Translated material
English melancholy
The founders of football showed how you can kill the game
In the very first matches of the playoffs, the World Cup almost lost one of its main favorites. The Argentina national team, which decided who would live in the “death group” and who would not, almost became a victim of the Mexicans themselves. But the hosts of the championship, the German team, easily coped with their rivals and reached the quarterfinals. The England team also ended up there, and, judging by the match with Ecuador, it was a pure misunderstanding.If there was a prize for the most boring game at the World Cup, then the England-Ecuador match would be among the undisputed favorites. During the entire first half, only two events occurred that had a chance to linger in the fans’ memory for more than two minutes. The first happened at the very beginning of the game, when John Terry gave the ball to Carlos Tenorio near his penalty area, he ran out to meet the English team goalkeeper Robinson and even struck - the ball hit the crossbar with an intricate ricochet from Ashley Cole. The second event occurred shortly before the break. Hargreaves received a painful blow, and the stands pitied the England player for several minutes.
The rest of the time, one could feel sorry for the fans who bought tickets for this match. The teams could not keep the ball for half a minute without breaking the rules, kicking it over the sideline or letting it go over the end line. Maybe from a tactical point of view these actions could claim to be competent, but from an aesthetic point of view they looked poor. But David Beckham could practice crossing.
Apparently, the training was not in vain. In the 60th minute of the match, the Ecuadorians violated the rules a little closer to their goal than necessary, and the England captain took a superb free-kick - 1:0. This moment remained the only scoring moment for the British in the match. But thanks to him, Sven Goran Eriksson's team was among the quarterfinalists.
Mexico also deserved a place in the same company. And she could very well have ended up there if she had not met the Argentines at such an early stage. The coach of the Aztecs, Ricardo Lavolpe, by the way, an Argentine by nationality and, moreover, the 1978 world champion as part of the Argentina national team, really managed to create a very nice team, which was quite capable of creating the main sensation of the tournament - knocking out the main favorites. . Already in the sixth minute, after an excellent free kick, the most famous player from the current Mexico team, Rafael Marquez, opened the scoring. But not even five minutes had passed before the Argentines leveled it. Even after numerous repetitions, it is still unclear how Albiceleste forward Crespo managed to stretch his leg to prevent the Mexican player Borchetti, who was guarding him, from reaching the ball and with the same leg to send the ball into the net. And it is still unknown who touched the ball last, Crespo or Borchetti, but the goal was still credited to the Argentine.
It was only the tenth minute of the match, and the two goals already scored by that time promised an equally eventful game. But we had to wait almost 90 minutes for the next goal. True, it was worth it: Maximiliano Rodriguez's shot was simply magnificent - from the corner of the penalty area, from the summer, right into the corner.
“My team played an excellent match, and everything was decided only by a magnificent goal,” Riccardo Lavolpe found kind words for his players after the defeat. - But we did not achieve the goal we set for ourselves. We expected to be in the quarterfinals. As for the final, I think it will be either Argentina or Brazil and some European team.”
When talking about “some European team,” it is quite possible that Lavolpe had the German team in mind. It is with her that the Argentines will meet in the quarterfinals, and judging by the form that Jurgen Klinsmann's team has now achieved, the winner of this confrontation will have a very good chance of winning the title. In the meantime, the German national team, which was a mystery even to the Germans before the championship, is demonstrating fairly high-quality and attractive football. And in the 1/8 finals, Sweden had practically no chance against the Bundestim. Everything, or almost everything, was decided by the 12th minute. Twice by that time Lukasz Podolski forced the Swedish goalkeeper Isaksson to take the ball out of his own net. And both times he was helped in this by Miroslav Klose, recognized as the best player of the match. If we take into account that now a couple of Polish forwards playing for the German national team have seven goals (out of ten that the Germans have scored), then we still need to look for the best attacking combination in this championship, and it’s not certain what else can be found.
There were two other events in this match that could possibly have influenced the game: in the 35th minute, Sweden international Lucic was sent off, and in the 53rd minute, Larsson missed a rather fortuitous penalty. However, all this could only change the score, but hardly the final result - the German team that evening on the way to the quarterfinals was almost impossible to stop. “Today the whole football world saw a new Germany. We created a huge number of scoring chances. We prepared well for the match and had great respect for our opponents. Two quick goals gave us confidence, but apparently discouraged our opponents,” Jurgen Klinsmann briefly explained his team’s confident victory. And his colleague from the rival camp could only admit the pattern of defeat. “My congratulations to the German team, I want to wish them success in the rest of the tournament. The German players were very good today. It’s difficult to play 11 vs 11 against the German national team. And when you’re left with ten men against such a team, there’s nothing to talk about,” said head coach of the Swedish national team Lars Lagerbäck.
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Match results. 1/8 finals. Argentina - Mexico - 2:1 (Crespo 10, Rodriguez 98 - Marquez 6) , Germany - Sweden - 2:0 (Podolski 4, 12) , England - Ecuador - 1:0 (Beckham 60) .