Semi-Final speculation

Reports of the demise of European football have been somewhat previous. We heard so much about the dominance of South American football, and yet there are three European teams in the quarter-finals. Sure; the superstars have fallen by the wayside – Anelka; Cannavaro; Rooney; Ronaldo etc. – but the team-play rather than silky skills are rising to the top, and that is exactly what I like to see.

First up – Brazil v The Netherlands; the one everyone expected the world champions to win, including the world champions themselves. Expectation is a terrible thing – ask England – and the Netherlands quietly went about the business of puncturing Brazil’s illusions. Having scored a goal from an error (Felipe Melo was credited with the own goal), the Netherlands defended well and even managed to score again.

I heard the expression ‘Kuyt to the rescue’ and mention of his impressive work rate on several occasions. Just as Ferdinand might as well be christened ‘Given-away-by’, I seriously began to think that Kuyt’s sobriquet is ‘Unselfish-play-by’. Is there a prize for the most assists? If so, he should definitely be awarded it – perhaps it could be called the golden sock.

Melo’s game went from bad to worse when he was sent off for a dirty foul, stamping on the hamstring of Arjen Robben that could have ended his career. Actually, everyone in a blue shirt had a pop at Robben who spent most of the match flying through the air or rolling on the ground. The match became increasingly ill-tempered towards the end as Brazil were no longer the impressive exponents of the beautiful game and cards flew for deliberate hand-balls and simulation – forty fouls were given in all and Brazil showed more Gallic than Latin temperament problems; I can’t see Germany doing that.

The commentator quipped, “If Brazil are going out of the World Cup they are going out with a fight – quite literally.” He also referred to the Dutch defence as resembling “an orange jelly, just wobbling there – no wonder they’re nervous.” He must have so much fun thinking these things up...

I watched the Ghana v Uruguay game propped up in bed with a couple of female friends in a hotel room; there was honestly nothing dodgy about this (although the discussion about how nice the Ghanaians looked in their red and yellow strip against the bright green turf was a little iffy).

There was everything dodgy about Luis Suarez hand-balling Dominic Adiyiah’s definitely goal-bound extra-time shot off the line. He was given a red card and sent off. Ghana were awarded a penalty as the last action of the game – Asamoah Gyan should have scored and Ghana should have been in the semi-finals. He hit the cross-bar and they’re not.

The match went to penalties, the first of which Gyan took and scored with commendable coolness. Mensah and Adiyiah couldn’t convert their penalties – only one Uruguayan missed, and it’s all over for Africa. Penalty shoot-outs are a lottery: exciting when your team isn’t involved; sickening when they are. One of my friends was demanding, “Why can’t the ref just give a goal?” It’s a fair enough question, and I’m sure she’s not the only one asking, but them’s the rules and although there will a call for them to be changed in future, for now Uruguay are justifiably into the final four.

Asamoah Gyan was understandably distraught. So, slightly less understandably, were my tender-hearted maternal friends. “He’s not your son” I pointed out. “Yes, but he’s some poor mother’s son” one of them snuffled, somewhat illogically. I have seen this happen to England before and wasn’t going to waste my tears on other countries’ sons.

Speaking of cheating hand-of-God South American nations, I thought I might have split loyalties when it came to Argentina v Germany; who do I dislike least? After all; we’ve fought wars against both these countries (okay, so it might be hard to find a country that Britain hasn’t found itself in conflict with over the centuries). As it happened, all it took was one look at the puffed-up pigeon-chested Maradona to make up my mind and have me screaming at the TV, “Come on Germany!”

And they are a good young side with decisive passes and innovative play – of course, the word ‘clinical’ is never far from any description of the Fatherland, and it was a definitive demonstration of what to do with that unpredictable beach ball – split the defence and put it in the back of the net – but it was sublime to watch.

I like Lionel Messi and I like Javier Mascherano; in them I think Argentina has the best striker and defensive midfielder in the world, but as we have seen; this isn’t a tournament for individuals; it is a exhibition of cooperation and the Germans worked together as a tight unit, yes, alright, even an efficient one. There was added satisfaction in the fact that we put two goals past them and Argentina couldn’t even manage one. England don’t look quite so woeful in that light.

And then there’s Spain... People have been calling them under-performers, but they are through to the semi-final after grinding out a 1- 0 victory against Paraguay. The game had end-to-end missed penalties, disallowed goals, retaken penalties, unawarded penalties, squandered free kicks and one of the tightest mid-field contests seen so far in this tournament. Spain may not have set the footballing world alight, but you don’t have to play pretty football to win.

The only bet I have that is still vaguely alive is for Torres to pick up the golden boot. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, but he could always prove me wrong by bagging a swag of goals against Germany and progressing through to trounce the Dutch (assuming, as I do, that they beat Uruguay) with yet more bulging of the old onion bag. Like I said, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.