French Coq, Argentinian Sun, Swiss Red

I might fact-check this blog post again; until then, grain of salt etc.

At the risk of flooding the blog with tales of soccer, yesterday was a fine day of it, and insofar as I can after having taken long breaks during the games to do things quite unrelated to soccer, I wish to ramble a little.

SWITZERLAND vs. ECUADOR was the first game of the day, and was started at 2 p.m. local time* in Brasilia.

THE sun literally cast an eye of heaven through the stadium roof, an ellipsis of light that submerged the Ecuadorean goal (later the Swiss goal) and transfigured that half of the field, and climbing up the mountainous ranks of the audience toward the northward roof. In the later stages of the game, a lighter lattice of shadowy rim formed around the eye of light, illumining the skeleton of the edifice a little. I had hoped that the shade would fling itself across the field by halftime, but instead the sunlight ran in a circular path and never wholly left.

It was difficult to tell if the temperature was great, and whether Switzerland and Ecuador had trained equally to get along with it. (There was a tedious stretch of passing back and forth amongst the Swiss defense, but it might have been intended to maximize the quantity of ball ownership, or to lull the Ecuadorians into apathy, rather than an attempt to prevent physical exertion.) There were anecdotes of other Northern Hemisphere teams taking e.g. to the practice terrain in Portugal with winter clothing to emulate the warmth and humidity of Brazil; evidently it depends on the city, since Rio de Janeiro was around 20° for the Argentina-Bosnia game if I remember correctly, while Manaus was 30° even in the evening and stuffier as the air gathered moisture with the declining sunlight.

I wasn't quite sure for whom to cheer. Both teams were quite proficient, and after looking at the statistics the length of time they held the ball, the number of attempts at a goal, etc. were fairly alike. It was an active and highly physical game that was influenced (apparently) by American football, since the teams were clearly fond of hurling the full lengths of their heights against their foes, when these were toeing the ball, in order to tip the player off his feet and free the ball for a teammate. Even this exercise, carried out without any notable attempt to injure, was a relief after the Thanksgiving-like harvest of yellow cards, relinquishment of ball ownership, etc., in many games for attempts at tripping the enemy.

The winner, of course, was Switzerland, in a lovely dramatic juncture at the 90+3 minute mark.

* Or so I gather from my calculations of each Summer Time, which appears to fall in winter in the Southern Hemisphere within the Distrito Federal at UTC-2, whereas Germany's is at UTC+2, and the game aired at 6 p.m. Berlin time.

Guardian's minute-by-minute report: link.


***

FRANCE and HONDURAS were endearingly eager to grasp hands and greet the referees at the beginning of the game; only, of course, they did so early for the entirely pragmatic reason that the national anthems weren't sung because of logistical difficulties, so they had to fulfill the next stage of the formalities.

It was a disappointment for me to be confronted with a French team where Patrice Évra was the familiar face, no Franck Ribéry or Thierry Henry, etc. (It was my own fault, though, that I didn't recognize Karim Benzema.) I didn't know which team they were until they were emerging into the stadium and standing beside their flag. Of course their fans were highly distinguishable later, with their Obélix-like raiment of flaming hair and twin-prong helmets.

I dimly remember cheering for Honduras in the last World Cup, when they left a rather better impression. This time the Honduran goalkeeper suffered an accidental self-goal, and Wilson Palacios was relegated to the off-field when he earned two yellow cards (which means that he effectively had a red card). They were playing with only ten men instead of eleven; the commentator drily noted after this development that except if France had an intention of sinking an own goal there was little likelihood that Honduras would score at this point.

And indeed the score was 3-0, which the Hondurans gracefully accepted, shaking hands with the French after the match with little appearance of ill humour. It was perhaps also a result of their tenmanship that they failed to live up to their apparent reputation as a brawling, foul-happy lot. (There was a lovely quotation from their manager, who said that they were only a hearty bunch, or rather, 'in no way can you call us violent, what we have is attitude'.)

Source: France v Honduras (Guardian.com, June 15th, 2014)

***

ARGENTINA and BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA were, however, my favourite opponents. After disliking Argentina's team for the duration of the 2010 World Cup, in particular Lionel Messi, out of annoyance that he was so highly praised in matches where I had wanted the opponents to win, it was gratifying to find that it wasn't bulldozing the Bosnian team as feared.

It was an inspiring thought that the Bosnian players were often refugees from the Balkan War, and that this was the first World Cup their nation — with a population that is less than 4 million — had entered. Also inspiring was the massive wave of support from the Brazilian crowd, though if it was against the Argentinians and not for anybody, I guess it's not all endearing magnanimity. There were, at any rate, tunes and irritated whistles and olés in ample measure, which swamped the Argentinians at first until the second half dragged down Bosnia and Herzegovina and left the Brazilians with less feed for their lusty partisanship.

The Bosnian team's energy was unflagging for the first half, its passing and 'teamwork' admirable, while the Argentinians' playing was fairly dire. (Of course, as the commentator stated in the second half, this teamwork wavered the further the Balkans team plunged into the Argentinian half of the field, where they would lunge for the goal with little regard for other players' finer chances at glory.) There were prolific fouls by the Bosnians, and Angel di María in particular appeared beleaguered at length with little redress of grievances by the referee, none particularly vicious; but I was surprised when the Argentinians indulged in them, too.

A foul I have admired particularly in this World Cup for its brutality is the trick of teaming up, as two players, against an opposing player and tripping him at the feet while thrusting a hand against his shoulders so that he falls over on his hands and knees. Of course the referee finds it impossible to miss that, even if it is inflicted at the sideline with the assailants hiding their action by facing away from the field and the referee, so it is an ineffective piece of cheek.

It was beautiful when Bosnia and Herzegovina finally sunk its goal — that is, the first intentional goal, since it wasn't highly motivating when the ball soaring across the goal deflected off a stationary Bosnian to win a goal for the Argentinians at the 3 minute mark. It wasn't all that proficient at 'closing,' for reasons mentioned above, but it had earned itself such a multitude of attempts at a goal that it was only justice when it finally did.

The German television's commentary was rather funny, especially when a yellow card was giving to Spahić — the captain of the Bosnians and therefore ideally (but I doubt this is really a principle known to football) a pattern to his team — and the commentator said that 'He Took It Like a Man.'

By the end of the game I was reconciled to Messi, since his airy and entirely natural evasions of the attempts to foul him en route to the Bosnian goal were brilliant. It's a bit of a question whether fouling shouldn't be allowed to meet its Logical Consequences, in the form of yellow cards et cetera, but the fine humour with which he appeared to take it is a virtue — I think — too.