Despair, hope, Repuberlick, and the Trap

As I have said many times before - it's not the despair. It's the hope that kills you.

Might I be allowed to watch republic playing a match without peeking through my fingers shaking my head groaning numbing myself with drugs and alcohol beseeching the elder ones in syllables beyond language?

I can see it all: I turn up. Spruce. Alert. Hopeful. Watchful.

My spirit gets dashed against a pebbledash wall and rubbed repeatedly while raw down to a stump.

Or:

He doesn't turn up as manager. Even Venerables decides he's too cool for us (and in fairness, too cool for the repuberlick is not too hard: the most high profile toupee wearer in English football is too cool for us) and we get somebody else who once coached Scunthorpe reserves through their bad patch before the current renaissance.

Adam Curtis' the trap pitched a world of theoretical people: hard hearted criminals the lot of them upon which the political / economical elite / establishment based its calculations for control. If only we were those people. The prisoner's dilemma would be simple: always assume the worst about Irish football. Always assume failure. We are trapped not by failure but by hope.

Why am I happy?

So why was last night's one-nil victory by the Republic satisfying where other matches haven't been? Because they played a mostly young team with adventure. Because it looked like we now know our best side: Given, Finnan, O'Shea (for want of better full backs), McShane (who was impressive again last night and is already a bedrock of the team), Dunne (who made one mistake as usual but is otherwise unfussy, tough, fast, and his distribution last night was utterly sublime), Carsley/Kilbane, Ireland (when we play with say, Ireland and McGeady there's nobody to win the ball and we get blown over), Hunt (who was dreadful for 3 minutes when he came on, lost the ball, but not his confidence to run at his men and anyway picked himself up and tracked back), Duff (back on form for the first half last night), Doyle (whose header last night for the goal was awesome), and Keane. Though perhaps Duff's performance might have had something to do with Keane's absence.

So there were a bunch of players out playing who were fine passers of the ball, the control, the takes from long passes, were a joy to watch. Most importantly: they played without the crippling fear that has blighted this team. Whether they can take this courage on the road is another question, but beating Slovakia away should not be beyond them. They are technically superior players.

And talking of Keane's absence. He was putting it about that Cork players weren't playing because of a Dublin bias. This was the least Dublin based team I can remember. There are now young players from around the country and not just Cork. Ireland is from Cork, Miller didn't play despite being in form because when he has played (bar against Sweden who didn't show up for the match) he has been useless. He also said that Given had too many caps and shouldn't have played some of the matches he did: he played when he was asked to unlike Keane. The team needs him for solidity whenever any experiment is made. The previous team needed Keane and he wasn't there. I know he's looking for the Ireland job in the future when he slags off GIven but he's simply not in a position to do it.

Keane should have played many more games for Ireland but he let us down instead and assuaged his own ugly, cynical ego.

White shirt, red mist

Early in Zidane, a 21st century portrait there were two images that spoke volumes about football and Zizou's place in it. The first two names visible after the opening montage, largely abstract of closeups of CRT TV, blurry players in white decomposing into tricolour blobs, were on the back of two Real Madrid players: Zidane and Pavon. This, I think shows the extent to which editing and shot selection are inherently problematic in a film like this (though I think only if you come to it with an assumption that you will see the match "as it really was" rather than just another version). The next was after five minutes sweating already and spitting and hawking out snots as he did the whole way through he is bobbing around, pointing at the ground and shouting for the ball to no avail. Reminds me of childhood.

For me it works best as a semi-abstract film. Rather than an attempt to impose another coherent narrative on the match from the commentators and TV's version (which I would suddenly like to see) we see the match in claustrophobic confusion. Thumps and bumps and runs. I think they were quite lucky that Villareal, judging by the number of dribbles Zidane did and the number midshots in which Zidane was alone, didn't man-mark him at all. Perhaps the twilight of his career was the time to do it and his years of delaying were part of a plan... It was interesting to see how much of his game involves trapping with his chest and stomach and cushioned headers. There were sequences when he didn't touch the ball with his feet. But when he did, ball at feet, turning defenders inside out before lobbing a cross over the keeper into the path of one of his teammates requiring only any kind of touch to be a goal...

He didn't say must. Just loads of 'hey's the odd 'aqui', a subtitle told us that he said to the referee 'you should be ashamed' after a dodgy penalty award. Shortly before the end Roberto Carlos (the player he had most interaction with) said something funny and Zidane laughed and kept the smile on his face a long time, the way you do in a time when you have had no human communication. But did he smile any other time? Was it lost in the edit? This is no dogma style document that promotes its purity. I guess that they did edit the film as near as they could to real time using the synchronised timecode but even at that the choices mean that this one smile could simply be the one they left in. Around about then I noticed the soundtrack began to foreground the thumps of people hitting each other. Zidane had been clattered to the ground early on, earning a Villareal player the first booking. There had been a couple more but in general the physical power of Zidane's game was a constant presence and he muscled his way on to several balls. Forlan got sent off (he also missed a sitter disproving the notion that he bangs them in for fun in Spain) and the camera made a big deal of him pushing Senna. And then (was it Raúl?) was bustled off the ball at the byline and Zidane barged in swung a punch and grabbed some guy. Game over and the film makers must have been glad he got sent off in the final.

Funny thing is, he was only a cameo but, the player showing mastery and artistry and consummate genius in this game was not Zidane: it was Casillas.

More wrongness

The wrongest thing I predicted about this world cup was that France wouldn't get out of their group. When they did I didn't figure them for beating Spain - but I didn't figure Spain for being set up so STOOOPIDly. I had very few doubts about them giving Brazil a proper hiding however: Brazil were badly shown up and France got to play exhibition football. The closest Ronaldo got to a goal was a hilarious swan dive towards the end: way to go Ro! The camera shook as you hit the ground. As it happens I didn't think Spain could have exposed Brazil, and certainly not the way they were set up against France. Porugal have left two of the last three tournaments with fistfights and long bans. Considering their jammy diving, hacking, ill-tempered, dour progress so far and the fact that France is a grudge match after Euro 2000 I expect more of the same here. Really think Scolari is the man to take English football on a level to winning professionalism? Yeah right.

At least I was right about Germany doing well. Once they get out of the group you begin to feel they are very hard to beat (and an easy group didn't hurt), so predicting a penalties win against Argentina isn't too unusual. I suspect most people expect a France Germany final with Germany winning. Maybe I'm wrong (I don't have a vestige of anti-German sentiment in my body) but I think most people won't dislike that as much as they have in the past. The Germans have run a fun tournament with good football and played like ambassadors for the sport. Frings and Ballack have been excellent. Klose has been inspired and looks like he could unlock the toughest of defences. The toughest defences? They're Italy and France right?

Surprised by how wrong you can be...

At least I am surprised by how wrong I can be. Never figured France for winning the match last night. In fact if truth be told I never figured France for getting out of the group. I thought the sides that drag you down to their level (the Switzerlands and Koreas and Irelands of this world)would triumph. But instead they played their first good game in fully six years and were good for their victory. I don't think they'll meet two worse full backs in the tournament though. Spain made a mistake. Or several - playing the high offside line with Zidane to supply through balls and Henry to run was stupid. Not playing with wingers was merely ill-advised for two reasons. Firstly if you progress you want to be comfortable with playing a team selection that can beat the selecao, with nothing down either flank you play into Brazil's strength (plus you play the high line like Ghana did and you will get hammered) and secondly their full backs were so weak you needed something to take the French wings minds off attack. They didn't and Sagnol and Ribery took them apart. Sagnol looked like a worthy heir to Lizarazu - which he has never looked before. This was Ribery's only effective match in the tournament and he was marvellous. Hell, even the deeply average Malouda looked good. Too many of the same players turned out for Spain. Xabi, Xabi Alonso, Cesc Fabregas, and on the bench Iniesta and Senna. Okay, there is no team in the world that wouldn't like to have some passing midfielders, but just because you have five of the best doesn't mean you have to play them all: see England and the Lampard/Gerrard axis of feeble. They needed a ballwinner in there and didn't have one. Raul wasn't needed - that is until he was taken off when the new formation would have suited him and you'd have had him there rather than Luis Garcia.

* I meant to say - why didn't they play a decent full back like Asier del Horno? Is it because he is black or something?

Panis et Circensis

And so the global spectacle begins. The sport beloved of dictators and racists everywhere. Even if Franco didn't actually like the damn thing - into his horses like a proper aristocrat apparently - he like the rest saw the power. Think of the government of colonels in Brazil, the military junta in Argentina, all of the Soviet bloc. Okay so maybe it's not all that global, China isn't there - yet. India isn't there or interested - yet. And the US hasn't dominated it and sold it back to us with added sugar and a drug habit - yet. I see the US winning the world cup before an African nation.

So anyway, I'm down with the circuses big time. And beer is bread right?*

So who to watch? Everyone says it's hard to look past Brazil, so lets do that. Lets face it if Kevin Gallacher of Blackburn Rovers and Scotland could make Roberto Carlos, at his peak, look ordinary what would an international standard winger do to him? Nobody could beat Brazil. Save Argentina, Mexico and Paraguay in about the last year in competitive matches. Argentina giving them a proper stuffing too. Last world cup they were lucky that when using the rather useless Ze Roberto as a full back against Holland he didn't have to face the injured Overmars. Holland would most likely have beaten them. I can't see that this time: though the team may not fight each other it seems to lack geniuses. I groan every time I see Cocu on their team sheet. Tidy. They were always a better team with Seedorf playing. Still has his pace too. Though they do have the mighty, or mightily named and popular with the kids round here for replica shirts van Hennegoor of Hesselink. Or Jan as they call him no doubt.
The Czech republic are rated 2 in some quarters (FIFA rankings are absolute bollocks) but this team is too old this time. Sorry guys, you were robbed by dreadful refereeing in the last two Europeans, but not this one. The Crouch template at the top can't run any more - people forget that they used to say of Koller that he was remarkably mobile for such a big man. Now he's only remarkably mobile for a big man who has been dead two days. Same for France - save the robbed bit: too old, too old, too old. Guy Roux was offered the French job before the last world cup and said he'd only take it if he could take apart the team and start again - a few of those playing for the Ivory Coast this time would have been a good idea - that was six whole years ago for the Zidanes and Thurams.
Talking of robbed the USA were robbed by dreadful refereeing last time round against the eventual finalists Germany. Unusually with the officiation at the last tournament there doesn't seem to me to have been any direct advantage handed to the hosts (oh, by the way that's the answer to Korea and Japan's chances - no corruption, no semi finals. Plus Korea'll be in Switzerland's group and they have a secret lifeforce sucking weapon that removes the zest from any of their opponents. And Japan are fourth best in their group) so maybe the Germans were glad handing... Anyway this time round they'll struggle to escape a rotten group. And fail.

Oh Spain Spain Spain. Why do you do it to me? I always head into the World Cup and look to you. And you always let me down. (ditto Portugal until I copped on one day that any country still banging on about a team that won underage championships 15 years later - even we stopped that and had considerable success with the underage teams, more than Portugal in fact - was a country with a team of losers. Time to go all the old guys. Once that's done a team that might win might be fashioned). What can you say? The young midfield players like Iniesta, Barcelona's best player by some distance in their European cup semi final, not the anonymous Ronaldinho who gave a nowhere pass that Giuly latched on to with sublime pace and anticipation and lashed into the net from a difficult angle first time and did absolutely nothing else in two matches, and Fabregas have beautiful balance unlike two of the greatest midfielders in the world manning the centre of England. They can tackle and track and cover. And boy can they pass. And Iniesta makes great runs. Joaquin was easily the best winger at the last Europeans. Raul is... found out? No pace, no dribbling, no great shot, just the lethal cold bloodedness in front of goal. No nerves at all. I'm not convinced by Torres either. And the defence looks like it has goals in it. So sadly no.
England my England, obsessed with a bone that only English soccer players seem to possess. If Rooney plays and he's as fit as Beckham was for the last European championship they will get nowhere. While it is the squad that wins the world cup (who knows what stand in left back you'll have come the business end of the tournament when, really, anything could happen) it isn't good to be delving into it right from the get go. Not that they had too many attacking options to bring along. Why don't Lampard and Gerrard perform for England like they do for their teams? Makelele, Sissoko, Hamman, that's why. Pure and simple. Neither is remotely a complete midfielder. Neither can tackle (and some of the ones Lampard does you only get away with in the premiership if you are an England international), neither can defend. Gerrard is a headless chicken with no tactical sense without the ball. But with the ball... he strikes it as beautifully as anyone. Better than Lampard. Though the new balls may suit Lampard. Bear with me. Watch a typical Lampard goal from behind the nets. He strikes through the ball harder than anyone else, keeps it down and on target. But that's it. Other than that he has no idea what's going to happen next. Thing is the ball deforms when he hits it and moves eccentrically through the air. Keepers often say it moved at the last minute and with him that is in fact the case. It behaves like the off centre striking point is a strange attractor. Gerrard places the ball with serious velocity. Like quite a few teams England are good enough to win it: I'm not sure they're the team to beat Brazil though - they lack ball carrying wingers to exploit Cafu and Carlos Brazil's greatest weakness






* my beloved used to make real bread from live yeast and in the morning after eating loads of it the smell coming from the toilet bowl was like you'd been out on the almighty batter with the beer the night before. Quite strange.