Posts under ‘Soccer’

John Doyle
The Globe and Mail
Published on Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The best referee is the one who is nearly invisible during a game. Wolfgang Stark, a banker, is in charge of Wednesday’s key game between England and Slovenia and is one of those senior and experienced referees who is mostly invisible but has a history of controversy. Every now and then he does something spectacularly controversial. The luck of the draw means that he’s handling a game that could send England out of the tournament and, if segments of the English press are to be believed, cause a seismic shift in the way soccer is perceived in England. Continue reading

John Doyle
The Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, June 21, 2010

Sunday, about 80 minutes into the Brazil/Ivory Coast game and just before the theatrical shenanigans, the TV cameras caught Zinedine Zidane in the stands. He was about to leave and was taking Luis Figo with him.

The two old warhorses of France and Portugal, and multiple great European club teams, left in the time-honoured manner of celebrities at big games – 10 minutes before the end, to dodge the traffic. Call me peculiar but I saw it as more than that. It was the symbolic exit of European power from this World Cup

Call me peculiar again, but I’m liking the Americans. Seriously, I am. Seriously, I am. The U.S. team has displayed the sort of grit, backbone and smarts that can take a team far at a World Cup. Twice coming from behind, twice displaying the sort of incandescent passion that bespeaks a united, well-organized ream. And once denied a victory by referee’s bad call. The U.S. is team to admire here. Continue reading

John Doyle
The Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, June 21, 2010

“On the day they were expected to produce their ‘finest hour’ to mark the 70th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s famous wartime speech, the Three Lions whimpered rather than roared.”

That’s what English tabloid The Sun declared on Saturday. It’s implausible that the mediocrities playing for England against Algeria the evening before had Winston Churchill or wartime on their minds. But The Sun did, and was not alone among English media outlets. The English supporters also tend to think of a World Cup campaign as a series of battles in a war to prove England’s superiority over cocky, preposterous foreigners.

The thinking is this: The foreigners are cocky, skilled even, but it is preposterous to think England’s bulldog spirit won’t win in the end. Two World Wars and one World Cup have proved that. Continue reading

RTE (Irish TV, equivalent of CBC) has sport making fun of English TV World Cup Coverage…

John Doyle
The Globe and Mail
Published on Tuesday, June 15, 2010

So far this is a World Cup of goalkeeper dramas and traumas. A little respect for the guys, please.

England’s Robert Green making the most-mocked error in recent English history. Faouzi Chaouchi of Algeria gifting Slovenia a 1-0 win with that terrible fumble of a weak shot. Paraguay’s Justo Villar’s dramatic miss when he tried to fist away the ball and thus allow Italy’s Daniele De Rossi to inelegantly ram the ball into the empty net.

Italy too has a potential problem with Gianluigi Buffon. He has a back injury and had to be replaced at halftime in the game against Paraguay. During that game, Buffon cut a striking figure. All in white, but wearing black stockings in the cold and rain, and with ornate gloves, he looked improbably chic. Even the TV commentator on the feed used by the CBC noticed. He took a moment to say Buffon looked “resplendent.” Continue reading

John Doyle
The Globe and Mail
Published on Sunday, June 13, 2010

Sometimes, enjoying the World Cup is just about personal grudges, the whimsy of the moment and utterly illogical likes and dislikes. It just is. Me, I hate France and like Uruguay.

So, my neighbours on a downtown Toronto street should be glad that Thierry Henry did not protest an alleged handball by Uruguayan Mauricio Victorino in the late stages of France’s 0-0 draw with Uruguay.

The neighbours were oblivious, of course. But, if Henry had made a fuss, I’d have been shouting, aiming a long, loud and very Irish series of insults at the TV screen. At him, Henry, the French player who twice used his hands to score the goal that guided France to this World Cup, not Ireland. Continue reading

Revise all predictions and bets. Now. Didier Drogba probably out of the World Cup with an injury. England Captain & defender Rio Ferdinand also out with an injury. Continue reading

The World Is A Ball has a section about the distinguished author’s visit to Argentina, to see Argentina play Colombia in a World Cup qualifier last year. That is, to see the world’s best player, Messi and the world’s worst manager, Maradona.

Today The Independent published this investigation from Robin Scott-Elliot. Continue reading

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — “Are you seeing the beaches of South Africa for us?” a reporter asked Slovakia coach Vladimir Weiss after Slovakia’s 2-2 draw in a World Cup qualifier against the Czech Republic on Saturday night. Weiss smiled tightly and said, “Not yet.”

The reporter may have been a tad misguided about the attraction of the beach in South Africa next June – it will be winter there – but his question was illustrative of the country’s focus on qualify for its first World Cup. Weiss’s answer was realistic. But he, like all of Slovakia, can be more than cautiously optimistic. All Slovakia has to do now is avoid defeat and this tiny nation of 5.5 million, long over-shadowed in everything by former partners the Czechs, can make its World Cup debut. Continue reading

BUENOS AIRES — I came here to see a soccer game. Just for the weekend. A long trip for a short visit, but doable. Argentina was playing Colombia in World Cup qualifying on Saturday night, so it was going to be worth the time on planes and the money spent.

Like everyone coming here to see soccer — and soccer tourism is a growth business in beleaguered Argentina — I anticipated a fabulous atmosphere. Screaming, singing, chanting fans watched uneasily by police, just in case of real trouble. I saw the police, for sure, and the fans, all 45,000 at River Plate Stadium, but the cops were relaxed and the fans were the edgy ones — not enthusiastic rabble-rousers. Continue reading

LONDON — On Wednesday morning, the start of a mild gray day, the final participant in the famous Fourth Plinth experiment in Trafalgar Square had her say. The experiment — Antony Gormley’s project allowing 2,400 people to spend an hour each on the plinth (a pedestal on which a statue usually stands) over 100 days — was eccentric, but it gave ordinary people the power to perform or preach in a great public space.

While others had railed against global warming or taken off their clothes, the final person, Emma Burns, a 30-year-old medical photographer, draped a Liverpool F.C. banner on the plinth and read out the names of the 96 Liverpool supporters who died in the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989.

The hundreds of people watching Burns end the plinth experiment broke into a spontaneous singing of the Liverpool supporters’ song “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” It was a surreal, emotional scene. Continue reading

BRUSSELS –- How sweet it is to see Spain play. Live. In person. It is not like it is on TV, where the camera follows the ball and the intricate orchestral maneuvers that ebb and flow around the play cannot be seen.

A full, expectant crowd of close to 50,000 came to the Roi Baudouin Stadium on Wednesday night to see Belgium play Spain. Most, of course, were here to support Belgium, which has made a vigorous and impressive start to its World Cup qualifying campaign, but even the most partisan supporter was also here to savor Spain’s skills, those of the European champion, unbeaten in 27 matches. Continue reading