Corner flag (vol 2.8) - Italy's finest hour

The group phase is over and now its time for tears at the end of every game.

And indeed there were tears at the end of the best game of the World Cup so far - when Italy went out to Slovakia. The defending champions finished last and were booted out. It was quite interesting right from the beginning as the Italians went down a goal early and the Slovaks attacked the pretty heavy legged Italians right through the game.

But in the second half of the second half, the Italians came alive to put together a passionate performance that I haven't quite seen before. So much so that I was hoping they score the requisite number of goals to go through. It was driven by the desperation of the situation that the Italians found themselves having to play out of their shorts to get something - fantastic goal by Quagliarella and they should have had couple more; but time ran out and saw Captain Cannavaro shepherding his players back to the dressing room in a hurry. A bit of irony in all of this - the most ineffective Italian team was by the far the most entertaining Italian side I have seen in a long while. Their finest hour in my opinion.

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Game 1 of Uruguay vs South Korea just finished and Uruguay have won. Which was my prediction. Seriously.

Rest of the games are:
1) USA vs Ghana
Ghana to win 1 nil

2) Germany vs England
Germany through hopefully, though Beckenbaur is shooting his mouth as always and thats not a good sign for the Germans

3) Argentina vs Mexico
Though I have just had a fabulous Mexican meal and been hearing all things bright and beautiful about Mexico, Argentina should win quite comfortably

4) Netherlands vs Slovakia
2 - 1 to Netherlands

5) Brazil vs Chile
Brazil to scrape through

6) Paraguay vs Japan
Paraguay 1 nil

7) Spain vs Portugal
Spain to go through. This will ensure the Year of the Tiger shortlist down to 3.

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If everything works as expected, we could see Netherlands vs Brazil quarters. Which will be quite a game I think.

After the most dramatic game, here goes another stalwart - before he catches the flight to the Middle East and work on his pension fund.

Picture from the Guardian: Fabio Cannavaro wipes away the tears as he leaves the pitch. This could well be his last match. What a stinker

                                                             

Corner flag (vol 2.6) - France vs England

Before I get to my thoughts on the teams that will make it through to the next round, the most captivating development over the 10 days has been the turmoil at the English and French camps.

Hilarious stuff, especially when Richard Williams writes about how John Terry was right to bring up his issues with Fabio Capello publicly and also when he talks about his immense joy at seeing the French cower in mediocrity. Complete SOB this Williams dick - most English scribes have suddenly forgotten how efficient Capello was in disciplining the team and in driving the team to win all their qualifying games. Oops, who cares about that any more, when English passion (epitomised by the holy cunt John Terry) is at stake? The last I heard, some fucking random English journalist was complaining about cutting the WAGs from the squad.Where is Sven they ask.

It is true that the French have been guilty of revolting against their manager in a manner that only they can (refused to train, some one sniched on the other and got him sent off) and it is also true that English have been rather pathetic as a football team. Fucking idiots is all I can say, once again.

Since I dont read French newspapers, I admit I might not be best representing the case of "Who is the bigger twit?": French journalists vs English journalists & English footballers vs French footballers. Such is life.

Moral of the story: there is no difference between the 2 teams. Twits.

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1 final game to go for each team in the first round, and the winners from each group will be:

1) Group A: Uruguay, Mexico
Will be the end of France and the last we should have hopefully seen of Domenech: a twit beyond redemption. 

2) Group B: Argentina, Korea to scrape through
Argentina have been coming together on the pitch and then they do look pretty unbeatable. Until they meet quality opposition I would think, which will be soon. Likely to make it to the semis.

3) Group C: USA, England
Unfortunate, but I hope I am wrong on this one i.e. England should get kicked out

4) Group D: Germany, Serbia
Tough call, as Ghana leads the group as of now - but one has to remain loyal to the initial Serbia call.

5) Group E: Netherlands, Denmark
Pretty scrapy games from the Dutch so far, but being able to grind results without losing their heads is good news. So far. The Danes I believe will have enough to sort the Japs out. Would be interesting how they develop through this tournament, and, of course, much would depend on the availability of Prince Bendtner.

6) Group F: Paraguay, Italy
Must admit that the big surprise was watching the Italians. None of the Armani model look alikes strutting around, but some very lean, balding, young players that want to play football. Clearly they do have the potential to surprise later in the tournament. But their strikers are still quite ugly - footballistically I mean.

7) Group G: Brazil, Portugal
Friday's game should be interesting - will let us know if I was wrong in ruling them out. The Portugal left back has clearly been the player thats caught my eye so far - Fabio Coentrao. And so has

8) Group H: Chile, Spain
Real tough one after the early surprise win for the Swiss against the Spaniards. Nice to see the Spaniards sweat, but should make it through with a win against Chile. Dont think the Swiss will beat Honduras. Their captain however Zokhan Inler has been quite solid at central midfield.
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I think one has finally seen the end of this chap's World Cup career. Adios.

                                       

Corner flag (vol 1.5)

As promised, the third ball has been in contact - right after the Villa game. And he had the following to say:

1. Continues to believe that we would win our first piece of silverware in years this season. He did mention that the confidence in the squad would continue to yo-yo until the end of the season, but the steady development of belief within the setup will culminate in a trophy. So "not to give up" was the key message

2. Very difficult to predict which particular trophy amongst the 3 it will be. {May comment next by Feb end to provide a status update. I think its too late as we would have done our 3 major games by end Jan, making it easier to make predictions at that point}

3. Is very confident that Arsene Wenger will add to the squad in this window. Believes it could be a total of 3 players: couple of them who are 'Full HD' and one 'HD Ready' type. It will be a striker, defensive cover and someone else

4. The third ball also had a strange comment to make: Its been a historic season (in a strange and arbid manner) for Arsene Wenger, because he finally won against a Ronald Koeman team, which he has never managed to do. TB now believes that Inter Milan will take out Chelsea in the first knock out round and then will be drawn against the Gunners - who the Gunners will beat convincingly over 2 legs. Could be the QF or SF - not sure yet.

This third ball is a strange, but brave fellow. Lets see, how it all pans out.

Corner flag (vol 1.4)

A crucial win on Sunday at Anfield and strangely enough there was an incident at half-time that echoed, in a small way, what was said in vol 1.2. The skipper's statements this week also mirrored the view that it is not necessary to have Big players to win the league.

Incident at half-time

Small sides can be successful: Fabregas

Corner Flag (vol 1.3)

Ten reasons why England shouldn't win the World Cup via The Independent

There are probably 10 more very valid reasons, but this is a start. Its not that I support a particular team and therefore I wish England doesn't win - its just the overtly jingoistic English media + a few players in the team - for example, the ones featured at 1 and 8 in the above link.

         

Corner flag (vol 1.2)

1. Disastrous London derby
It was the third humiliation that we have had to suffer in the last 7 odd months. And oddly enough, all 3 took place at the Emirates - 2 against Chelsea and the CL semi-final against Manchester United. Absolutely horrendous experience to see ourselves, yet again, shoved aside so easily.

The statistics were familiar:
- at the outset, we begin with injuries to key personnel which somehow has a major psychological impact on the playing 11;
- majority of pretty possession;
- manage only a couple of attempts at goal;
- lack of alternate attacking strategy against a packed defence;
- and the enemy scores with the handful of chances that comes their way.

The last point underscores what I believe is our key weakness: the inability to organise defensively as a team and its not just about the back 4. Must highlight once again, strength in defence has never been a characteristic of Arsene Wenger's teams since the famous back 4 hung up their boots. To me, this chronic problem is called "inability", and not "inexperience" and the responsibility rests squarely with the manager.

I don't believe that the lack of physical players being the reason for our inability to compete for the league / silverware or against teams like Chelsea and other big clubs. Yes, its always good to have few more world class players in a squad - but there is a deeper issue that needs to be fixed first: the need for a stronger team ethic / attitude when it comes to protecting the ball. In other words, a better balance between attack and defence - which was demonstrated brilliantly by Barcelona last season. Development of this understanding can be built and drilled into the entire team on the training ground. Just going out and buying 6'3" X, Y, Z will not solve the problem.

I totally believe that this team with its existing squad can compete and win silverware this season (the third ball, as promised, will separately communicate late December after the Villa game). Which, however, can only happen if the squad is honest enough to admit that a lot more work needs to be done collectively to protect the ball. And that I believe begins with the Manager, rather than the odd 'back-to-reality' utterances from Arshavin / Fabregas after a weekend like last.

Wenger has for years been very careful of shielding his players during his interaction with the media. That strategy, especially over the last few years, in my opinion has been destructive and regressive with regards to the development of the squad. This is regardless of the fact that he maybe a lot more forthright with the squad behind closed doors. Persistent public deflection of the team's inadequacies infuses a false sense of security that results in the players not taking enough responsibility. He has to say what he sees - which means being publicly critical of his players when the situation demands.

And as a last point, Eduardo can certainly play against the likes of Terry and Carvalho. Am 100% certain we will see him play an important role during rest of the season.


2. Hand of God episode II
The whole Thierry Henry fiasco that erupted a couple of weeks ago appears to be fading away, rather slowly. My initial reaction was that it clearly was a case of cheating and hypocritical of a man who has positioned himself as a philosopher on many an occasion. While this opinion still holds, the rabid response to the incident by the British press (savagely dismissed over here) was way over the top and is yet another exhibition of the heightened levels of hypocrisy by the British media (an issue previously raised over here).

3. Hiddink's failure
Another related development that caught my attention was the failure of Russia to qualify for the World Cup. I don't give a shit about Russia qualifying or not, but it was the English media's lack of criticism of Guus Hiddink that caught my eye - a few months ago he was being heralded by the English media as the greatest footballing mind of modern times by turning around Chelsea's season and replaying his conquests with the Australian/Korean national teams ad nauseum. Now he has spectacularly failed to take the 2008 Euro finalists to the WC finals and there isn't a word of ridicule from the likes of Richard Williams or Kevin McCarra. Well...