16 June 2002
Chloe and I went downtown Sunday; we stopped at Seven-Star park and walked around in the rain. It was nearly empty and quite nice, aside from the flooded side gate. Then we walked across Liberation Bridge to downtown proper. The Li Jiang was about ten feet higher than I'd ever seen it, and had overflown both banks in places. Meanwhile, hundreds died and thousands are homeless after a bigger such event in Northern China.
Sweden and Senegal. Sweden wears yellow with blue trim, Senegal light green with yellow and red. Sweden scores an early goal; Senegal's equalizer is ruled offsides. Senegal, however, doesn't give up. They control the ball, work it forwards, and set up camp outside the Swedish penalty box. For ten minutes they carefully pass back and forth, work forwards, get cleared, work up again. The ball is knocked back into the Senegal half once or twice, but they quickly get it back and resume working. Patience. Patience. No sloppy shots from far away, just careful patience. Finally Sweden gets the ball, everybody runs down the field, and Senegal gets it back and goes right back to picking away. After twenty minutes of this, Senegal finally evens the game at one all.
Almost every player has a crazy hairstyle. Most of the Swedes are clearly unnatural blondes. The Senegalese have every hair style imaginable on display. Their coach is a big burly Euro-trashy guy in a white t-shirt and sports coat; probably French.... But he's charming enough in that Eurotrash way.
Either the referee is very generous or the players are super-clean, as only one yellow card is awarded in regulation time. 1-1 at Final Time, it goes into Extra Time.
Sweden ricochets one off the goal post. Senegal rifles a long shot high over. Senegal is unable to set up their concerted attack, and play seesaws back and forth. Fourteen minutes into sudden-death overtime, two Senegalese break forward against perhaps five defenders. One jukes left, right with the ball, lunges towards the sidelines - but it's a trick - he's passed the ball back to the center with his heel, and the defense is divided as his compadre cuts forward, kicks wide of the goaltender. It hits the post, bounces ... into the goal.
Very nice. I was cheering for Senegal all along. (Anything but Europe.)
Oh, I forgot to mention, in the Korea-Portugal game that put the US into the second round, what the first Portugese red card was awarded for. After missing a tackle, a Portugese player used his legs to take down a Korean player in a ground-fighting move whose execution would have excited my Kung Fu teacher. He was thrown out in short order.
Ann (Oelschlager) should have arrived in Beijing last night, but I haven't heard from her. I think I'll go buy a new phone card tomorrow and try her hotel. I was hoping she would email but there was a fire in an internet cafe (nowhere near her hotel, afaik) at 2:45 am in Beijing this morning and they've shut down all internet cafes in Beijing until they can pass fire inspection. Which in theory would be a damned long time because it's likely that there's no written fire code nor any actual fire marshalls to do inspections, but after an appropriately long face-saving wait they'll probably just let them all reopen as is. So I left a few messages. Presumably if a foreigner was immolated in a Beijing net bar the papers would have mentioned it.
Then I found out why it's been so quiet lately - my phone, which already has a very low ring (courtesy of a resistor from Zhang Ming that over-corrected the problem of a much-too-loud ring that insured I would always answer the phone angry), no longer takes incoming calls at all. We checked, and it's the line, not the phone. Great.
Ireland vs Spain.
Ireland's offsides trap is so well honed that one must wonder what they'd be capable of if they spent as much time practicing _playing defense_. Offsides is the least organic major rule in football.
In the course of ninety minutes, Ireland does just about everything one can do on a football field without actually scoring a goal. I swear I saw goats at one point. Shot after shot goes wide or is blocked. They are awarded a penalty kick, which was blocked. The rebound is wide open and a charging attacker struck it ... with his ankle and it went wild.
In the ninetieth minute, Ireland is awarded a second penalty kick when a Spanish defender tugs an Irish player's shirt up to the nipples to keep him from heading an incoming ball. The question is, will the striker go right, like the first, blocked penalty kick, or will he go left? The keeper guesses left, dives, the ball is right, and Ireland ties the game.
From the reaction shots of Spanish players on the bench, it looks like Spain desperately needs migrane medication. Spain eventually wins on penalty kicks, a very inelegant way to decide a game. They should play until somebody collapses. Actually, they should play until five people on one team collapse, because FIFA rules call for a minimum of seven players per side.
17 June 2002
I was trying to watch TV but the crickets outside were extremely loud. I tried closing more doors and windows but it sounded like it was coming from just outside the room. I had lurid fantasies of going out into the bushes four floors down, posing as a female cricket to get close, and then smushing the noisy bastard. Then I got suspicious, went into the little sunroom behind the tv, and found a cricket on the floor. *Smush!* Quiet. No enlightenment for me!
(C'mon - I know he was just doing his biologically assigned duty, but it was smush him or mate with him.)
USA - Mexico, second round. From here on out it's single elimination, no complex "Roads out of Group B" polyconditional outcomes. Korea can win every match by a blowout and the USA still won't advance unless it wins outright. Coach Bruce Arena (the really ugly guy) has to replace part of his team due to injury and red cardage. Defender Jeff Agoos, who's played his guts out, is out with a calf injury. This is a bit of a relief to viewers, I think, because Agoos's lapses, including an own goal, have led to more goals against the US than any opposing team. At least, that's what it looks like from here.
The US implements its strategy flawlessy in the first half. That strategy, you may recall, is to get lucky early and then hang on for dear life. (An appealing strategy, one must admit....) Despite looking pathetic in the first few minutes, a perfect goal (header - tap - zap) puts the US up 1-0, and they rapidly retrieve their composure. I started counting a statistic I didn't see on the web, voluntary turnovers. I define this as an event where a player has the ball, and has plenty of time and space, and kicks the ball to the other team. Goal kicks don't count, nor do speculative dumps, risks that don't pay off, kicks under pressure, or anything of that sort. Just flat-out "jeez, why'd you do that you idiot?" stuff. Before the goal, the US is leading in voluntary turnovers, 5-1. After the goal, the US doesn't commit any of these for a long time, though the final count for the half is 9-2.
Mexico controls the half, of course, with 70% possession. But the US manages to keep play in the outer perimeter of their half, and occasionally makes a run forward, and doesn't look like a joke. Until the last five minutes of the half, when they get sloppy and Mexico forces Friedel to make several hard saves. On top of that, Mexico wastes some beautiful beautiful chances for good measure. Still and all, it's 1-0 USA at halftime.
The second half gets uglier. It seems like the referee turns on the US, handing out two or three yellow cards in two or three minutes. Even Friedel got a yellow card, for some ineffable offense. On several calls, instant replays showed the ref clearly in the wrong, giving the ball to the wrong side, calling fouls that didn't happen, missing fouls that did. An American gets a yellow card while setting up for a sideline throw for tossing the ball to another player improperly. And the Mexicans are starting to get desperate. Friedel picks up a ball, and a Mexican forward stalks him, counting the time limit on his fingers. (Six seconds to carry the ball, and routinely ignored by all.)
Then, Mexico has a corner kick which is punched away from the goal. But not by Friedel - by a defender. The replay shows an ungloved fist from a white uniform hitting the ball, right in the face of a Mexican attacker, right in front of the goal. It should be a red card and a penalty, but the referee sees nothing.
Soon after, Mexican forward Hernandez dribbles into the penalty box, a defender close by. But as soon as Hernandez crosses the chalk line, he plummets to the ground, his feet swept out from under him. Only problem is, the defender didn't tackle him. He gets a yellow card for a flagrant dive. Okay, no more complaints about the official. (Actually, though, he wasn't very good. He missed a lot of calls, and overall the quality of play suffered a bit as a result.)
Cobi later took a foot to the 'nads, good for a free kick but no yellow card. Finally, down 2-0 and thoroughly desperate, Mexican captain Marquez jumped for a ball against Cobi, didn't have a chance, and decided instead to tilt his head and ram the top of his skull against Cobi's temple. Red card. After that, things pretty much settled down and the game finished without another serious incident.
I don't really know what to make of the American performance. About half the time they seemed quite competitive, winning tackles, making fancy passes, dribbling around defenders. But for random intervals throughout the game they just took up concerted sucking, looking like the good ol' USA team of '90, '94, and '98, lucky just to be there. If there's a pattern, it's that,for about ten minutes after American goal, they play relaxed and well. So, in a game that went 9-9, I would give the US even odds against any team in the world.
Final tally of voluntary turnovers: Mexico 4, USA 13. Mexico had possession 68% of the game. The US proceeds to the quarterfinals to face Germany, but this is not the best ever US appearence (yet). In 1930 the US made it to the semis. We have to beat Germany Friday night just to tie that accomplishment. Life sure was better back then.