During the quarterfinal between Uruguay and Ghana, maybe a little bit before it started, I had a somewhat startling realization. I didn’t care if Ghana won. I was aware that I should want Ghana to win, and that was fine, but it didn’t really resonate with me emotionally. In the next day’s match between Spain and Paraguay, I could sense a very real antipathy towards the Albirroja. As if they were somehow disturbing the natural order of things by holding Spain goalless for the balance of the match. This has led me to believe that, horror of horrors, I don’t really like an underdog.
This doesn’t really make sense to me yet. As a bleeding heart liberal, and furthermore as a citizen of Canada, the plucky underdog of developed nations, I realize that I am contravening the conventional wisdom about who I should support. But I can’t help it. I was completely indifferent to New Zealand’s miraculous run in the group stages, even the 1-1 draw to Italy, the sole national team for which I feel utter distaste.
There are some exceptions, however. I did rather enjoy watching Holland beat Brazil, but Holland are by no means conventional underdogs. I suppose I also liked seeing South Africa beat France, but it would be hard to consider the imploding French team as favourites in anything, with the exception of a competition to find the best representation of international sporting nihilism. Which, I must admit, would be a very French competition to have. But I digress.
There are a couple of reasons why I think I like the favourites. I’m crossing the conventional “reflected glory” explanation off right away, for no other reason than because it’s just too easy. However, the profusion of intelligent tactical analysis on the web during this World Cup has fueled my desire to see a talented side firing on all cylinders. There is something viscerally pleasing about watching this German team grab their opponents by the throat and execute a near-perfect 90-minute thrashing. It comes from the same place that makes me love Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, who can put six goals past a team like Real Madrid, seemingly without being too bothered by the whole ordeal. It’s like that moment in a James Bond film where the hero does something brilliant and evades certain peril without ever mussing the part in his hair.
I even have to admit that I like a good dynasty every once in a while. How could you not enjoy a team like Manchester United in the late nineties/early naughties? Don’t answer that, I know how: because they always won everything. But didn’t they do it the right way? So many of those players (Beckham, Butt, Giggs, Scholes, the Nevilles) were brought through United’s academy. It’s comparable to when the New York Yankees won the 1996 World Series on the strength of players that came through their farm system: Jeter, Posada, Rivera, Bernie Williams, et al. Well, that’s Germany in this World Cup. That’s Guardiola’s Barcelona. And that’s what I like to see. Besides, if we get any more shocks in this World Cup, I’m liable to have a heart attack.
Gareth Simpson is a massive hypocrite, because he supports Aston Villa. Feel free to follow his further writings on Twitter or at 7500 to Holte, where he is now a contributor.
Read More: World Cup
by Gareth Simpson · July 6, 2010
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What I really hope for from a big tournament (apart from England winning it, natch) is great players producing beautiful football. If those players are in one of the traditionally smaller teams, then that’s wonderful… but often an underdog win in football consists of a less talented but well-organised, hard-working, defensively minded team who stifle their opponents and snatch a lucky goal on the break. Which is admirable but doesn’t lend itself to beauty.
Zonal Marking has changed everything. I was rooting for Brazil, not because of some nostalgic waiting-for-Carlos-Alberto-to-thrash-one-in-on-the-right-flank feeling, but because after reading ZM, they are supposedly tactically very interesting. The idea of ‘opinion leaders’ in online soccer writing is a complex one, but it is hard not to read ZM’s work as anything but fact. The writing style (and content, course) leave little room for argument, which leaves me, the reader, feeling both very smart and very stupid at the same time. Less-obsessed friends sit in awe with my astute tactical analysis of matches, but really, its rarely little more than a verbal copy-and-paste from ZM. I gauge my tactical education by trying to deduce what the ZM post-match report will look like. More and more, I’m getting it right. But does that mean I’m actually learning tactics, or simply what ZM’s tactical worldview consists of?
I never got how Ghana were somehow underdogs vs. Uruguay. They have a population of 23m. vs. 3m for Uruguay. Uruguay has Suarez & Forlan but no other really huge names, and the entire stadium was supporting Ghana. Plus they had gotten to the quarter final by beating Serbia (on a penalty), drawing goddamn Australia (on a penalty!), losing to Germany and squeezing past a mediocre USA-side.
To clarify: their road to the quarters was another reason not to sympathise with them, not why they shouldn’t have been underdogs.
Ghana itself may not have been an underdog, but Ghana absorbed all the hopes of those in the thrall of the Africa as underdog continent narrative. For most casual fans (probably not the sort to read soccer blogs like this one, or any other), the tiny bit of information that Ghana is in Africa, rooting interests are evaluated no further than that. I think a lot of more involved fans of sports (any sport), probably have the same sort of calculus for at least one team–Aston Villa say, or in my case Brazil–and maybe a hated rival, but those interests fall, we go on to cheer the best looking favored-aesthetic-tactically team. Germany for most in this case.
@Flor Uruguay are ranked 16 spots ahead of Ghana in the FIFA rankings (#16 vs #32), but a lot of that is due to the South America continental bonus. Plus, FIFA rankings are useless.
I’ve been shocked, on the whole, at how little underdog cred Uruguay have gotten in this tournament. Put it like this: If their entire country were a city, it would be something like the 14th-largest metropolitan area in the US. If they were a state, they’d rank around 46th in GDP, between Rhode Island and South Dakota. This is stretching the point, and not to go all Kuper-Szymanski, but it’s like if Minneapolis-St. Paul fielded a local soccer team and it made the World Cup semifinals. It’s a really impressive accomplishment.
“Gareth Simpson is a massive hypocrite, because he supports Aston Villa. ”
Oh yeah, where did they finish out of the 92 league clubs. 6th, was it? And the year before? 6th, again? And how many zeroes are there in their Chairman’s bank balance? And are they the biggest team in the second biggest city? Gotta love them plucky underdogs.
Sorry, got carried away there. All other supporters of genuine underdog clubs will empathise, though.
@Jim That comment seems almost bizarrely smug. It’s like you’re saying “you think YOUR club is mediocre? Check out how shit MY club is.”
All I meant by my (obviously tongue-in-cheek) remark was that I don’t support one of the so-called “Big 4,” which are pretty much the only teams that have any sort of appreciable support in my part of the world. Besides, you’d be hard pressed to say Aston Villa are “favourites” for anything.
Canada isn’t the plucky underdog of developed nations. It’s the fourth official waiting for England (in full on Howard Webb mode) to retire, and but glad that it’s not one of the line judges (Switzerland and Belgium), while its southern neighbor resumes on-again-off-again rivalry with some of the European sides. In the off-season he likes to play with the local rec-hockey team.
nobody likes argyle…
“There is something viscerally pleasing about watching this German team grab their opponents by the throat and execute a near-perfect 90-minute thrashing. ”
I loved that
But equally is there nothing more satisfying than a clever plan to undo a juggernaut. Not like Switzerland v Spain, but Inter v Barcelona after 2 legs. Inter’s achievement in the Champions League is made all the better because they beat sides like Barcelona.
Just discovered your blog, fantastic stuff. I’m a Brazilian in NYC, supporter of Arsenal in the PL. Just got back from Brazil where I commiserated with family and friends about our elimination by the Dutch.
In the game you discuss above, I was rooting for Ghana (tho also had sympathies with uruguay b/c I wanted to see Sth America do well in this tournament) and was sympathetic to their complaints about the handball until they started to insult Suarez and the Uruguayan team and posed as morally superior victims. It became some kind of Sth African-wide or African-wide sense of injustice, that now includes appealing to FIFA to change the rules to address what Suarez did.
The sense of injustice was expressed by Ghana’s players and their supporters as if they were morally superior to Uruguay and Suarez was villified as being an evil villain – as if Ghana were a paradigm of sportsmanship. At that point, I lost all sympathy because I despise this sort of hypocrisy in sport and villification of players who do what so many other players would do in his place. (I think the handball was instinctive, not deliberate).
Ghana are the same team who blatantly dived in the US’ penalty box in 2006 and eliminated the US team from the tournament with that cheating dive. Ghana also blatantly timewasted, dived and committed cynical fouls toward the end of the 2010 game v. US. Be upset by all means but to paint oneself as somehow morally superior angels loses you all credibility.
And, unlike Henry and France, Suarez was banned. Uruguay went out against Holland seriously handicapped without one of their best players. And Ghana were given the chance to win it with a penalty (and then more penalties). Uruguay and Suarez were duly punished.
For me there were no underdogs in that game — both teams were outliers, surprising everyone that they’d gone so far in the tournament. I wish they could’ve both advanced.
I usually support the underdog but I admit, I too found it thrilling to see Germany thrash the poor Aussies (neither Argentina nor England were underdogs). I did, however, feel sorry for the NKoreans v. Portugal.
The NKoreans came away from the tournament with probably the most amazing football stat I’ve ever seen in over 40 yrs of watching (and sometimes playing) football. They committed NO FOULS in their first game, and only 3 in their 2nd. Who ever heard of a football team committing NO FOULS?
I am not sure about the Mourinho-as-tactical genius view of the Champions League win over Barca. They did what they needed to do, but was it particularly creative tactically? I guess this is going back to some of last year’s debates (Chelsea-Barcelona), but if Bojan’s goal had been in, would we all be saying that Inter, like Chelsea, didn’t plan to attack enough?
The relative status of Spain or Germany as the underdog in yesterday’s game is also interesting in the “backshadowing” sense. Germany had most of the press corps (many of whom don’t seem to quite believe that Spain’s plan is, well, a plan) drooling before the match. Afterward, Jonathan Wilson just confused us all again (or at least me, I’m with Sean on the Wilson/Zonal Marking conundrum) by making a very good postmortem case that Germany was simply an excellent counterattacking team who were thoroughly denied the chances they needed against Spain. I didn’t see if he had written anything before the match so I’m not sure, but I loved that quote someone posted the other day about how “after the game is before the game.”
@Nora I was speaking more of the first leg where Inter played with a far greater attacking mentality that at least I had expected. The second match was much more of a lottery, however that they still had a ticket (to strain the analogy) is a credit to Jose. Whilst I don’t want to fawn to the Jose is a managerial adonis group, I think that a cleverly executed tactical plan with limited resources is more impressive than one with vast resources.
I know this is with the benefit of hindsight, but also the pain of analysing why Australia (I’m Australian) got tonked by 4 by Germany, they scored the majority of their goals on the counter, even against us. I think Germany, for all their exciting football and excellent results, did definitely come up against teams who suited them in the round of 16 and quarter finals.
Finally, a credit to Manuel Neuer, who played fantastically this World Cup, where he wasn’t really expected to play.
rooting for mexico this world cup was bad for my blood pressure. my liver was sufficiently prepped, though. the les bleus lulled us into thinking we were all badass & shit. poor frenchies. *http://www.economist.com/node/16438717
is it too much to ask to see espain systematically dismantle everything that comes in its path, a la barcelona early 08-09?
@t’OM that sounds about right. “Tactical genius” debates aside I was pretty impressed with Inter this spring (but then–were their resources really that limited? It just keeps going around and around) and I had a great time watching Germany this WC. I’m not such a partisan that I can’t appreciate what these other teams have going, I just note that somehow a lot of well-paid observers do not seem to buy in to what Spain is very clearly setting out to do, similarly with Barca of the last couple years. But that’s why after the game is before the game. Sorry about Australia! I was supporting the USA also so I still have some bruises.
@t’OM P.S. Tonked. I’m going to start using that.
@Nora Firstly – tonked I think is a cricket word with 2 meanings. One is where the ball is hit really hard and the second is when a team is soundly beaten. Either way, either in the whole game or one action, one side is thrashed.
Secondly – Inter were outgunned (clearly) against Barcelona. Of course, in football everything is relative, and in this case, relatively, I firmly believe Inter had fewer resources than Barca (apologies for the lack of cedilla under the c).
Don’t worry about Australia, that was about a par performance. Beating Serbia (with all its disappointment of not going through) is a serious achievement, drawing with Ghana and losing to Germany are really credible results, especially in the greater context of the tournament. Last time we overachieved, this time we achieved. I worry about the next time, however there is still a lot of water to flow under the metaphorical bridge before then.
@Flor – I agree that Ghana and Uruguay were probably pretty evenly matched (in my eyes at least). But population has nothing to do with it. I’m always puzzled why people bring that up – as if you would expect China to beat Holland, or India to beat Germany, just because they have larger populations.