a hollywood final

In the 22nd minute, the Forces of Evil tap one of its most trusted agents, Mark van Bommel, to put an end to the beautiful game. Van Bommel accepts the mission and furiously tackles Xavi from behind. Five minutes later, his partner in crime Nigel de Jong flies with a karate kick aimed at Xabi Alonso's chest, and the match goes definitely underground.
The good Spaniards almost die a couple of times but never give up. They look for space, they search for the light, and every time there's a respite—at half time, at the end of the 90 minutes and at the end of the first 15 minutes of extra time—you can see them encouraging each other and you can almost hear a voice telling them to march on, to fight on, to look for the strength within, etcetera.
The sorrows are countless, but in the 116th minute, when everything is about to end, the innocent hero, the pure of heart, Andrés Iniesta, steps up and saves the beautiful game with a championship goal.
Spain 1 - Holland 0.

forlán

The third-place match is guaranteed entertainment for all. It's an invitation to a late lunch at the neighbours on January 1st.
Today, they served five goals and, with the final whistle, a free kick to the goalpost by Forlán.

technological advances

The tv analysis that employs a frozen image and a darkened strip to illustrate the offside zone is a misleading artifice. The truth can't be found there.
The intention is to show the instant in which the ball leaves the passer's foot, but if this World Cup is any indication, producers tend to choose an instant that not even Superman could pick up during the run of play. Much less the very earth-bound assistant referees. If the producers chose a later frame, they would show something truer to what is perceived on the field.
I also dislike the angle of the offside replay. The viewers should see, in the replay, whatever the assistant referee sees. The shot should be as close as possible to the assistant's perspective. That would be a real technological advance because all of us would be closer to the field. What's in place right now takes us farther away from the soccer that's played on the field.

the jabulani by xavi

At last I get to the much discussed Jabulani. Here's Xavi, giving it an almost final kick in an interview with Luis Martín of El País.

Luis Martín: The sense is that the ball isn't helping.
Xavi: It doesn't move well, it does weird things, doesn't take the spin, it has no flesh. The whole World Cup I've been saying to myself: "That was a good pass." But phiuuu! It takes off. And you think, "What's going on?" It's harder to weave anything with it. Every time you get it, it goes up. The other day, it went straight to the goal, but I wanted to control it and then pass. I couldn't. It went up and I kicked it... you want to spin it, it goes phiuuu! and it takes off. It's a disaster. But I guess I'm not the only one having this problem. Many have it, so I have to adapt...

You can read the entire interview (in Spanish) here.

And since I've brought up the maestro, I'll put in writing what I've been saying all month long: that Ronaldo may be flamboyant and Messi may be genius and Robben may be electric, but Xavi makes time stop.

someone, something

Last Friday, at the end of the second half of extra time, Ghana attacked like a great team. They had Uruguay by the throat with a brilliant display of physical strength and technique, and managed to get a free kick near the box in the last minute.
The penalty that came about seconds later, from Luis Suárez’s handball on the goal line, has been thoroughly discussed in the last few days, but I still can’t understand how the portuguese referee Olegario Benquerenca was able to organize it so quickly.
A penalty given in the last second of a quarter final game that’s tied 1-1, with a red card given to one of the star forwards of the tournament, should’ve created at least several minutes of chaos.
That was not the case. In the blink of an eye, Suárez left the field, the teams lined-up behind the box and Asamoah Gyan and Fernando Muslera took up their places.
There has never been so much speed in organizing a penalty. Unfortunately, nobody had the sense to protect Gyan.
Ghana’s last minutes of play had been so fabulous, so out of the ordinary, that all the players were surely flying. Someone in the team should’ve thrown himself to the ground with a cramp or seen a camera gone wild behind the goal or asked the referee something stupid, I don’t know what, but something should’ve been done to allow Gyan’s head to cool down a bit.
Half a minute would’ve been enough. The penalty would’ve turned into a goal, the best of the two teams would’ve won and not much would’ve been said about Suárez’s ethical standards.
Ghana went out of the tournament because its players didn’t get theatrical when they had to.

a funny 0-0

I start watching Paraguay-Japan in the second half. There's a nice rhythm, a fast pace, and the two teams are playing honestly. There are no tricks, no diving.
The minutes pass and both sides show fear of having to leave the tournament. But there's also, weird as it may sound, a comedic quality in the match.
The ball rarely lingers in midfield. It rolls frantically from one box to the other, bringing about disorder and restlessness and stimulating all kinds of useless stampedes.
There are so many bodies bumping into each other, crashing, and falling down that they resemble routines.
Shots to the boxes aren't kicked back, they simply ricochet off the defenders' shins and torsos, adding to the confusion.
If two players jump for a ball, one of them will surely end up curled in the ground.
A Paraguayan forward has to duck and lift his hands to protect himself from an unexpected pass.
Endo stares ahead and conspires with a half-dormant eye every time he takes a free kick for Japan.
Gerardo Martino, the Paraguayan coach, can't stay still. He slaps his sides, grabs his hair, covers his eyes, lifts his arms...he seems invented by Molière.
The Japanese coach, Takeshi Okada, standing a few feet away, is a rigid mask of agony.
Both teams have an inept attacking game and that explains the 0-0.
Thank God for the silly tune that played throughout.

poor imitation

The Slovakian defender Martin Skrtel lifts his foot to chin level and the Spanish referee Alberto Undiano calls a foul. Skrtel goes haywire and imitates his coach, Vladimir Weiss, who has spent most of the match shouting at Undiano.
Many coaches think that waging a psychological war against the referees is part of their job, and that's why they're always shouting from the side-line and protesting any decision that favors the other team. They're generally men who have an inflated sense of their place in the game.
Skrtel, then, infected as he is with psychological warfare, forgets the ball, forgets Kuyt, the Dutch forward who's behind him, and lets it all out against Undiano.
The ball is played fast to Kuyt, who gets into the Slovakian box and looks up. Skrtel runs back, but has no time to get to anyone. He's bound to lose.
Kuyt sends the ball to the middle of the box. Sneijder comes in unmarked and scores the second goal for Holland. It's the 84th minute, too late for Slovakia to tie the match.

paper rolls

Argentina-Mexico is on its first minutes when referee Roberto Rosetti of Italy wants the paper rolls on the field to be removed. It's Fifa's voice coming loud and strong, saying this is not the same as an Argentinian tournament. Here in the World Cup all is clarity, cleanliness and order.
In the 26th minute, clarity gets a drubbing. The assistant Stefano Ayroldi doesn't see the off-side as Argentina scores its first goal, and then he suffers a mental collapse. The Mexican team run en masse to the side-line. The assistant seems to want to change his mind, so Rosetti has to come to his rescue and usher the Mexicans away. Ayroldi sweats and babbles something. It looks like someone is scolding him through the communication device. Rosetti shakes his head and moves toward the center of the field. It's a goal.
Rosetti does the right thing. If he and his assistants don't see an off-side, they don't see it, period. The ball moved fast between Messi and Tévez after all. The world will surely question his decision, but he has to call whatever he and his assistants see.
During two other moments of the first half, a sky-blue balloon flies near the midfield, delicately bouncing on the grass and poking fun.

did you see that?

The 2-2 that wasn't.

Central magician: Jorge Larrionda (Uruguay)
Assistant magician: Mauricio Espinosa (Uruguay)

the deluge

A light drizzle mists the second half of Uruguay-South Korea.
At the 68th minute mark, Lee Chung-yong heads over Lugano and Muslera to score the tying goal for Korea.
The goal seems to send a signal up to the sky, and suddenly the drizzle becomes a downpour.
The wet Uruguayans wake up, push forward and move the ball around. But the Koreans stumble through the deluge, not knowing any longer what match they're playing - as if they are dropped in a different stadium. The minutes go by and they can't regain control of the ball. In the 80th minute, after a corner kick, Luis Suárez scores a stunner for Uruguay.
Korea tries to tie the game, but it's useless, nothing works. Then, as the German referee Wolfgang Stark blows the whistle to end the match, the rain stops.
The Koreans can see clearly again. Unfortunately, they see themselves out of the World Cup. They are the first to loose in the round of 16.
It all belongs to one of those scripts from the past in which destiny expresses itself through some natural phenomenon.

pantomime

Two good teams that won't attack each other...what an awful thing to watch.
A détente came about in the 80th minute of Chile-Spain, and that was the end of Group H's first round. We were treated to 10 or 12 minutes of simulation. The ball was there, but nobody wanted it, so it looked like pantomime.
In their defense, it should be said that they played a great match until then: tense, strong, intelligent and with goals. Also, they were really afraid of each other.

the feast

It starts early, in the 50th minute of Italy-Slovakia. The ball is out of play, half-way between the box and the side-line. Mucha, the Slovakian goalie, takes his sweet time getting it—evidence that his team is going to defend their one-goal advantage with delay. The Italian Di Natale runs to press him on. They bump into each other and the goalie falls hard to the ground, with no shame, stealing liberally from the Italian repertoire.
Two minutes later, Fabio Cannavaro, Italy’s captain, tries to teach Mucha how to bring a yellow card to life and dives as soon as Hamsik challenges. But Howard Ebb, the English referee, isn’t playing along.
Slovakia scores a second time and the commentators are ready to dismiss Italy from the tournament until Di Natale shows himself again and scores for the current champions.
Thereafter it’s 16 minutes of total opera, only it’s Slovakian opera. Mucha, inside his own goal and tangled up by the net, is the overture. The coach magically eats up time with his substitutions, and the players follow suit with delirious dives, doubled up from nothing whatsoever—happily gathering a new collection of yellow cards. In between tumbles each team scores once more, turning the whole affair into a beautiful, wild carnival, the best of the World Cup so far.

the comedy of errors

It's the 92nd minute of U.S.-Algeria. There's a corner kick for the African team. It may be their last chance to tie the game and save some face. The ball flies to the box, someone heads it, and the referee Frank De Bleeckere of Belgium calls a foul against the U.S. Some Algerian players furiously approach the referee. Two are inches away from his face, and one of them waves his arms repeatedly. De Bleeckere steps back and turns around. He takes out his cards and, turning back again, flashes the yellow card to the player in front of him. It's the captain, Anther Yahia, and this is his second yellow card. The referee remembers this and pulls out the regulatory red card. Yahia can't believe it. He does what many other players have done before: gestures of bewilderement, he hasn't done a thing, this is absurd, this can't be happening.
Yahia is still gesturing to the camera as he takes off the captain's armband and walks off the field. It's a heartfelt performance. He's using more energy here than he used when the match was tied at zero and Algeria had to attack and score to move on to the next round.
Yahia finally leaves the field. The tv producers give us the replay. This time we're closer to the action. The two players who are on the referee's face are Hassan Yebda and Rafik Halliche. It's the latter's arms that move aggresively up and down. Then Yahia emerges in between his two teammates. He pushes them aside and moves on to deal with the ref. From the side, which is how we see him, Yahia somewhat resembles Halliche. De Bleeckere turns around and pulls out the cards.
Yahia wasn't acting.

ronaldo

Again at the bar. It's half-time of Mexico-Uruguay, and Ronaldo's ad, with a giant statue of him in a Portuguese town, flashes on the tv.
"I hate that guy," says the bartender, and all nod.
The animosity is not related to his game, which is dazzling, nor his triumphs. It’s his misses, or more to the point, his theatrics afterwards.
When his shots hit the post or are deflected by the goalie, Ronaldo hates the universe. He lifts his head in contempt as if he'd done everything perfectly until fate intervened – the gods are against him!
Tiger Woods shows a similar attitude when the golf ball disobeys. Both he and Ronaldo seem to enjoy themselves little when competing.
Against North Korea though, Ronaldo was a different player. He smiled as his teammates scored five times for Portugal, and in the end the universe rewarded him with his first goal in this World Cup. The ball rolled down his neck, found his foot, and then the net.

kalil al ghamdi

The Swiss midfielder Valon Behrami tries to control the ball near the line and flings his arms to rid himself of Jean Beasejour of Chile. The pantomime-style fall that Beasejour enacts when touched in the face would convince anyone that he's the victim of nothing graver than a minor foul, but the referee Kalil Al Ghamdi of Saudi Arabia has a sudden burst of protagonism and shows Behrami the red card. It's the 30th minute of the match, and thereafter the Swiss team abandons any intention it might've had of winning. The referee has muddled the game for everyone.
In the 90th minute, Jorge Valdivia of Chile dives inside the Swiss box and Ghamdi correctly shows him the yellow card. The referee is so convincing this time around that Valdivia finds himself agreeing and apologizing to all.

goal!

Iaquinta scores for Italy from the penalty spot, tying the game with New Zealand, and goes on to perform the most ridiculous celebration of the tournament. It’s something involving his nose, with De Rossi blowing an imaginary horn. De Rossi created the penalty by diving forward when the New Zealander Smith pulled his shirt.

france

In reality shows, the participants curse and fight each other because they know they haven't done anything to deserve the attention of millions of people.

khune

A client convinced all the patrons of a bar today that the worst decision of this World Cup is the red card given to Itumeleng Khune, the brilliant South African goalie. We all agreed with the sentiment at the very least. It's sad that Khune has little chance to play again in this tournament. His saves in the first game were spectacular. The best one was made even more memorable because a Univision commentator celebrated it with a phrase so absurd it was sublime: "If you don't know where you're standing...the heart will take you where you must go in order to save the day."

vuvuzelas

The good people of ESPN The Magazine have their own vuvuzela drama going on.
Check it out here.

in the air

A ball flies towards Ivory Coast's box. The Ivorian Zokora jumps forward and heads it, but in doing so gets kicked on the arm by the forward Liedson, who's trying a bycicle kick. Zokora, still aloft, doesn't grab his arm but his head.
Did the foot hit the arm and go on to the head? Is his face okay?
The replay shows it clearly: none of that, Liedson's foot stops at the arm. Zokora is trying to make it look worse and secure the yellow card for the portuguese.
In a fraction of a second you get the header, the kick on the arm, the idea of calling attention upon a different body part, and the skillful execution of the idea. All of it in the air. The referee, Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay, called the foul and nothing more. He was nearby.

the stretcher

Second half of Italy vs. Paraguay. After the tying goal, Italy takes control of the field and pushes Paraguay back to its own half. Six minutes before the end of the match, the Paraguayan midfielder Jonathan Santana is lying down, near the side-line. No idea why. He’s waving his hands, and the referee stops the play and approaches him. We all approach him. Santana says something. He also gestures in a very peculiar way. It looks like he’s asking for the stretcher. He points to his leg and conveys, sure enough, that he would like to have the stretcher.
When a game is about to end and your team desperately needs to keep the score as is, and the opposing team is attacking at full swing, there’s nothing better than watching the referee lift his arm and order the stretcher to come in. "Let’s hope the injury is nothing serious," one thinks immediately, "but thank God!" Because between the emergency team getting there, seeing what’s wrong with the player and getting out, two or three minutes can go by and, more importantly, the game cools down.
Santana’s request is interesting because nowadays players know that referees won’t call in the stretcher unless they’ve witnessed a really tough tackle or a nasty-looking cramp.
In the late seventies, however, when I used to go to the stadium with my father, the stretcher coming in to the field was a very common occurence; what’s more, our stadium would have the four shortest, heaviest guys they could hire carrying it. They’d come out of some corner of the stadium, and even though they were running, it looked like they didn’t gain any terrain. It was a moment from the circus. The followers of the visiting team would see that and head straight to the exits.
The referee of Italy-Paraguay, Benito Archundia Téllez of Mexico, of course rejected Santana’s request, and the Paraguayans had to keep on protecting their goal with the ball in play.

the face

I spent a good portion of the Ghana-Serbia match thinking about Milan Rajevac, Ghana's coach. When the camera showed him for the first time, the commentator informed us that he is Serbian, which was news to me. In the world of international soccer, it's not rare to see an imported coach suddenly playing against his own country, but what came up on the screen at that particular moment didn't seem like the face of a professional of the globalized game but that of a contrite, almost defeated man.
I don't know how many times they had the camera on him, but on every occasion he looked as if he were oblivious to the match. It seemed to me that he was repeating the same thing in his mind over and over again: "Imagine my luck, to have to play my first game of my first World Cup against Serbia... My luck, to have to play my first game of my first World Cup against Serbia... To have to play..."
I did think for a while that it was an act. World-class coaches know a lot about camera movement and being able to juggle conflicting interests is a key requirement of the job. But I couldn't shake off my first impression completely.
As soon as the referee blew the whistle to end the match, the camera went back to Rajevac. A Ghanian player and a member of the coaching team jumped to hug him, but he pushed them both odiously and walked away. It was reported that later on he talked about how well Serbia played and about Ghana's good luck in winning the match.

the extra

He doesn't play, he doesn't coach, and chances are he won't vomit on the field like he did in the last World Cup. But he's on the bench. Why? Why is his presence important? Because his teamates, his compatriots, need him?
No. He's there because everybody wants him to be a perennial symbol of world football/soccer. There are still markets to be conquered, the U.S. market at the top of that list, and it's way past time to replace Pelé. Beckham is our man, Fifa must be saying, and the shirts and cleats people, as well as the players who dream of stretching their playing time in the MLS will agree.
Too bad he hasn't won a World Cup. He hasn't even been in a final. He hasn't even been in a semifinal. But hey, we'll dress him up, do his hair and sit him over there. Maybe it'll happen this time. If not, we'll think of something so that he can be there in 2014.

best costume design

The stiff necktie and the over-sized suit contained the chaotic, outlandish energy of Argentina's coach during the game against Nigeria. Someone at the AFA, the Argentinian Soccer Federation, deserves a prize for that smart choice.

vyntra!

In the 24th minute of South Korea vs. Greece, Park Ji-Sung, Korea's number 7, dribles on the right-hand side and slips through Loukas Vyntra to get to the Greek box. He's inside the box and it smells like goal because there are no other defenders in sight, but Vyntra falls down hard. He bounces on the ground and lifts his arms, and the referee blows the whistle. It's a foul. It's a marvel of a made-up foul. Vyntra is behind the forward, who's got control of the ball and is ready to score, but somehow manages to convince the referee that he's been kicked. You can almost say that Korea has been robbed, and the replay confirms it. Aristophanes would've been proud.

the blessing

"The one thing we don't want is for this World Cup to be ruined by players conning, deceiving the referee, in one word, cheating!”
Ian Darke, British play-by-play commentator for ESPN.
This makes me laugh.

the hand

Before the opening whistle, Henry maneuvers the ball with his hand, France scores and Ireland stays out of the World Cup.

The Hand comes in against Uruguay after 71 minutes. We've all seen it warm up by the side of the field.

In the 88th minute, The Hand indignantly calls for a penalty due to contact of the ball with an Uruguayan defender's hand inside the box. The replay shows that the entire arm of the Uruguayan is pressed against his body when the ball strikes it.

south africa 1 - mexico 1

Siphiwe Tshabalala, South Africa's number 8, inaugurates this blog with the first dive of the World Cup. Early on, in the 15th minute of play, he charges from the left, about 10 meters shy of the penalty box, and finding the welcoming arm of a Mexican defender, plunges to the ground like a crucified Christ. The referee blows the whistle. It's a foul, for sure, but the early dive is a good omen and very much appreciated.

Javier Aguirre, de Mexican coach, elbows the air violently in the 24th minute, and the tv producers give him to us in slow motion. No idea to whom the gesture is directed, if it's to the referee, in order to educate him about the plight of his players, or if it's to one of his players, in order to remind him of a lesson.

In the 55th minute, about six South African players celebrate the tournament's first goal with a dance that brings to mind the dance in Bande à part, Jean-Luc Godard's movie.

The referee Irmatov will not award a penalty to South Africa in the 77th minute. He must've seen the foul. But he looks the other way, and that's theater.