Saturday, July 3, 2010

I Say, Hey Bartender...

RIP Maradona's dream of leading Argentina to the Final. Right now it looks as though we're talking about Germany and Spain fighting it out for a spot in the final.

Hmmm... and Uruguay vs Netherlands. I'd like to see Netherlands in this match up more than Uruguay. Once Brazil are out of the tournament, I don't really care about the land of Enzo Francescoli. Well, at least until the day Boghossian makes it onto the squad.

Damn it, it's almost tomorrow, and I am still having problems writing about what happened to Argentina today. I got a good buzz going, and a beer at my side, and I'm stunned that Germany dismantled Argentina's defense so thoroughly that they took out the South Americans. Yes, I know, Maradona's backline had shown weaknesses in the previous games, but 4-0?

Spain's 1-0 victory over Paraguay was, shall we say, odd. Two penalties in a matter of no more than three minutes. The second, Spain's, had to be retaken because a Spaniard ran into the penalty before the kick was made. Funny, as I recall the CBC broadcast I was watching then replayed the Uruguay penalty attempt and the Spanish were guilty of the same.

And now it is today, it had been just a few minutes away. Good night all. Maybe all this will make more sense in the morning.

2 comments:

Jeremy said...

The defense was porous, but let's not forget the basic lack of anything resembling a cohesive offense that contributed to the debacle.

Messi was having to drop so far back just to get the ball that he never had a chance.

Diego inspires and brings all of the emotion, but tactically he is terrible. He couldn't adjust to the Germans and they paid a heavy price.

David Phillips said...

When I saw the quotes were D10S said there were no reason to change tactics/lineups against the Germans, I wanted to scream at him:

"Didn't your time playing in 1986 teach you anything?"

As I recall, small modifications were made before every match, and Diego himself, though always in the lineup, shifted positions from midfield to forward.

And I'm sure just about every coach he ever played under did similar things... but I suppose expecting Maradona to have ever paid enough attention to they coaches he played under to have learned anything from them is far too much to ask for.