Ben Knight
writes and publishes Onward!
France! Boo! Korea! Yay!
Into the second batch of World Cup matches, and random thoughts rule.
As the matches blur by, and every clearer pattern could turn out to be a murkier one by nightfall, here’s an early list of things I love – and don’t love – about whatever in the blessed name of heck is actually transpiring on the sacred soccer pitches of South Africa.
LOVES:
- Goals! Suddenly, they’re coming. Get the opening-match jitters out of the way, and now we’re seeing some real attacking mastery. Uruguay! Argentina! Germany (who didn’t wait)! … Greece? The first rack of games taught us, basically, that every team in the tournament can play defence. Yeah, the Aussies got shred-ripped, but the Germans were exceptional against a side that generally takes better-than-decent care of its own fishnet. No surprise, really. Goals-against kill you dead in World Cup qualifying, and every team except the hosts qualified. The telling moment, for me, came when Brazil were held off the board for an eternity by the game and enigmatic North Koreans. They couldn’t find any space to run stunts, and were basically caught standing around, waiting flat-footed for the ball, for the entire first half. But then Brazil’s Maicon ripped home the first marker – from down the goal line, beside the goal! I think this entire World Cup is going to come down to open runs, brilliant passes, and odd-angle bomb jobs. The team that can be most creative in attack – Brazil? Germany? Argentina? … Chile? – could easily be the one that wins it all. I truly hope so – because good, grim defence is everywhere, and the human spirit is always better served by brilliance.
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