The Black Stars fail to shine; The Domitable Cubs
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Ok. I'm a bit frustrated. First Ghana draws with Australia then my team loses 2-1 in the semifinals and I return to watch Cameroon lose to Denmark. Not sure about you guys but the outcome of a futbol game greatly affects my mood. At the beginning of this tournament I believed that Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon would be the African sides that would make some noise in the tournament. So far, it has been only a whimper.
Ghana v Australia
Coming from a 1-0 victory over Serbia I expected the Black Stars of Ghana to be confident enough to take 3 points home against an Australian side that got mollywhopped by Germany 4-0. There is a psychological advantage in futbol that a lot of teams are not capitalizing on it seems like. The Black Stars had a great opportunity to comfortably sit atop of Group D (which they currently are) with 6 points. However, they seldom played like they had the desire to win. This is my gripe with every African side so far. We are yet to see the tenacity and hunger for a victory from an African side. Sure there are times when they are pressuring the opponents for minutes on end, but the attack always breaks down in the last third whether it is someone making one pass too many or taking a wild shot from outside the 18 yard box like Kojo Asamoah seemed to fancy all game.
Also, Australia played a man down for a good portion of the game. What happened to taking advantage of this (like Greece did against Nigeria the other day)? At times the Ghanian defense was way too exposed which is the problem with most of the African sides in the tournament. The Black Stars came away with a draw which certainly does not rule them out of the tournament, but if they lose to Germany and Serbia beats Australia they very well could be out of the tournament. Is that going to happpen? Your guess is as good as mine. My bracket is completely shot; the teams we expected to dominate the group stages are falling at the hands of teams we paid no mind at all. Interesting stuff.
Cameroon v Denmark
Where do I begin? The match started out very promising for the Indomitable Lions with Samuel Eto'o showing his class by scoring a goal early on in the match. He would go on to hit the post again before Nicklas Bendtner, perhaps the world's most unreasonably confident striker, would put Denmark level after a half hour. Poor defense from the Lions would see Rommedahl score a left-footed shot that should easily have been prevented. I am absolutely infuriated with African teams seemingly forgetting how to play defense. It's classic futbol. Striker at the edge of the box receives a ball, you close him down. You don't wait for him to exercise judgment upon you and punish your keeper. Then, as all other African teams that find themselves down a goal with time running out, the Indomitable Lions (referred to from hereon out as the "Domitable Cubs") begin to mount the pressure on Denmark with plenty of full and half-chances, but they can not seem to find the back of the net with Idrissou having the best chances at goal with two headers that he knocks high over the bar. Just like that the Domitable Cubs crash out of the World Cup having successfully accumulated zero points in two games. Great stuff.
Netherlands v Japan
Brazil, Argentina, and the Netherlands are the only teams that have kept my bracket from being shot to hell. Thank you Maicon, Higuain and Sneijder, you guys are awesome. Of the three, the Netherlands are the only ones that are yet to concede a goal. This was a big concern for me before the tournament because I believed that if they were able to tighten up their defense and strengthen it they would go far in the world cup. Hopefully they do. I really like their team and they are exciting to watch.
Thanks for reading my useless World Cup rants and I hope you are all enjoying the games. Brazil plays today. Italy just did...er....we'll talk about that in the next blog post.
P.S. what's up with Les Bleus?? They're looking more like the cast of a reality TV show than a futbol team of seasoned professionals. Leave the drama and the egos elsewhere and just play futbol. Your nation is counting on you.
Until next time, au revoir mes amis! Follow us on twitter: @LiveBrtheFutbol where we rant about all things futbol and more.
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