African pool

Not only footballers, but also fans should “roll into” the World Cup

You close your eyes and the first thing you see is the idiotic smile of Dane Simon Poulsen after an own goal. From the same series - Algerian goalkeeper Faouzi Chaushi falls on the lawn with a dusty bag, and the ball is already in the left corner; Serbian Zdravko Kuzmanovich

You close your eyes and the first thing you see is the idiotic smile of Dane Simon Poulsen after an own goal. From the same series - Algerian goalkeeper Faouzi Chaushi falls on the lawn with a dusty bag, and the ball is already in the left corner; Serbian Zdravko Kuzmanovic raises his hands to the sky, one of which he just earned for his opponent a penalty; goalkeeper Robert Green is ready to be torn to pieces by teammates, and then the whole of England. There are a little less deletions than goals, football is mostly standing still even in rain and wind, the two greatest coaches are still with their noses, the Jabulani ball is cursed in chorus, only FIFA President Sepp Blatter defends vuvuzela pipes.

There are still more football oddities and near-football passions than, in fact, high-quality football, but there is never a lot of high-quality football at the start. In the pool with your head - this is not for the World Cup, here you need to taste the water to the touch, and walk along the bottom with your feet, and look around, and even taking into account the fact that the reservoir is African. The favorites have nowhere to rush, the dark horses seem to buck up early, and expectant football dominates, which is quite normal for the first round. Tomorrow will be too late for someone, but these are the problems of the Serbs, Danes and half of the African teams, which, unlike Asia, turned out to be in the red.

The French in the new century walk across the field on foot, but four years ago they stomped to the final. The Italians rejoice at De Rossi's goal against Paraguay, as if they had already won the World Cup, Argentina, after the crazy flight of Gabriel Heinze, is playing the fool, and only the Germans are cracking down on Australia in the same way as a pack of wolves with a herd of sheep - but then they are Germans. Matches that bring cheekbones are interesting only for the “points” column, but interspersed with football and they happen.

So about Poulsen. The smile was out of place, more likely from confusion - the defender of the Dutch national team interrupted the canopy of the Dutchman from the left flank with sight, tried to send the ball over the goal line, but he struck Daniel Agger's back, touched the post and rolled into the net. The own goal was credited to Agger, Poulsen will still save his team from a goal, in the very end he beautifully knocked the ball out of an empty net, but by that time the score will be 2:0 in favor of Holland, and rescues are not included in the final protocol. The same with Robert Green, whose exploits were overshadowed by the “butterfly” after a ridiculous blow from US midfielder Clint Dempsey.

There is nothing to nod at the design miracle "Jabulani" if the hands grow from the wrong place. In the course of the tournament, the shortcomings of the plastic bubble, which has been developed for three whole years, will be forgotten - football itself will come to the fore, and even goalkeepers, who have become the main anti-heroes of the World Cup, will somehow adapt to the ball. It’s more difficult with heroes - anyone scores, only unrecognized scorers, the exception is “baby” Miroslav Klose from the German national team, who opened the scoring for the second ten goals in the world championships. Pele is already there, and there it’s not far from Ronaldo’s record.

All generations of great football players of the past are represented in South Africa - Pelé, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Platini, Zidane. These celestials dignifiedly sit on the stands in the VIP boxes, and their equal (or greater - for someone else) Maradona still shocks everyone in the field. Or rather, next to him, but it doesn’t matter - Diego is always in the game, and TV cameras do not take their eyes off him, reluctantly returning directly to football. Gray hair in the beard, a devil in the head, not a grain of respectability, pure emotion - not the head coach of the Argentina national team, but a natural shaman who never ceases to amaze and annoy. The players don't seem to listen to him, but they love him, and he loves them too.

“No” coach Maradona is still on horseback, and two famous Italian specialists have already got the first number - the British, after the shameful draw of their team with the US national team, are already asking questions, why pay eight million euros a year to Fabio Capello, and Marcello Lippi takes the rap for acting world champions, who barely took their feet from the Paraguayans. But the anti-leader among celebrities is the German Otto Rehhagel. It seems that only ancient ruins remained of his Greek team that won Euro 2004, which was greatly facilitated by South Korea.

The goal of the Japanese army team Keisuke Honda touched the heart of the Russian fan against the surprisingly vague Cameroon team, and there was no one else to be happy for from the “Russians”. However, nothing is lost even for the losers.

Today, the Spaniards will start the last of the favorites in Durban, and you already know how North Korea was going to create problems for the Brazilians in Johannesburg.

Let's look further.