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27/06/06
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With the obligatory primary objective of the last 16 achieved, Portugal went one better with the difficult but just win over Holland, after one of those nerve-wracking games that will stay in the memory. It was a victory of talent and resistance over force, demonstrating that, just as I wrote here on the day of the game, Portugal had a better team and, above all, players that could make the difference, against a Holland whose football was totally predictable and repetitive, absolutely lacking in inspiration and surprise. Right from the first minute of the game, the Dutch were trying to shoot at the Portuguese goal, never giving signs that they were capable of putting together a move like the one that gave Portugal their goal. Luckily, however much you go into the tactics and strategies of the game, individual talent continues to be the main differentiating factor! Moreover, except for Van Persie, the only other Dutch talent, Van Nistelrooy, spent the entire game sitting on the bench, replaced by a total ineffectual bloke called Kuyt, because of a row with Van Basten.
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As the president of FIFA commented, Portugal v Holland was a game that was, I won't say ruined, but needlessly dramatised by the Russian referee. But what Blatter didn't say was that such drastic and absurd decisions as the second card and consequent red for Deco, for holding the ball a few seconds at a free-kick against Portugal, resulted directly from FIFA instructions. We saw the same the next day in Italy v Australia, where the referee's rigour led to the premature and unjustified sending-off of Gattuso (later, and just so that his service would be complete, he gave the decisive penalty to Italy in the dying seconds). The excessive rigour with which Ivanov started pulling out cards, right in the first minute of Portugal v Holland, had the inevitable consequence of him losing control of the game, with 20 yellow cards and four red, managing precisely the opposite effect to that intended with such disciplinary zeal: to create a climate of almost general confrontation on the pitch. The emblematic image of Deco and Van Bronckhorst, team-mates at Barcelona and both sent off on Sunday, sitting on the steps of the tunnel, having a pleasant conversation about the referee's extravagance, was illustrative of the lack of sense of this disciplinary fundamentalism.
There are two extremes. One thing is to repress foul-ridden negativity, like that which removed Cristiano Ronaldo from the game, and the other is to put everything in the same sack, from inoffensive handballs in
midfield to really violent fouls from behind. The excessive rigour adopted religiously by the referees at this World Cup not only ruins certain games, artificially unbalancing the forces on the pitch, the forces on
the pitch, it also threatens to deprive the championship of some of its best players.
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From the point of view of football, it hasn't been a great World Cup: until now, there have been maybe three or four really good games, which is too few for a total of 54! Coaches who preach containment and results above all else are imposing their rule of law, well illustrated in the example of Switzerland, eliminated in the last 16 after playing four games and not conceding a single goal – a truly absurd situation. It's well illustrated in Carlos Alberto Parreira's motto: "Spectacle is winning!" with all due respect, I don't agree. I don't understand what advantage there can be for football to see a Brazil strolling around, an Argentina leaving Tevez and Aimar on the bench along with that prodigy that is Lionel Messi, and playing a game against Mexico in which the sole objective was not to lose, in such a soporific spectacle that I actually fell asleep and missed the decisive goal from Maximiano Rodriguez. France have been deeply boring. Italy – with a draw that gave them a red carpet through to the semi-finals — are increasingly themselves, that is, playing football that is so cynical it becomes irritating. England swing between two types of football: no idea at all or a fixed idea, which is to lump high balls in for Crouch's two metres: I hope they learn the same lesson from Portugal that Van Basten's Holland did. And even Spain who, like Argentina, started the tournament in great style, have now lowered their rhythm, just in case their fans get spoiled. With so much caution, so much tactical discipline and so much scientific management of results, it'll be no surprise if the last-16 games are all even, that goals are few and that, in the end, Germany get to celebrate on their home turf.
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With the world's big teams lowering their ambitions and risks to the level of the minnows, it's difficult to work out whether the latter have grown or the former have but limitations on themselves. There seems no doubt that the biggest surprises came from the Far East, with Zico's Japan, the South Korea created by Gus Hiddink, for the 2002 World Cup, and the Australia invented by the same Gus Hiddink for this World Cup, who unjustly fell yesterday at the hand of Italy, thanks to a phantom penalty. For Africa, Ghana have been the exception to the general disappointment, being not a surprise but a confirmation (ten years ago they had the best U-20 side that I've ever seen play) ... and ... and, we still have to see how they get o against Brazil [the lost]. As for the Americas, and besides the normal giants, Ecuador were a surprise and Mexico got to where it was reasonable for them to get. Neither, though, were a patch on other Latin-American teams of other times, now absent, like Uruguay, Chile, Peru or Colombia.
Finally, and before knowing the results of the final two last-16 games, which will take place today, we can see that all the main favourites are still in the reckoning: Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy,
England, France and Spain; Portugal and Ukraine are the only gatecrashers. The other fact that deserves consideration is that there are six European teams among the eight that will dispute the quarter-finals.
And the four that were knocked out of the last 16 all fell at the hands of other European teams. If any of the European teams get to the Berlin Final and win, this will go down in history as the European World Cup.
[courtesy Miguel Sousa Tavares]
20/06/06
I must have been one of the very few Portuguese who didn't see the Portugal v Iran game. I didn't see it live, I didn't see the highlights, I didn't even see the goals. I didn't see anything: I accompanied
the scoreboard by SMS and that was all. For the fist, and I hope the last, time in my life I completely missed a Portugal game in the World Cup — as indeed I missed all the World Cup games between Friday and Monday,
except for 20 minutes of Brazil v Australia, seen on a television at the airport. But that's life: sometimes we can choose, other times we can't and we just have to grin and bear it.
Where I was forcibly
distanced from the World Cup is still one of football's fatherlands: Italy. More precisely Turin, where the recent scandal of result-rigging that has swept il cálcio threatens to throw the most emblematic club in
the city of Fiat, Juventus, current champions, into the second division. For many years I've felt that Italy is the most civilised country in the world, in my idea of the word 'civilised'. And so, despite the
passion that the Italians have for the game, I didn't find it strange that I spent three days in Italy without noticing the World Cup and without hearing any conversations about football, not even any moaning about
the Squadra Azurra's slip up against the Americans. National flags in the windows very rare, none on cars, and the topic of the weekend and of all conversations not the Word Cup but the arrest of Vittorio Emanuel de
Sabóia, a candidate for the Italian throne and a direct descendent of the King of the same name who unified the country, accused of associating with bandits in the promotion of prostitution. Sic transit gloria regia...
On the plane that brought me back on Sunday I looked, like a castaway, for reports about the Selecção's performance against Iran. In [the national daily] Diário de Notícias, the headline, which
set the tone for almost all the articles in our press, was: "On the track of os Magriços [the 1966 squad that came third]". A chorus of endless praise ran through our press, with the exception, also in the Diário de Notícias,
of someone who, writing on a blog under the pseudonym of Maradona, said terrible things about our performance, saying that it wasn't much better than the one against Angola. In the international press, and with the
exception of L'Équipe, there was also little praise and could be summed up in the phrase from La Nátion, Buenos Aires: "they don't scare anyone".
I got off the plane a little mixed up about what to
make of it all but struck by an uncontrollable patriotic desire for snails and an imperial [small draught beer], which took me immediately to a tasca [small economic restaurant] in Alcântara [a bairro in Lisbon], where two blokes, dressed in what a reader of the [national daily] Público called "patriotic football garb", were discussing whether Portugal would be World Champions or if they'd lose to Brazil, and this after duly weighing up the threat posed by Angola …. Tucked into my corner, leaning over my plate of snails and my imperial,
I only prayed that no one would ask me what I'd thought of the notable exhibition against Iran and of our infallible chances of being World Champions, so that I wouldn't have to admit that, to the great
consternation of the assembled company, that I hadn't seen the game and that, well, I thought anyway that 1-0 against Angola and 2-0 against Iran wasn't really comparable to the '66 saga: 3-1 to the great Hungary
team of the time, 3-0 to Bulgaria, and 3-1 to Pelé's Brazil, to take us to the last 16.
Weighed down with the sensation of having unpardonably missed one of the great moments in Portuguese football, if not in
the history of Portugal, and confused by the lack of importance given in the press to the fact that one José Silva (the most Portuguese of all names), a researcher in Edinburgh, had published an article in the most
prestigious scientific journal in the world, 'Nature', where he reveals the discovery he's on the brink of — the rejuvenation of old skin cells, that is, the wild possibility of eternal youth — I sat down in front
of the television, in a fenzy of zapping, hoping to finally be able to see Portugal v Iran.
But the hope was in vain. Instead of that, I had the chance to see two absurd, nonsensical things. One was provided
by [the TV channel] RTP-Memória: a re-run of Portugal v Lithuania from 1995, a qualifier for the European Championship of 1996, played in the old Antas Stadium. The National Team was coached by António Oliveira and
was made up of seven(!) FC Porto players (Baía, Paulinho Santos, Fernando Couto, Jorge Costa, Secretário, Folha, and Domingos) and four luxury 'foreigners': Figo, Rui Costa, Paulo Sousa and Futre. After 20 minutes
and before we fell asleep, we led by 3-0, and do you know what I thought was really awkward, and I know that I shouldn't confess this? They played much better than they do now! Feeling uncomfortable, I changed
channels and came across the Natianl Team Coach speaking: it was the channel Giga Shoping and they were showing the commercial for the official watch of the Selecção and the Federação, starring Luiz Felipe Scolari.
The showed it twice in a row, which left me with no doubts as to the message: if you're a good patriot you're on the side of Scolari's Selecção and you wear the official watch, costing a modest 125 euros, which can
be paid in six easy instalments. And so I went to bed, exhausted by the Fatherland.
On Monday, I read the sports press a little more calmly. [...] Some things were obvious: it had been better against Iran than against Angola — which wasn't actually that hard; the best midfield
returned, the one that Mourinho built at European Champions FC Porto and that Scolari only discovered after all the others and after losing the opening game of Euro 2004 — Costinha, Deco and Maniche; and if the
minimum objective of the last 16 has been achieved, they still have to be truly tested, which I hope will be against Mexico. All in all, I think the most urgent thing, the most important and the most indispensable,
has been achieved. Sincerely, I don't think it's relevant that the first two games have not really impressed: it's much more important that they've improved from one game to the next, because if that hadn't
happened, it would be worrying. Now that qualification has been won, we come to decision time, and against Mexico. We arrive at this point in the most comfortable of situations, but in spite of everything, it
demands a decision from Scolari: do we play for first place in the Group or second, do we bank on Holland or Argentina, do we rest the players with a yellow card ad those who are most tired, or none? Whatever the
decision and the result of the Mexico game, however, it's jsut a transitional game. The most important thing is what comes next: that's where the line in the sand is drawn, within or beyond which the story of out
participation in this World Cup willbe traced.
PS — Contrary to what Luiz Felipe Scolari presumed in his ignorance, I'm a long-time fan of Brazil and an avid reader of its press and writers. And one of the
tings that I like about Brazil is that there, the intellectuals, as Scolari depreciativley calls them, regularly talk about football, just as those who have never read a book. Last week, two Brazilian intellectuals,
who are, as it happens, two of the most prestigious living Brazilian writer, Luis Fernando Verissimo and João Ubaldo Ribeiro, wrote about Brazil's opening game and they tore the Selecção to shreds. To date, it
doesn't seem that Carlos Alberto Parreira has called them "crap".
[Luiz Felipe Scolari has been very critical of the Portuguese Selecção's critics, and at one point made a direct reference to Miguel Sousa Tavares, calling his work "crap"].
[courtesy Miguel Sousa Tavares]
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