with the Swedes, and perhaps not in Munich. But this is a dream, such a sweet one. For everyone, sweet, except for the residents of Munich, in which there are a lot of not only greenery, but also glass windows, as well as cafes and restaurants. Although the police are many.
Something similar has long been dreamed of by German television people: not a day goes by that the average burgher can’t refresh the goal of “the name of Tofig Bahramov” (which, of course, wasn’t in German, it’s not even discussed here). Remember the Germans' revenge in the seventieth, when the substitute of the main goalkeeper of the English national team Gordon Banks - Peter Bonetti - didn’t throw goals into his own net, but the Germans still beat off from the score 0: 2, although there was a rematch. Recall and much, much more English-German. Paul Breitner in one of the television shows said that if the teams had a chance to play in this championship, they would compete, as if exchanging shirts: the current German national team has a lot from centuries of British recklessness. And the British are still playing sparingly in German.
And yet the Dutch play rather sparingly. It is a gift that those who watched the orange team closely did not expect any concerts from the Van Basten team, especially at first. However, it was foolish to hope that the Dutch would completely “guard” in the second round - Côte d'Ivoire would still not allow it. Van Basten, one must think, understood this. For the first half hour, Holland played sharply, widely and aggressively. But, of course, she did not play over two goals, although she scored twice. She herself, having been afraid of what she had done, must have stepped back. And - Ivorians went to circle. We won one ball, the second and a half half somewhere flew at the gates of Van der Sarah. However, the Dutch goalkeeper at the exits was not mistaken. The second victory of Holland, an early exit in the playoffs, and at the same time, everything said about the English national team can be said about the Dutch. Although to a lesser extent.
And so the “death group” turned out to be a quick, not painful death group. Although in order to be completely sure that "the deceased was not tormented before death," one still needs to ask the Serbs. A nice team of Ivorians left a good memory, it is true. But the team of Serbia and Montenegro fell under Argentina. 6-0 - Vladimir Shakhrin is really fit to write a new song. Only not in reggae style anymore ...
But Argentina is good. And if we are already on the autobahn, then it is better to compare the team of Jose Pekerman with the car. These are bang! - and fly off to the horizon, turning into a point in a second. High class ... After all, with the Serbs, having scored three wonderful goals before the break, the Argentines only created these three points. Fourteen accurate passes to each other - at the first ball scored. Twenty-four (!!!) - with the second. And so they switch gear from twentieth to twenty-first - and catch them! And on the podium he’s going crazy with the happiness of Maradona. You can even believe that he himself is ready to envy!
Pekerman released both Tevez and Messi in the second half. Each of them scored once. Which, of course, is not a guarantee that one of them (or both) will leave in the starting lineup. As a magical game of the Argentines, to this day is no guarantee that it will remain magical until the end of the championship ... Serbs, as they say, are allowed. Others will take action. After all, Hernan Crespo said at the end of this extravaganza: “There are games when everything turns out. But it doesn’t happen that such games happen all the time.” So with a guarantee - it is, of course, difficult. But with hope - this is another matter. While the championship is better than Argentina, no one plays.
And so it happened: the first group - everything is already clear. The second is almost everything. In the "group of death", too - everyone who was destined died. A day later, the Mexicans hit the bar three times in a match with Angola, but did not score anything, not too much, however, strongly twisting this zero draw intrigue in their group. The Portuguese defeated Iran. And now for Angola to exit, it is necessary to beat Iran with a difference of two or more goals (and the physically strong and organized Angola still does not make the impression of a team that can score “two on a circle”) and even wait for the loss (by no means seeming certain) of the Portuguese to the Portuguese motivated not to the maximum. Melnikov’s colleague even joked: “Fifteen participants in the playoffs will probably become known after the second round. Ukraine will fight with Saudi Arabia and Tunisia - the only intrigue, the third round will be a tour of demonstrations.” Every joke has some truth. Sleep well, car passengers. By the eighth finals you will be served fresh (at that time) newspapers ...
However (not too seriously, but symbolically) Saturday has become a milestone. Firstly, on the night of Friday to Saturday, a thunder thundered over almost the entire territory of Germany. And secondly, in the first of Saturday's matches, the referee ten minutes before the end awarded a penalty against Iran. For the demolition of Luis Figo. And the championship turned upside down. Who overslept Saturday night is himself to blame ...
There was only one penalty at the World Cup before. In the match Spain - Ukraine. The penalty spot is spectacular. As they say, left. In twenty with the rest of the indisputable cases (and we are not even talking about controversial cases), the arbitrators seemed to insert cards into their eyes. Versions of the Sudden hull representatives of mass idiosyncrasy on the penalty spot were as follows:
1) death to simulators (you will no longer fall in the penalty area);
2) new balls fly and rotate so fast that to allow them to score from a point as well is a luxury not permissible. Let threshed about thirty meters.
3) The playoffs are expected to be so stubborn that all penalties will be punched there. After the matches ...
4) one of the judges managing people “charged” a large amount to bookmakers.
Of course, such versions are born exclusively in the journalistic community and cannot be considered serious (and they do not claim any seriousness). However, by chance or not, and after the first fair penalty was awarded, another football went on. And I remembered: there were at least two “death groups” ...
And when the Ghanaian team (a lovely team, by the way, viscous and old-fashioned at first glance, but with a huge impulsive force, a correctly geometrically built game, one and a half or two touches on processing, dangerous moments - “not a club hit”, but “a stab with a sword “; in short, they play football, from which Van Basten wears out Holland - impractical, but beautiful, magical!) she cheated the Czechs so that a 2: 0 score could have seemed to Bruckner's ward just a gift (five outs of one on one, an unbeaten penalty, even Argentina did not carry Serbs), - then suddenly everything under were taken. Here it is, intrigue! A little rocked the car. The straight road is over. The pointer "To the mountains" appeared. Wake up!
And the road went hard, with three red cards. The match Italy - USA came out as if it had been purposely removed from the furnace of the alleged playoffs. Battle. The Americans have nowhere to retreat. After the match with the Czechs, Bruce Arena stuck his teeth: “Like, we will beat the Italians!” and hid his team at a NATO base. The Italians radiated calm - it was painfully great with Ghana. So they calmed down ...
Of course, the shooters were Americans. Eighteen fouls in the first half - this is more than another team collects for the entire game. But without eyes “for eight cents”, in a bare class, you won’t take Italy ... The exchange of a goal for an own goal came out soon and the degree of the game only increased. And the vile deed of the Italian midfielder De Rossi (who almost broke his cheekbone to McBride two meters from the referee), punished immediately and fairly (though De Rossi apologized after the game, but it shouldn’t have done with a one-match disqualification), he moved to thoughts: "Bah! But the Americans can win!"
And they could, even despite the fact that the last two minutes of the first half and the first two of the second personnel situation were turned upside down. Two deletions - already with America, most of them Italians. The best people in the world who know how to use this numerical superiority ...
They tried, Italians. But somehow clumsy, absurd. And although Lippi made the changes very much according to the situation (his opornik left - Gattuso came out instead of Totti (already on the mustard plaster), an extra player appeared - now the clever Del Piero was warming up), although the Italians have been holding the ball continuously for the last half hour - anyway moments had a couple of, not more. And a couple of times they gave McBride a pretty menacing shot ...
Yuri Rozanov / MUNICH
The blog of Yuri Rozanov on the site "SPORT today"