What I want to know is whether we’ll remember any of this in ten years, or if we’ll look back on it as the mass blackout during which we all wrote mystic texts. I can’t remember two more deranged or thrilling days of soccer, or four more shocking games, in any recent tournament, and Euro 2008 made me compare Aphrodite to a Toyota Prius. It was all the more stunning because it came out of nowhere—that’s not to say this World Cup had been boring, but it had rolled along at a pretty regular tempo and, apart from a few moments of madness and bliss, within a fairly livable emotional band. The sheer scale of the World Cup as an event probably smooths out our perceptions, and that’s also part of the memory problem: one game turns over onto the next so relentlessly that there’s no time to process it all, and even elevated moments start to feel like they’re part of an undifferentiated routine. One way or the other, these games sneaked up on me like an assassin who wanted a kiss.
If Holland wins the World Cup, then Holland 2 – 1 Brazil will be recorded as a mighty step on an epic march to redemption, or at least an epic march to overcoming 40 years of imperial self-defeat—even though, as it happened, this match felt more like a bizarre accident than anything. How a Dutch formation that depended on Mark van Bommel to provide meaningful link-up play succeeded against that low, thrumming, vibrating-like-a-ship’s-engine-room 4-2-2-2 is something I’ll never understand, especially given that Ooijer looked every day of his 68 years and Holland’s most consistent route of attack involved Robben cutting inside (and looking like he expected to catch the Brazilian back line off guard all 1200 times he did it), getting the ball onto his left foot, and then proudly tumbling over after not finding an opening for a shot.
Chance favors Wesley Sneijder so often that it almost ceases to be chance, but in this game, yeah, it was chance. But Brazil’s amazing way of losing it in the second half was the difference—Felipe Melo charging around like he thought he had an invisibility cloak, and didn’t; Robinho running more and more feverishly and more and more pointlessly, like the thoughts of someone who can’t sleep. Kaká was so silky and helpless in all phases of the match, that one save from Stekelenburg excepted, that he seemed almost immaterial, a comb in untangled hair. Regardless, you don’t beat Brazil in a World Cup quarterfinal without legend looking up and taking notice, and of all the games, this one was the most revolutionary in the sense that the most was overthrown.
But Uruguay-Ghana was where it started raining stones. This was theater with the walls caving in, a wild display of physics and a scene of momentum slamming back and forth so quickly the stadium was lurching from side to side. Outside Germany, Diego Forlán has been the player of the tournament so far; here he was a little pinned in, but his delivery from set pieces was a thing of death and inspiration. The end of this game—extra time, that last-ditch header from Adiyiah, the Suárez handball, Gyan’s bonked penalty—was almost too much for the sport; I don’t think anyone understood what was happening. Seconds became moments, in the way they sometimes do. There was a collective weight of silence and expectation that, in itself, somehow sufficed to break Twitter.
Since it has to be registered: I have no problem with the Suárez handball. I’m not in this to gain moral examples, I don’t need soccer players to be better than everyone else, and in any case, self-policing Victorian schoolboys don’t sound extremely fun to watch. A sport in which the players are too preoccupied with honor to commit a lifesaving tactical foul in the 120th minute of a World Cup quarterfinal is too chaste for me, sorry, House Gryffindor.
What these games mean is going to change in the next few days; that’s unavoidable. Whoever wins the tournament will be the master of all history and the light by which all generations see, and I can see Spain-Paraguay being forgotten, despite the nervous breakdowns it provoked at the time. Germany 4 – 0 Argentina, though—that felt epoch-making, like a result that will be shorthand forever. Or at least, when the future explorers drag their camels to the rock, they’ll see “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings / 4-0.” What can you say about the German performance? Huge fiery golden birds ripping up a city of children. Or more dramatically, Lahm in acres of space, sprinting forward with Müller ahead and Özil straggling behind with a purpose. I don’t know whether Argentina were told not to defend, didn’t feel like defending, or were acting out some exotic tactical plan that just went badly awry, but what was strange was that they never even looked anxious. They were either totally nonchalant, or in a reckless heat, at all times, seemingly without much relevance to what was happening in the match. Mascherano wanted to fight himself, but I think di Maria just likes running behind people. Tevez frowns like the whale in Pinocchio. Nothing that happened said anything about Messi.
Maradona as a manager: it was a sham, it was always a sham, but it was the kind of sham you wanted to see succeed, because if it succeeded, it wouldn’t have been a sham and maybe he would have some purpose or joy in life. Maradona has always been one of those global orphans whose soul-sickness everyone wants to help cure, and it’s genuinely scary now to think about his future life. His whole run as Argentina coach was balanced right on the knife-edge of marvelous and pathetic (that suit, that beard, his shortness, those irrepressible, awkward man-hugs) and this probably tips it to the wrong side. And he’s only 49! God knows what he needs, or whether football can ever provide it, but I sort of wish he’d stay on as manager, buckle down, and learn how to do the job in a halfway respectable way. Who knows if he’d ever be good at it, but a crazy run through the Copa América in which he actually worked on tactics could turn everything around. I sound like I’m writing about a wayward nineteen-year-old, but that’s Maradona, I guess.
None of this is filtered or focused, but it’s been an extraordinary couple of days and I wanted to get down some part of it down before Tuesday erases everything. What I can’t get out of my head is Cardozo sobbing after Paraguay’s amazing loss to Spain. It was the most painful moment of the tournament to watch, even more than Komano breaking down or the Ghana players reacting to their loss. I hate this game, I love this game, I live only to forget.
Read More: World Cup
by Brian Phillips · July 4, 2010
You are right, Cardozo sobbing and the Spanish players consoling him was one of the most emotional moments of the Cup. Sad, too, seeing some of the Brazilian players return home in tears. I don’t think we realize just how much pressure some of these players are under. Diego upset and his daughter holding him back from some German fans, that too pretty moving.
Two thoughts on this wonderful post. First, on Germany: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a match featuring so many world-class players on both sides in which one side just did whatever it wanted to do the whole match. I know this is a worn phrase, but I kept thinking, “They’re not playing Argentina, they’re playing the game.” And so the smiles on the German players’ faces at the end of the match seemed to read not “We’re through to the semis!” but rather “Man, was that fun!” I found that really beautiful.
Second: people who don’t care for soccer or don’t know it always say that so little happens in a soccer match. And it’s famously hard to explain that many things are happening all the time in a match, things that are related in all sorts of intricate ways to the things that Happen, when they finally do Happen. Well, more things Happened in the last ten seconds of Ghana-Uruguay than in several ordinary matches, and the brains of soccer fans are just not wired to receive that much information at once. You get used to a certain pace of event, and the end of that match just blew that to hell, and blew our circuits along with it.
Something similar happened in the Spain-Paraguay match. Penalty to Paraguay! MISS! Aaaiiiyyeee!! — penalty to Spain! GOAL! NO, he has to retake! ANOTHER MISS!! Fabregas was fouled! — No, the ref didn’t call it!!! But that, defibrillator-requiring though it was, occurred over the course of five minutes, not ten seconds.
“I hate this game, I love this game, I live only to forget.”
One of my favorite Springsteen lyrics of all time. ;^)
As I was watching Xabi Alonso take the 2nd penalty and then the goaltender making the save followed by Fabregas being fouled, my brother and I jumped up in excitement and all he could think to yell was, “What the f*** am I watching??” My reaction was nothing, I couldn’t think of anything to say, but “What the f*** am I watching??” just about summed it up perfectly for me. It’s good to see I wasn’t alone.
Lovely post, as always. I thought I’d be angry at Diego, but I’m just too sad to be anything else.
beautiful post…I almost thought I could not physically bear to watch another soccer game after Ghana-Uruguay. Gyan’s grief was the most giagantic. And then, we found ourselves in a public viewing piazza in a city I’d never been, watching both games outdoors as if we were in a scene out of The Golden Compass’ second volume, the Subtle Knife, in unbelievable florentine heat…german fans went wild, they almost made it possible for me to rejoice with them.
@Alan Jacobs I agree. It was great to watch the Germans have fun. It took the sport from the professional Mt. Everest that the World Cup is into the park across the street.
Sohini and I, in Dublin, have been really enjoying your posts on Slate and here.
For me, the handball taboo is purely visceral. It is pretty much all I took away from my undistinguished career on the team that was below the junior varsity team in high school. I wanted Suárez to be banned for life. I recognize my feelings are ridiculous!
@Jeremy Absolutely. I also wanted him to be banned! In part because, here in South Africa, we are forever having to defend ourselves as football fans as opposed to rugby. (Similar to the states with their ‘football’ I guess.)
What Suarez did really kicked the game’s image in the nutts in my opinion. It’s like telling your parents to watch an episode of your favourite show and then it happens to be the most blasphemous and promiscuous episode of the entire season. Just how to convince them that it STILL is a good show to watch is difficult! Unless, of course, they had bought into shows like that in the first place (and who won’t?). But that would defeat the need to advocate for it. I still remember an argument I had a few months back with someone who said football is only about controversy, that it is the Jerry Springer of sport. “No”, I said, “I think you should watch a game to really appreciate the skill of the players and the sheer joy of a counter attack. The media likes controversy.”
God I hope he didn’t watch this game!
I can just see a bunch of middle aged men, painted blue and watching the Bulls play rugby thinking “Damn, I’m glad this country doesn’t support the farce that is football.”
(Although they are more likely to just burp and call us faggots.)
Despite lovely, Germaan husband, the idea of Germany defeating Spain fills me with dread. I don’t know why. Is it the Twilight of the Latin Idols to the Teutono-Slav youth bridage– the first to fall being Maradona or Torres? Or is it simply the dread of repetition insofar as the Germans keep winning world cups with alarming regularity?
Gutted. Unfortunately I didn’t get to watch the Argentina-Germany game coz I was on the train to a desert city in India. Fortunately I didn’t watch the game coz I probably would have broke down watching a player with the most pure form of football at his feet not be able to do anything because he’s got a pack of nitwits for defenders and manager. Sigh. Time for the what-ifs: Zanetti and Cambiasso. Would have made a difference. And Messi would not be lost in his own half.
I find Maradona a much more calculated character than this post implies you do, Brian. I’m not saying a publicity hound will engineer his own near death or anything of the sort (multiple times), but regardless of his innocence of things like tactics and judicious team selection, I think he’s very savvy about protecting his reputation. Of course he’ll survive this. He’s survived everything else. I look forward to his hoodwinking some crazy club owner in Italy into becoming the team’s manager. Thankfully I think de Laurentiis @ Napoli at least may be a bit too unromantic to give Diego a tryout at the San Paolo.
Also: hating this post for putting a Righteous Brothers earworm in my head. * shakes fist at screen *
@roswitha Wow. You’ve really lost that lovin’ feelin’.
I do find Maradona calculating, but I think it’s a lazy calculation of grand gestures rather than a shrewd ability to manipulate the world (even though he probably thinks it’s the latter). I can imagine him calculating his way into a move that would make bad trouble fatal, if that makes sense, though I might be romanticizing him, or patronizing him, or both. Either way, I worry that there are problems in his head with the potential to overwhelm even his concern for reputation.
Why not hand him the reins at the San Siro? He’d let most of the midfield die of natural causes, sell Flamini, buy Mascherano from Liverpool, and switch the team to that 4-1-5 he’s been dreaming about.
@John
If one looks closely to Lucio’s face one can see that pressure you mentioned. It’s amazing. Brazilians refer to the yellow shirt as the “manto sagrado”, something like “sacred mantle”… So one can imagine the pressure…
«I have no problem with the Suárez handball» either. He calculated the risks, has been punished for his deed, and because the other guy missed it, as long as two other guys at the penalty shoot-out, he got his reward. No problem there.
But I’m not so sure about the «I’m not in this to gain moral examples», tough I understand the broader meaning implied. I suggest the reading of the following article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/29/cheating-football-germany-goalkeeper?CMP=twt_gu) by Peter Singer after the events that took place at the Germany vs England a few days ago. Suarez “hand of God” is in no way similar, one should not ask for a moral stand from him, but I’m not so sure about that when looking at Neuer. I really think Neuer missed the opportunity.
What do you think?
Kudos for the good job done here!
Ozymandias…what a wild and excellent image. I’ve just read your blog for the first time this morning. And I’ve got to say I love your writing style. Love it. It’s like Hunter S. Thompson talking about the music business. Extravagant and makes my brain feel crossways! I’m suspecting that the explorers may have to drag their camels to another mythic site after today’s semifinal. Perhaps the Alhambra in Granada where the gates could be etched with Puyol’s name and the single digit “uno”….and the word “bastantes”. Thank you for the read.
First visit to this website and I find this post excellently written and comical to boot! I must admit to joining the emotional rollercoaster whilst watching Ghana Uruguay and actually felt for the whole of Ghana when Gyan missed the last gasp penalty! Count me in as a frequent visitor from here-on. Nice work!
Great article! Memorable WC and text, man! [brazilian ] – if only “total football” of Netherlands won…