Another interesting day at the World Cup, with plenty to talk about in the wake of Holland and Costa Rica qualifying for the quarter-finals.
I guess we should start with the first game, and it was heartbreaking stuff for Mexico who were within minutes of going through, but two late goals from the Dutch turned things around in the final minutes of the game. There can no be no complaints about Wesley Sneijder’s equaliser, a fine finish after some poor defending from the Mexicans, but as always when Arjen Robben is involved there’s some contention.
He really is a very talented footballer but an inveterate diver, it’s just part and parcel of his game. It always has been and it always will be. You can say there was ‘contact’ from Marquez, and the experienced defender should have known better than to give Robben the chance with his lunge in the box, but it comes back to whether contact itself is sufficient to give a penalty.
Robben exaggerated it. Or, to put it another way, dived when the contact was made, but I don’t think it’s right that we have to accept that any contact in the area is grounds for a spot-kick. To me it’s just the same as the player who knocks the ball past a player or keeper, then goes down making sure their leg hits the opponent’s. We then get the justification that there was contact and therefore it’s a penalty. The contact should be what makes the player fall/stumble/lose balance, and there’s no doubt in my mind Robben could easily have stayed on his feet.
Some might argue he should have had a penalty in the first half but that he didn’t is probably because his reputation now proceeds him, and he was lucky to avoid a yellow card when the referee ignored a blatant dive on the edge of the box. The Mexico manager said afterwards:
Robben did three dives and he should have been cautioned. You should caution a guy who is trying to cheat and then if Robben did it again he would be sent off.
That seems to be a thing now, that referees are quicker to wave play on, refusing to fall for the attempts to cheat them, but at the same time the number of bookings for diving seems to have completely diminished. Anyway, it was tough on Mexico but you’d hope officials would be wiser to Robben’s antics as the tournament continues.
Then there was the issue of ‘cooling breaks’. Leaving aside the monumental stupidity of holding the game in that kind of heat at that time of the day (it was so hot some spectators moved out of the direct sunlight), you cannot convince me this is anything other than the introduction of in-game breaks during which FIFA, and by extension other authorities and TV companies, can sell advertising.
On RTE here in Ireland the cooling break was an opportunity for a quick commercial break, and at some point the stoppages themselves will be sponsored by a cola or water or beer company. It’s what advertisers have wanted for years and years, and while I’m all for player safety and health, that comes back to not playing in the hottest part of the day in the hottest part of Brazil. If they were really concerned with keeping players safe and well, they should deal with that first and foremost.
To me it’s ludicrous that FIFA continue to object to using video evidence in-game lest it affect the flow of a match but all of a sudden we can have a three minute break in the middle of a half for a drink of water. Was it in the World Cup in the USA in 94 that teams had to fight to be allowed throw bottles of water onto the pitch in natural gaps in play? But of course the marketers saw dollar signs and spotted a way of making more money from the game and that, more than anything else, is why we had the ‘cooling break’.
Late on then we had Costa Rica v Greece and once again the Greeks scored a late, late goal, bringing the game into extra time. Costa Rica were rather unfortunately down to 10 men. I thought Duarte’s first yellow card was really harsh because the player Robbened himself to the ground with the referee blind-sided, and there wasn’t much in the second one either.
Playing with 10 men they really dug in against a Greek side who struggled to take advantage of their extra man. That striker that Fulham signed that everyone moaned about us not signing showed exactly why we didn’t sign him by being crapper at football than Robbie Savage is at making any kind of vague sense about anything and it went to the penalty shoot-out those of us who’d stayed up late to watch it deserved.
Once again, to describe penalties as a ‘lottery’ is to totally dismiss the skill of it. Under immense pressure both sides scored fantastic spot-kicks until the Costa Rican keeper, Navas, made a great save from Gekas. Umaña stepped up and put Costa Rica through the quarter-finals. They took five exceptional penalties using technique and nerve, not luck. To play down that by suggesting it’s some kind of random event over which they had no control is absolute nonsense.
And what an amazing story it is. It’s great to see a team come together and become more than the sum of their parts and, of course, there’s Arsenal interest with Joel Campbell involved. Arsene Wenger apparently said he’d considered selling him and said ‘We’ll see’ when asked if he’d be with us next season, but as long as he’s involved it adds that extra bit to watching the Costa Ricans play.
I’m still not really convinced he’s going to be an Arsenal player in the long-term, to be honest. His star has risen in the last 12 months and maybe that’s the kind of make or break development the manager wanted to see before making a final decision on his future, but I suspect there were big doubts over him as he was farmed out on loan again even after getting his work permit last summer and that does say something. Maybe he’s put those doubts to bed, time will tell, I guess.
Today France play Nigeria with Giroud and Koscielny in contention for Les Bleus, while Germany take on Algeria in the late game. Lukas Podolski misses out with injury (which explains why he was taken off at half-time against the USA), but we should see Mesut Ozil and Per Mertesacker (on whom I’m putting a fiver for first goal).
Nothing at all happening from an Arsenal point of view other than more pictures of Arsene on the beach in his figure hugging trunks. Who wears short shorts?
Till tomorrow.
