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A minute-by-minute breakdown of the World Cup
July 9, 2006And then there was one. After 30 days and 63 soccer games, Italy-France should punctuate what has been an entertaining 18th edition of the World Cup.
I’m hunkered at home in front of the TV, ready to write compelling views from the same couch I’ve spent most of the past month implanted in.
And I’ll pick France to win, which = an Italy victory. I’m a sucker for fairytale endings, and Zinedine Zidane’s storyline is too good to root for.
12:25 — Nice video montage by ESPN covering the best goals and moments of the tournament. No inclusion of Argentina’s Maxi Rodriguez, whose blast versus Mexico may be the best one in the Cup thus far.
12:31 — The one reason you can’t be truly sorrowful this World Cup is ending: No more Julie Foudy. How am I going to get my useless soccer analysis fix now?
12:33 — Every little theme that this World Cup has is accompanied with a U2 song - the “official music group of the World Cup.� Can I make a suggestion for South Africa 2010? How about those back-up African tribal singers on the Paul Simon album “Graceland.�
12:37 — A comment I’ve been meaning to make. Why is Jose’s mom so mean? This poor kid is playing the game of his life with some all-time soccer greats in his backyard, and the mom yells at him to come home. He can clean his room later. Let the kid play.
12:45 — My friend John just called with some of the best news of the week. He read somewhere that the U.S. could land the World Cup in 2010 if South Africa doesn’t get everything together soon. That would be awesome.
12:52 — The ever-so-gracious wife was kind enough to pick up lunch for us from Wing Stop, a favorite of mine. Soccer and wings, it’s hard to top that.
1:01 — Thierry Henry goes down with what looks like a small concussion. Not a good sign for Les Bleus. Now who’s constantly going to stand in an offsides position all game.
1:06 — France is awarded a penalty kick for a takedown in the box. Let’s go to the replay to see if it’s deserved. WHOA. Florent Malouda didn’t even get touched. Hope this won’t determine the outcome of the game.
1:07 - Zidane has given France a 1-0 lead. What guts he has to chip it past Italy goalie Gianluigi Buffon.
1:13 — I’ve decided not to feel too bad for Italy on the PK call. This is the same team that invented diving, and they’ve already benefited from one bogus call against Australia. What goes around, comes around.
1:19 — And we are tied up at 1-1 on a great header by Marco Materazzi. Italy’s defense continues to produce in the offensive third - their back four have scored more goals than they’ve allowed.
1:25 — Henry is playing well, but I’d be willing to bet 10 bucks he won’t remember this game afterward. Take it from a guy who stubbornly played through two concussions. I barely remember one of the CAT scans hours later.
1:31 — The wife posed a perplexing question. Why does Italy don blue jerseys when their team colors are green, red and white. I’m stumped. Any answers?
1:35 — Great tackle by Lilian Thuram on Luca Toni during a close scoring chance. Toni then almost scores by heading the corner kick off the crossbar. The Azurri are really pressuring now.
1:38 — The apartment is officially a crazy house. The sister-in-law just dropped off her new Siberian husky puppy for the afternoon. For those keeping score at home, we have a puppy, a psychotic cat and a happy-go-lucky, 75-pound German Sheppard. I’ve invoked a no-licking rule.
1:40 — Henry can’t be feeling well. He hasn’t been offsides once yet, after being flagged 159 times in the first six games.
1:42 — Scratch that last statement. Henry’s offsides count: 1.
1:45 — I can’t take credit for noticing this - my friend Trey Reed first discovered it. But doesn’t France coach Raymond Domenech remind you of Ben Stein (as that dry Economics teacher) in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
1:46 — A bad throw-in. Kind of reminiscent of those rec league days when the coaches would spend half of practice teaching squirmy 7-year-olds how to throw in the ball, only to see about 50 infractions during the games. Come on Tommy, keep the feet on the ground and throw it straight over your head.
1:48 — We’re tied 1-1 at the half. Nothing too special, although Italy looks to be the better team, but not by much.
2:04 — France has never lost in any tournament final. Quite interesting. They’re also 4-0-2 against Italy in their last six games.
2:08 — Italy is making things happen on its set pieces. If you’re French, you can’t feel comfortable watching any corner kicks or free kicks.
2:10 — France is coming alive offensively. They look like the most dangerous squad. If only Henry would just shoot instead of dribbling in the box.
2:12 - Malouda is taken down in the box this time, and no call. Should have been a penalty kick. Now it’s evened out. Glad to see the referee not award a penalty kick on this play.
2:14 — Huge loss for France as midfielder Patrick Viera goes down with what looks like a hamstring injury. He’s been one of the better players in this World Cup.
2:17 — Paging Italy’s Francesco Toti. Where are you? Thanks for showing up in the biggest game of your life.
2:20 — GOOALL - hold on. Offside Italy, on a set piece even. It’s a borderline call, but I’m going to give the linesman the benefit of the doubt.
2:23 — Does Franck Ribery ever stop running? I’m starting to sweat just watching him. Or maybe the spicy wings are getting to me.
2:29 — There’s usually nothing flashy about great defense, but watching Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro shut down forwards is like watching a genius at work. He’s always in the right place at the right time.
2:30 — President Bill Clinton is in the house tonight. There’s probably some joke to be made about this, but right now, I got nothing.
2:38 — It looks like we’re headed into extra time. Eleven minutes to go, and France is still looking like the better bunch this half.
2:40 — Now Zidane goes down holding his shoulder. Hopefully this isn’t the last we’ve seen of him. Yep, he’s back on. The sound of “Phew� can be heard all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.
2:42 — Coolest nickname of the tournament goes to Italy’s Gennaro Gattuso - “The Snarling Dog.� Unfortunately for the Italians, I think Fabio Grosso’s name is still the lamest.
2:50 — We’re headed to extra time. Please don’t go down to penalty kicks. Please. Please. Please.
3:03 — Both teams are running on fumes. France has the luxury of two more subs, though.
3:05 — Ribery had the best chance in the last 30 minutes. Now he’s subbed out, and they’re bringing David Trezeguet on, meaning they’ll have two forwards. Ribery came out of nowhere to play a wonderful World Cup.
3:09 — What a save by Buffon, knocking Zidane’s header over the post. How that didn’t go in, I’ll never know. Buffon continues to have an amazing World Cup too.
3:11 — Now we’re headed to a second overtime still tied. And I’m tired of hearing about that disallowed Italian goal. The guy was barely offsides. It was a good call.
3:13 — Henry is out in the 106th minute. I may have missed one, but I’m astonished the forward was offsides only once. Has to be a personal record.
3:17 — Holy crap. Zidane just violently head-butted an Italian in the chest. What’s he thinking? He should be ejected. Unfortunately, no one saw it.
3:18 — I take that back. Apparently, a linesman did see it. It’s a shame, because this is how’s Zidane’s final game will end. He’s a classy player, but what he did was deplorable. That’s a huge blow for France. Now can Italy score with the man advantage?
3:20 — I still can’t get over the ejection. It’s like Michael Jordan getting tossed because he threw a punch in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Wow. Zidane is the team’s best penalty-kick taker too, so this will have an impact if we go to PKs.
3:27 — Unless somebody scores a miracle goal in the last two minutes, we are headed to penalty kicks. Italy has to have the edge with Buffon in goal. I’m one of those who doesn’t trust French goalie Fabien Barthez.
3:30 — Bring on the PKs. The only other World Cup to be decided this way was in 1994 when Brazil edged out Italy. That game ended 0-0; at least we’ve seen a couple of tallies in this one. Italy is 0-3 in penalty kicks, however.
3:33 — Here we go. For the World Cup title:
Italy: Andrea Pirlo rips it right down the middle as Barthez dives to his right. Make
France: Sylvain Wiltord ties it up with a great strike in the left corner. Buffon dives right. Make
Italy: Materazzi barely slips it by a diving Barthez. Make
France: Trezeguet hits it off the crossbar, no good. A costly miss. Miss
Italy: Daniele De Rossi bangs it home on an unsavable shot. Italy up 3-1 now. Make
France: Eric Abidal calmly gives his team hope, as Buffon dives the wrong way Make
Italy: Alessandro Del Piero punches it in. Barthez hasn’t been close to any yet shots yet. Make
France: Willy Sagnol keeps France alive, rifling one in. Now France needs a stop. Make
Italy: Grosso gives his team the title, as Italy wins on PKs 5-3. Make
3:42 — Italy is king. They’ve won their fourth title. I have no problem with the Italians winning, but I’ll admit France was probably the better team in this one. And what happened with Zidane is just so sad.
And to think, it was witnessed by a billion people. That sucks.
Posted by Zach Duncan at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Germany takes third and a little trivia for ya
I’ve been on a little hiatus. I know, I’m a slacker.
If it weren’t for my mom (one of about five readers) calling me to ponder why I hadn’t blogged in a while, I probably wouldn’t break down this third place game today.
Basically, Germany won 3-1 over Portugal because Bastian Schweinsteiger is a stud. He scored two goals on brilliant strikes, and another free kick he took was deflected in for an own goal.
Germany proved to be amazing in this World Cup — both in undertaking the enormous task as host and in their play on the field. They have some young talent that will take them far in the coming years.
Now onto a quick gripe. Do we really need a third-place game? What’s the point? I didn’t see the Broncos and the Panthers facing off in any pre-Super Bowl contest earlier this year.
The soccer can be fun to watch because nothing is at stake, so there’s not a lot of emphasis on staying back on defense.
I guess it’s another game to sell tickets to, and in this case, a way for Germany to impress the home crowd one last time. But it’s something I wouldn’t be too sad about if it bit the dust in the future.
Here’s a 2006 World Cup quiz I saw across the AP wire today. Take some time out to jot down answers, and tell me what you get. I’ll put my score at the bottom.
Oh, and check back tomorrow and the next couple of days, when I write about Italy-France and the best and worst of the 2006 World Cup.
World Cup Quiz
By The Associated Press
BERLIN (AP) — How closely were you watching the World Cup? Here are 20 questions to test your knowledge and see how far you get through the tournament:
Round One (one point each)
1. Who was the Dutch star left on the bench during the Netherlands’ second-round game against Portugal?
(a) Edgar Davids
(b) Clarence Seedorf
(c) Ruud van Nistelrooy
(d) Jaap Stam
2. How many times in the last 16 years has England been eliminated from a major tournament on penalties?
(a) 2
(b) 5
(c) 6
(d) 3
3. How many players named Andriy were on the Ukrainian squad?
(a) 7
(b) 4
(c) 9
(d) 2
4. Ahead of Saturday’s third-place game, what was Miroslav Klose’s goals total for two World Cup tournaments, 2002 and 2006?
(a) 7
(b) 12
(c) 10
(d) 8
5. Who was the only player from Brazil’s magical quartet held scoreless at the World Cup?
(a) Kaka
(b) Ronaldinho
(c) Adriano
(d) Ronaldo
6. Which game had a record four red cards?
(a) Spain-France
(b) Argentina-Germany
(c) Portugal-Netherlands
(d) Italy-Australia
7. Who became the first English player to score at three World Cups?
(a) Michael Owen
(b) Sol Campbell
(c) Gary Neville
(d) David Beckham
8. Who came off the bench to score Australia’s first World Cup goal in a 3-1 come-from-behind triumph over Japan?
(a) Harry Kewell
(b) Tim Cahill
(c) John Aloisi
(d) Josip Skoko
———
Round Two (two points each)
9. How many World Cups has Italy coach Marcello Lippi participated in as a player and coach?
(a) 1
(b) 5
(c) 4
(d) 2
10. Who scored the first goal of the 2006 World Cup?
(a) Miroslav Klose
(b) Lukas Podolski
(c) Paulo Wanchope
(d) Philipp Lahm
11. In his final World Cup before retirement, Zinedine Zidane sat out which game through suspension?
(a) Switzerland
(b) South Korea
(c) Togo
(d) Spain
12. Trinidad and Tobago defender Dennis Lawrence plays for which English League Two club?
(a) Chester
(b) Torquay
(c) Rochdale
(d) Wrexham
13. Which of these Argentina stars did not score in the 6-0 victory over Serbia-Montenegro?
(a) Carlos Tevez
(b) Juan Riquelme
(c) Lionel Messi
(d) Hernan Crespo
14. In which World Cup venue is the Fritz-Walter-Stadium?
(a) Stuttgart
(b) Hanover
(c) Nuremberg
(d) Kaiserslautern
———
Quarterfinals (four points each)
15. Who was the only U.S. player to score at this World Cup?
(a) Landon Donovan
(b) Brian McBride
(c) Clint Dempsey
(d) Eric Wynalda
16. Portugal advanced to the semifinals for the first time since?
(a) 1930
(b) 1950
(c) 1966
(d) 1986
17. When was the last time Brazil failed to reach the semifinals of the World Cup?
(a) 1994
(b) 1986
(c) 1990
(d) 1998
18. Which Dutch coach did not take part in World Cup 2006?
(a) Marco van Basten
(b) Ronald Koeman
(c) Dick Advocaat
(d) Leo Beenhakker
———
Semifinal (six points each)
19. Which Brazil player broke the record for most minutes without making a foul in a World Cup (386 minutes)?
(a) Juan
(b) Lucio
(c) Ronaldinho
(d) Cafu
20. Which of these teams were involved in the lowest-scoring shootout in World Cup history?
(a) Portugal-England
(b) Ukraine-Switzerland
(c) Germany-Argentina
(d) Argentina-Mexico
———
Final (10 points)
21. On the way to reaching the final, Italy conceded only one goal. Who scored it?
(a) Brian McBride
(b) Milan Baros
(c) Cristian Zaccardo
(d) Andriy Shevchenko
———
Answers: Round One
1— c
2— b
3— a
4— c
5— b
6— c
7— d
8— b
Round Two
9— a
10— d
11— c
12— d
13— b
14— d
Quarterfinals
15— c
16— c
17— c
18— b
Semifinal
19— b
20— b
Final
21 — c
———
SCORES:
Less than 10 points — Don’t come back in 2010.
10-20 points — Decent effort, but not likely to get past first round.
21-30 — Potential quarterfinalist.
31-45 — Major contender.
46-58 — The title’s yours.
I scored a 51. Just in case you care, I missed questions 3, 9, 13, 14.
Posted by Zach Duncan at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Brazil goes down and England goes stupid
July 1, 2006What an incredible game. That’s all I have to say.
And I called this upset — if you don’t believe me, look at yesterday’s blog.
I said Brazil would win, but since my track record has been about as deplorable as the officiating, I added that that meant France would come out ahead.
And they did, on Thierry Henry’s beautiful volley in the 57th minute off a masterful cross by Zinedine Zidane.
This guy is retiring? Why. It was possibly the best performance by one single played so far. He looked 10 years younger out there, dribbling circles around the Brazilians.
How tension-riddled was that last 15 minutes. I juts knew Brazil would tie it, but nope.
Want to know why Brazil lost, 1-0 (other than the fact they had ONE shot on goal in the whole 90 minutes)?
Ronaldinho was outplayed by the elder Zidane, and Henry was better than Ronaldo. End of discussion.
So know I’m predicting a Germany-Portugal World Cup final.
Which means expect an Italy-France finale.
England loses man, game to Portugal
Let’s put aside the fact that England crumbled quicker than the Berlin Wall once penalty kicks began against Portugal.
Let’s forget that England stumbled around like a drunken frat guy for much of this tournament.
Let’s forget that David Beckham was hurt, and England’s lack of forwards generated few scoring chances in the 0-0 match.
Wayne Rooney, what were you thinking?
Rooney was ejected early in the second half for — how do I put this nicely — stepping on Ricardo Carvalho’s family jewels in a rather vicious way.
Some may say it was an accident. But Rooney’s hotheadedness leaves me to believe otherwise.
That said, England actually played better soccer once a man down. Unfortunately, they missed three of four PKs.
Cry all you want Brits, but this England team wasn’t that good. Let’s recap this World Cup for you:
England 1, Paraguay 0 — Some poor Paraguayan sap heads the ball into his own goal.
England 2, Trinidad and Tobago 0 — Score two late goals (and made one lucky clear off the line), including Peter “I’m a huge tree� Crouch’s header in which he clearly pushed off.
England 2, Sweden 2 — First, you lose Michael Owen (who had scored as many goals as I had in this World Cup) to a knee injury four minutes in.
Then you can’t protect a lead in the last 10 minutes.
England 1, Ecuador 0 — Beat an inferior team with Beckham’s free kick. Nothing more, nothing less.
And now this — its third penalty kick loss in its last four World Cups.
It’ll be interesting to see how England treats Rooney after this. When Beckham earned a red against Argentina in 1998 (a game in which England lost in penalty kicks), he was deemed a pariah.
Rooney should earn the same tag for this boneheaded mistake.
And Cristian Ronaldo, the Portugal midfielder who converted the game-clinching PK, is an England favorite for Manchester United.
He may want to stay away for a little while.
Stat of the day: All four of this World Cup’s teams are from Europe, the first time that’s happened since 1982.
Next up: No games for two more days. With the Rangers sucking it up and most of the U.S. tennis players out of Wimbledon, I recommend getting off the couch and relaxing outdoors by the pool.
My quest: It’s hard to believe this World Cup is almost over. It seems like yesterday I was watching Germany blow by Costa Rica.
I guess time flies when you’re having fun.
Posted by Zach Duncan at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
