The first weekend of the mundial took place on Wednesday. The day off is purely in the gaming sense, that is, a day without matches. And so habitually saturated around the championship life goes on. Fans, whose ranks, however, are somewhat thinned, continue their partying. Operators shoot, reporters write, analysts analyze. Unless occasionally journalists give themselves concessions: the neighbors in the Munich media center - the Americans - once every three hours crawl out of the television kennel to drive the ball in the corridor. They have their own invited star - Carlos Valderrama. Colleagues walk past, stare, envy, sometimes interrupt football exercises with requests for a joint photo.
Eight teams, eight matches
Of the 32 teams participating in the tournament, eight remained. And unplayed matches - also eight. Seven of them will weed out one more contender for the title. Until finally the name of the winner is announced next Sunday.
The composition of the quarterfinal pairs looks absolutely logical. Six seeded teams plus Portugal and Ukraine reached the second round of the playoffs. There is nothing strange in the fact that Portugal turned out to be stronger than Mexico, after all, with Luis Figo and the company a coach works - the reigning world champion. Ukraine, which was the only one to make it to the quarter-finals through a penalty shootout, was a little lucky with the situation: in one-eighth, instead of the French, it caught the Swiss. Tricolors swayed for too long, took only the second place in the group and went to the Spaniards, whom they beat. Perhaps the Spaniards would have risen a notch, but, in essence, what's the difference? After all, they didn’t go beyond the quarterfinal for more than half a century.
The national team of Ukraine has become that dark horse for which a place in the eight of the strongest is almost always reserved. Someone from the debutants, say, Ghana or, for example, Australia, who was not formally a debutant, but unfamiliar to the current generation of fans as a member of the mundial, might have been there. But they had to play with Brazil and Italy at the start of the playoffs, respectively. What is the quarterfinal? To beat such monsters, you need experience and plus big football authority so that the judges do not strangle. And one should not forget that the championship is taking place in Europe, so some European teams had to jump out of the snuff-box to the quarterfinals.
Everyone has their own joys
By the way, I did not communicate with fans from Ghana here, but it was impossible to meet with the Australians. Firstly, too many of them came to the championship. Secondly, they showed exorbitant joy regardless of whether their team won or lost. They explained to us that this is all new, we got to the championship for the first time in 32 years, we scored the historic first goal, won the first victory. We fit into a football family. Now this is our holiday too. We need to be brighter in it, then, look, Australia will someday be given the World Cup.
Everyone has their own joys, you just need to be able to rejoice. Those Spaniards didn’t particularly celebrate leaving the group, and then there was nothing left to celebrate. And the representatives of superpowers - football, of course - keep the main emotions to themselves for the time being. Well, England won against Ecuador, think! She won’t win! Let him win against Germany or Argentina, then we will see a real English fan fest.
In a German newspaper I had the opportunity to read an article, the author of which spread the idea in two pages: the celebration of the fans is overshadowed by the football spectacle itself. Probably in the early days of the tournament the way it is. Because not all teams show their real strength. A conscientious, but not very intelligent student diligently works all year. And the lazy child prodigy quietly goes to the movies until spring instead of lessons, because by the end of the year he’ll catch up and turn into good guys anyway. He knows very well that, even though the annual assessment consists of quarterly estimates, the determining one is still the last.
The last quarter of the World Cup will begin today with the match Germany - Argentina. Of those teams that reached the quarter finals, these two left, perhaps, the most vivid impression. Nobody expected him much from the hosts' game, but Jurgen Klinsmann managed to bring the team to the peak of functional readiness. In the terrible heat, when it was not enough to play - it was hard to watch football, the Germans did not run across the field - they rushed about. The Swedes were wiped out in a few minutes. For those who are used to seeing negativity everywhere, the thought creeps in: aren't they playing dope? One way or another, but against the background of apparent ease of movement, not only recognized stars like Michael Ballack or Miro Klose look great, but also recent juniors Bastian Schweinsteiger, Philip Lam, Lukas Podolski. And if before the championship Klinsmann was not criticized only by the lazy, and Franz Beckenbauer said that reaching the semifinals would be a huge success for the Bundestim, now the hosts are definitely thinking about the final. And about the victory in it.
Argentina delighted in its first two matches. In the next two, she left an impression of a solid, albeit slightly unbalanced, team that loves to attack and does not like to prevent an opponent from playing. There may be problems with this - because even if leisurely Mexicans had a lot of freedom in the match with Argentina in midfield, what will happen when flying Germans come out against Jose Pekerman’s team? The Argentine team, however, has the strongest bench: Carlos Tevez, Lionel Messi, Pablo Aimar left so far only at the end of the matches. But that being said, the coach knows better. Half of the current Argentinean squad played (and won) against Pekerman in the youth team, so that he, like no other, knows the potential of his players and his team. By the way, not everyone praised his work before the start of the championship - among the critics were, in particular, Diego Maradona and Luis Menotti.
Another today's couple is Italy with Ukraine. The disastrous start of the championship of the Ukrainian national team was deceptive. Since the second match, Oleg Blokhin’s wards have ceased to miss at all, even managed to win a series of 11-meter against the Swiss with a dry score. As the last game showed, the team can withstand a high pace for not even 90, but 120 minutes - no worse than the Germans. Italy is also quite difficult to score, although Marcello Lippi has problems with personnel in the center of defense. The match with Ukraine will probably be missed by the disqualified Marco Materazzi, but whether Alessandro Nesta has time to heal his injury, so far only the doctors of the “Azzurra squadron” know.
Luis Felipe Scolari also lost two players on the eve of the match between Portugal and England. The Portuguese, however, are themselves to blame: they played rough against Holland and should still be grateful to Judge Valentin Ivanov for the fact that after Koshtinya and Deco he did not remove Luis Figo. The stealth strike that Figo delivered to Mark van Bommel, without a doubt, deserved more severe punishment than a yellow card. The paradox of the situation is that the punishment has already been imposed and cannot be reviewed. But if Ivanov, who had not seen the episode, didn’t react to rudeness, the Portuguese captain would probably be disqualified on the basis of a video review. And not just one game.
Brazil - Child Prodigy
About the Brazilian team, which will play with the French, a special conversation. Brazil is the same child prodigy who skips classes with a light soul. The team of Carlos Parreira impressed with what she had not yet shown at the championship. She goes through the tournament distance easily and simply, despite the fact that she obviously plays in full. And it is not known whether France will become the irritant that will make it reveal to the world real Pentacampéon football. Brazil is still the main favorite of the tournament, although historical analogies do not speak in its favor. Each of their previous titles, the Brazilians won, experiencing some kind of turmoil and overcoming difficulties. Either the coach didn’t change on time, then there were problems in the qualifying round, then injuries at the wrong time disabled the best players. The current national team has no problems and, it seems, cannot be. And if she still wins, it will somehow not be Brazilian.
But whoever becomes the 18th world champion, it can be argued that the champion will be worthy of his title. It will be a country with a great football history, and it will be a team that carefully prepared its victory for four years. And showing her best game in the last quarter. Campaigns in the cinema are over. There were only trips to football.
Mikhail Melnikov