Dave's random mumblings…

The final is tomorrow morning Pacific time, neither Spain or Holland have ever won the tournament. Holland has been close as defeated finalists twice under Cruyff. A lot of new ground has been broken over the last four weeks, most notably the success of the first tournament in Africa, it seems fitting that it will end with a new name will be added to the cup.

Two weeks ago I was questioning the football played by the Europeans and what was wrong when compared to the South American sides. To be clear, Italy, France and England brought little to the party. Spain is the reigning European champions, I was wrong to lump them in with the underperforming and ill disciplined.

Holland are unbeaten in South Africa, taking into account warm up and qualifying it’s now 25 games since they lost, there was plenty of evidence that they were going to be tough to beat.

Over all we have no cause for complaint, the 2010 World Cup in Africa has been eventful. Coming out of the group stages Argentina and Brazil both played good football. Brazil especially had a little flair and performed in the way you expect Brazil to perform in the World Cup – impressively. Holland made short work of Brazil in the quarterfinal, 1:0 down at half time; the Dutch dominated the second half in a very controlled, but physically forceful way.

If the Dutch play the same way against Spain, they should win. This is not total football and this team will not be mistaken for the team of the 70’s but they can still play. They know how to come from behind and knowing they have defeated Brazil and Germany to get here can only add the confidence coming into the game,

Unlike Holland, Spain have lost in this tournament 1-0 to Switzerland in their opening game, it was he only game that the opposition scored first and Spain were never able to get back into it.

Spain have had a little of a struggle to finish their chances, only 7 goals so far in the tournament. All the wins during the knock out stage have been 1-0. The poor form of Fernando Torres has not made Spain’s scoring problem easier. Having said that Spain have only conceded two goals, and are very good at hanging onto slim leads, the defensive discipline has been good, especially during the semi-final against Germany when they shut down the German midfield very effectively.

Holland has scored freely, 12 goals in 6 games (against 5 conceded). However it does not matter how disciplined you are when you have layers like van Bronckhorst who opened the scoring against Uruguay with the goal of the tournament.

It has the makings of a fitting final for what has been a very good tournament. In the knock out stages Spain has not been seriously troubled, you get the feeling they are playing within themselves, that there is another level to their play that’s not been required yet. If Holland can play to their best, if Robbins, van Bronckhorst, van Persie and co play to their ability Spain may have to raise their level to win this thing. A World Cup final deserves that.

My feeling, Spain at their best should be too much for Holland, but Spain have not been at their best yet, but it’s also not been required. It’s the potential to be a very fitting final to a good tournament.

Typically when England go out the papers will fill the back pages with phrases like “brave”, “a team of heroes” or something along those lines. There are exceptions, in 2002 after Beckhams sending off against Argentina the Sun ran the headline “10 Heroes and one stupid little boy”.

The disappointment of an early exit is made a little easier knowing that the team performed to their best, left it all out on the field (and all the other sporting clichés) yet were beaten by a better side on the day.

To be beaten while playing their best a team can walk off the field holding their heads high.

Much like going out on penalties, it’s disappointing but you come away knowing the team put in the effort and lost to a superior side. There is some honour to the defeat.

This year there is no such honour for England. The 2010 World Cup was a disaster filled with underperformance and disappointment that started with the friendly against Egypt in March and just never got going. Not once have I come away from watching one of those games and thought the team played at anything close to the sum of its parts.

The one exception I’m able to give was the “backs against the wall” performance against Slovenia was solid and functional, but you’d hardly call it inspiring stuff.

Germany plays like a club side, Joachim Low has ensured they are well a drilled squad filled with players that understand what’s expected of them. England are a contrast and play like most international sides; a collection of talented players but are missing the fluidity that club sides have, and that only comes with a core of players working together over time.

I did find there to be something slightly disturbing to see the Germans in their shiny black kit. There is something rather sinister about the look of a well drilled group of Germans wearing black, under the floodlights, backed by thousands waving German flags and singing Deutschland über alles…

Deutschland über alles

But I digress, with only thirty or so days and a couple of friendlies between the squad coming together and the first meaningful game it’s going to be tough for any coach to put together a team that has that level of understanding.

The FA decided to keep Capello on until the European championships in a couple of years; I think that’s the right thing to do. Ignoring the alleged 10-12 million that it will take to buy him out of his recently amended contract, I just don’t see anyone else in a position to take over.

The next England game is only 7 weeks away, a friendly against Hungary before we are into the qualifying tournament for Euro 2012.

So the headline in todays Daily Mail reads, it’s more than a little inflammatory, but this is a big game between two teams with history, a lot of history.

The actual quote was ‘Stupidly, the English have slipped up by finishing second in their group. A game like this against Germany should be a semi-final, not a last-16 tie.’

I’m not disagreeing with Der Kaiser about this being a big game that would be fitting for a semi-final, but it’s not. If Germany (like England) believe they can go far in this tournament, then the road goes through England.

I hope the game lives up to expectations, the sports pages of the British papers are certainly not disappointing. I’ve said before that I love the red tops, the news parts are often unreadable garbage, but they have some of the finest and most knowledgeable sports writers in the business.

I doubt there are any English supporters that need reminding, but here is a link to the video of that night in Munich that shows just how good England can be (and a little of the history behind this fixture).

Sunday afternoon England take on Germany. A game with so much history, a lot of bad blood and what most English people consider one of the classic match ups along with the auld enemy and Argentina.

Last competitive game the two sides played was in 2001 and the almost legendary 5-1 English win in Munich. The rivalry has a long history going back to 1930, but it never really got going until 1966. On a July afternoon at Wembley an Azerbijani linesman said Geoff Hurst’s shot had cannoned off the crossbar and crossed the goal line, and that was all that mattered.

And England won the World Cup. The Germans (of course) didn’t agree with the linesmen, and to this day feel they were cheated out of the World Cup.

On a slight aside (shinny thing…) the linesman was Tofik Bakhramov and the Azerbaijan national stadium in Baku is named after him. Such is his place in English football legend that when England played a World Cup qualifier there in 2004, England fans visited his grave to pay respects and place flowers on it. Prior to the game there was a ceremony honouring him that was attended by some members of the 1966 team, including Hurst.

Back to Sunday, since 1966 the two sides have met 19 times. Germany have won 12 times, 4 draws and only 5 English wins. Only one of those English wins came in a major tournament,  1-0 win in Charleroi in a very poor game against a bad Germany side during Euro 2000.

The two Semi-final losses in Italia 90 and Euro ’96 live very large in the British psyche. Both were decent games that led to losses on penalties, and all English fans feel it’s time for revenge.

The only question is which pub should I watch the game in?

We are five days into the World Cup, I’ve watched about half the game fully and highlights or radio commentary of most of the rest. The football has been largely Ok ,but no better. Teams seem more worried about loosing their first game and have played very safe, negative style. Not loosing the first game being more important than winning.

Of the big teams Italy, France, England and Portugal have been OK to disappointing at best.

Germany were outstanding, unquestionably the best side so far. OK it was a poor Australian side that looked a step or two off the pace, but Germany did what good teams should do and comprehensively beat them.

Something Brazil failed to do today against a well drilled, but ultimately inexperienced North Korea team. Korea set out to hold Brazil back, and they did the job worrying well if you follow Brazil.

Argentina and the Netherlands have both played positive football and I look forward to seeing both these teams play again to see how good they may be.

Spain is the last of the fancied teams to start play. They take on Switzerland tomorrow (Wednesday) in Durban.

It’s nothing like 1990, which was an atrociously defensive tournament, Argentina in particular played only negative football in Italy, and it was enough to take them to the final. They were primarily concerned (like Italy and a few others) with giving nothing away. Hope to get something on the break and be prepared to settle for penalties if it came to that.

After Italia ’90 FIFA started trying to open the game up. They tinkered with the offside rule, gave a certain amount of benefit to attackers, differentiated between “active” and “passive” players and gave the attacker the benefit of the doubt a little more. To some extent this approach worked, the World cup in ’94 and Euro ’96 were far better examples of better tournaments with a lot more good football.

North Korea

It may be easier (once again see North Korea today) to build a defensive team rather than a team that’s capable of going out and winning a game at the top level. Another example would be Inter successfully working for 90 minutes to keep Barcelona penned up to win the European Cup.

As teams start needing the points in the second and third round of group games over the next 10 days, it should open up a little and we should have a better idea of who really sits where.

But today, Germany look like the team to beat, and the runner up in Group C (England’s group) will probably be first to have a go at them in the knock out stage.

There has been time for a little reflection and I’ve got a few further thoughts on the draw – not to be unkind to any country, but if you could pick three countries to play in the first round, this is pretty close. USA are clearly the other quality team in the group and were arguably the best team in their pot.

However it could have been far worse. Germany got Australia, Ghana and Serbia, arguably the most even group, I could see any two of these teams making it through to the last 8. Brazil got drawn against Ivory coast and Portugal, a group that’s only marginally easier. Whoever comes out of those groups will have earned their place in the next round.

Traditionally England start tournaments poorly, even in 1966 when they won the tournament they started with a poor draw to Uruguay. This is unfortunate as first game is clearly the toughest, win that and the team has lots of momentum going forward. However the expectation, especially in England is that they will win the group.

One of the biggest questions for Capello is how many players will be involved in the Champions League final on May 22, only three weeks before England’s first game. It’s a nice problem to have and may force the coaches to keep the training period shorter for some players.

If everything goes to plan (and history says it won’t) and they move on to the knockout phase comfortably I don’t see a lot of true world level depth beyond the starting 11. If they can stay healthy (and avoid injury to Rooney and Gerard), sort out the goalkeeping issues and finally get Owen Hargreaves and Rio Ferdinand back to full fitness then the team has a little more depth and stability.

Some teams clearly understand better than others that there are two parts to the big tournaments. Getting though the group stage is the first step and requires a very different team mentality when compared to the knock out stages. This is where historically the Germans excel, they do enough to comfortably get to the final 16 (or 8 at Euro championships) and then play their best football.

This is exactly how Italy won it four years ago, they did enough in the group stages (drew US and beat Ghana and a bad Czech side), but never looked totally convincing and saved their best for the later stages. The key to winning it’s really may be as simple as that.

I look at the field (and the bookies) and it’s interesting that there is no big, red hot favorite. This may be the most open World cup in a long time. At this point there are 6 or 7 sides capable of winning this, and I believe England is part of this group. The more I look at this tournament, the more open it is.