What an Up and Down Day

I'll be honest, I don't even want to type up this blog after what I just watched, but here goes anyway. We had our first two quarterfinal matches today with Holland vs Brazil and Ghana vs Uruguay, two matches of fairly even sides that still had declared favorites. Holland won all eight of their games in qualification and all four of their World Cup matches, but Brazil was favored because, well, they're Brazil. Of course, that wasn't the only reason. The Brazilians decimated Chile 3-0 in the round of sixteen and still didn't look like they were even trying. They were favored in this match because they play so strong defensively yet also have the power to score goals in bunches, which is the reason they were favored overall going into the tournament. Holland has been impressive but the Dutch also have a history of falling apart at the big stages, which is why few people will consider them favorites, regardless of their track record, until they prove it when it matters. Uruguay vs Ghana was a close call of a game as well with Uruguay looking better in their previous World Cup matches, winning more convincing than Ghana had. I've said it too many times before, but Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez have been so dynamic with their goal scoring ability that their proven finishing talents won most people over when compared to the near misses that Ghana seems to always generate. These were the favorites going in, but not everything would go the way it was supposed to.


Holland vs Brazil

This match started as you might think it would. Both teams knocked the ball around to get a feel for the other team, there was some possession but not much, and there were no true threats on goal. All of a sudden, in the 10th minute Felipe Melo played a long through ball along the ground and Robinho ran onto it to perfectly strike a one touch shot past Dutch keeper Maarten Stekelenburg. This was just so surprising. Don't get me wrong, it was a great run by Robinho and fantastic vision by Melo to see the play develop, but the entire Dutch defense seemed to fall asleep all at once. No one was watching Robinho, no one pitched in on the pass, no one closed out Melo, and the keeper barely moved off his line. Just remarkable. With Brazil spotted a goal on that play, they continued to be the better team in the first half. Dani Alves, though I loathe him, did well to get free on the end line in the 26th and put a cross into the middle that Juan put over the bar instead of at least challenging the goalie by heading it on frame. Then in the 29th, we were witness to some of that Brazilian magic when Robinho made a weaving run down the left sideline and played a pass to Luis Fabiano as he was falling down. Fabiano cleverly backheeled the ball to Kaka who worked it out from in between his legs and curled a shot with his right foot towards the back post, forcing Stekelenburg to make a fantastic one-handed save to keep Holland in the match. Maicon showed up in stoppage time and put a swerving shot along the ground at the near post, but its spin took it just wide. Holland did have some chances and possession in this half, but Brazil dominated things and looked to be in complete control.

Brazil remained the better side coming out of the break, but then something inexplicable happened: they made a mistake. First, Arjen Robben drew a foul along the right sideline, which is a topic by itself. Robben dove, embellished and general rolled around on the ground all game long and it was infuriating. Did he actually get hit some of those times? Of course. Did he need to stay on the ground for minutes per foul trying to draw a card on any defender that got near him? Absolutely not. It was comical at times, though I'm sure none of the Brazilian fans were laughing when he drew this particular foul at a dangerous spot on the right side. Holland played the free kick quick and after a brief run down the right side, Wesley Sneijder received the ball back at roughly the spot of the foul and put a good cross into the box. Keeper Julio Cesar tried to get to the ball but was blocked by his own defender, Felipe Melo, who had the ball skim off his head and skip into the left corner of the net. Amazing. Cesar needed to absolutely make sure he had it when he came out, but if he called for it then Melo needed to get out of his way. It's tough to know exactly who was at fault there, but it went down as an own goal to Melo, which seems a little unfair considering that if no one touched Sneijder's shot, it was going into that back corner by itself. Whatever the correct scoring, Holland had tied the match 1-1 and now it seemed like anything could happen.

Anything did happen in the 68th minute when the five time World Cup Champions went down 2-1 to the historically self-destructive Dutch. Off of a corner kick, Dirk Kuyt made a quick near post run and then helped the ball along with a quick head flick. Sneijder was the man on the spot again and he quickly turned his head in the air to send the ball into the left corner and improbably put Holland on top. Excellent set play by the Dutch and while it was executed to perfection, it seemed as if the Brazilians were caught off guard again. No one challenged Kuyt's run to the near post and Sneijder had plenty of time and space to put his header exactly where he wanted. This was far from a fluke like the first Dutch goal, but I'm still shocked that Brazil was so obviously sluggish on defense. The real capper to the match was in the 73rd when Robben took his 8537th dive of the match (perhaps a slight exaggeration there) and inexplicably drew a straight red on Melo. Well, it was inexplicable at first. The replay showed clearly that Melo, most likely fed up with Robben's theatrics, deliberately stepped on Robben's thigh after the initial dive, which is plenty of justification for a straight red. Brazil lost their lead and then lost their composure and then the game was over. Brazil had some half chances pushing forward with ten men, but they couldn't get the lead back and the Dutch surprised everyone to make it into the semifinals.

Holland 2 - 1 Brazil


Ghana vs Uruguay

This was to be the game pitting the overachieving African side against the crafty South American team that was almost an afterthought out of the CONMEBOL qualifiers before the tournament started. It turned out to be one of the most memorable games that we will see from this tournament. After a relatively even ten minutes or so, Uruguay dominated the early portion of this half. They were the better side, creating chance after chance, controlling the pace of the game, and generally outclassing the Ghanaian side. In the 18th, Forlan took a corner that Edinson Cavani flicked on into Ghana defender John Mensa's chest. The deflection came quickly in on keeper Richard Kingson but struck him directly in his face as he hurriedly brought his arms up to stop the ball. While the ball went directly into him, Kingson's positioning saved him and his quick reaction with his arms may have actually saved a shot slightly to either side as well. Leading up to the first half an hour, Uruguay held the corner kick advantage six to zero and had several other free kicks off of penalties that Forlan was more than happy to dangerously play into the box. Forlan was a wizard on these kicks, almost always putting them in a difficult spot to defend and often finding the head of a teammate. Uruguay was executing a perfect gameplan to keep Ghana bottled up and backing off, and Forlan was the architect.

Then, off of a simple corner in the 30th minute, Ghana turned everything around. The header itself wasn't a goal, but a near chance that defender Isaac Vorsah hit just barely over the near side upper ninety. Then in the 31st minute, Kevin-Prince Boateng made a great run down the right side and centered to Asamoah Gyan, who put the ball just wide of the right post. Suddenly, Ghana was controlling the game. Ghana was pushing the pace and Uruguay couldn't seem to turn things around and get back all of the momentum that they had been building. The Black Stars seized that momentum and turned in chance after chance. Sulley Muntari received a good cross into the left side of the box in the 39th, but his header across the goal mouth stayed wide and went out harmlessly over the goal line. But then in stoppage time, Muntari was much more than harmless when he put the ball on his left foot and curled a shot inside the right post that keeper Fernando Muslera was late in reacting to. At first, I thought the keeper had completely botched this and let in any easy goal, but it turns out he got caught leaning right to see around the men who were screening him and by the time he realized that he needed to get left to stop the shot, it was too late. Terrific effort by Muntari who helped Ghana completely turn this match around and put them up 1-0.

In the second half, Uruguay needed an answer to Ghana's late first half goal and who else would provide it besides Diego Forlan? In the 55th, Forlan lined up a kick on the left side of goal and took a shot that looked like it was bending over the wall and toward the near post, but then started drifting right in mid-flight and ended up in the back of the net. Kingson seemed to think the same thing as he stepped in towards the near post to stop that shot, and then couldn't get back across goal to stop the ball from going in. This was a wonderful bit of skill from Forlan and it gave Uruguay the goal they needed to get back in the match as well as the confidence they needed to take the game to Ghana.

In the 63rd, it was Forlan creating again, this time as he made a great touch to get behind the Ghana defense on the left hand side. His touch brought him to the end line and he put a fantastic ball back across goal to Suarez at the back post, but Suarez mistimed his redirection on goal and the shot went into the side netting. Then in the 70th, Suarez got another chance when he was played through on the left hand side and tried to roof Kingson as we have seen happen several other times in this tournament. Kingson was having none of it though and touched it over the net. Despite these great chances for Uruguay, the match was fairly even at this point and both sides were getting possession that would lead to chances. Uruguay had a few more quality chances than Ghana, but neither team could score in regulation and we would head into overtime.

Overtime was largely boring with some chances here and there. Gyan flashed a header over the bar off of a cross in the 110th, Forlan missed wide on the near post in the 114th, Boateng missed the near upper ninety off of a long throw in the 118th, and so on and so forth. But extra time in the second overtime period is where all the drama happened. Well, most of the drama. Ghana was threatening the goal furiously and had already had one chance cleared off the line when an attacker put a perfect header into the empty space for a goal. Rather, it was the empty space until Luis Suarez blatantly batted the ball off of the line with his hand to save a goal. Suarez was duly given a straight red card and Ghana was given a penalty kick. The problem was, Gyan stepped up to take the PK and put it off the crossbar, sending the match into penalty kicks.

I need a paragraph to talk about this play. It absolutely infuriates me from a fan standpoint, not as an official of the game. What Suarez did was illegal by the rules of soccer and he was punished accordingly. He was given a red card and a PK was awarded. But this still does not sit right with me in the least. He blatantly cheated, knowing that the worst his action would do is give his keeper a chance to save a PK (or give the shooter a chance to miss the PK) when the ball was definitely going in. Look at the replay. There is no doubt whatsoever that that ball does not go in the back of the net if Suarez doesn't bat it away. Not a 90%, not a 95% chance, a 100% chance that Ghana scores a goal and wins the game. So instead of a goal and Ghana moving on, we get a situation that is roughly 80% (I think it's fair to say that 4 out of 5 PKs going in is a fair rate, but if you want to give 90%, whatever - the point is that it's less than 100%) for Ghana to move on. I hate this. If a baserunner is rounding third base in baseball to come home for the winning run as the centerfielder meekly throws it in from the warning track, but the thirdbaseman trips him to prevent the run, the runner is still awarded the plate and the run scores. There is no situation where the runner tags up while the centerfielder starts with the ball in his hand or any shit like that. The blatantly illegal play isn't a bailout, but a non-factor. And this is what bothers me about this play. I'm not going to say that soccer needs to change its rules or anything hyperbolic like that. And I'm not going to say that Ghana automatically should have won that game right there and everyone should have left it be. But what I will not do is claim that he made a smart play when he blatantly cheated. This is worse than Robben taking dive after dive in the earlier match trying to draw cards against Brazilian defenders and win dangerous free kicks. This is even worse than a player diving in the box to attempt to earn a penalty kick for his team. This is the calculated removal of a sure goal and turning it into a chance for a pretty sure goal. I will never praise this play, do not expect me to.

After all of this drama, we found ourselves at penalty kicks and, after everything I said before, Ghana still had a chance to end this match with them as the victors. After Forlan steps up and delivers on his PK, we get the fantastic sight of watching Asamoah Gyan, fresh off of his miss at the very end of extra time, step up the spot first for his country and absolutely bury his PK into the right upper ninety. This was a fantastic moment for Ghana, but it was not to last. Down 3-2, defender John Mensa stepped up and took a one step lead-up into a terrible, terrible PK that the keeper had no trouble saving going to his left. All was not lost when Maxi Pereira drove his kick way over the crossbar as Ghana had a chance to level still. However, Muslera made an excellent diving save on substitute Dominic Adiyiah and then Uruguay's own substitute, Sebastian Abreu, calmly put in the winning penalty as Uruguay advanced to the semifinals.

Uruguay 1(4) - 1(2) Ghana


I am still annoyed just thinking about the end of this match, so I'm just going to call it a night and come back fresh to this in the morning. I am happy that Brazil lost, not because I have anything against Brazil, it's just that I would like to see a new nation hoist the trophy this year and Holland deserves it more than anyone other than perhaps Spain for their many years of success. But that small bit of interest doesn't make up for the dismal exit that Ghana faced, a Ghana side that I enjoyed watching throughout this tournament. Feel free to say that I'm biased in my judgment of how things turned out because I was rooting for Ghana. It is a fair accusation, but it does not deny the argument that I have made previously in this post. I will say this: if that was Landon Donovan who punched the ball off of the line, I would be ashamed to see a US victory come out of that match and I feel perhaps doubly so about Uruguay right now. Hopefully tomorrow's matches can wash this taste out of my mouth. Goodnight everyone.