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.

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.