Qualifying rounds South Africa 2010: Complicated Argentina
The Argentine selection of soccer of the hand of Diego Armando Maradona seems not to find the correct course. The bad performances have come to so point in which even the means allude to the possible not classification for the World cup of South Africa 2010. Bearing in mind of that it is a question of a country with a big soccer tradition, the fortitudes are much warmed in this region of the new continent. In the last two meetings they were forced to win to be able to support a minimal calmness level, but the reality was different, the albicelestes lost before Brazil and also they fell down in Asunción.
In spite of being provided with an innumerable figures quantity, the technical director could not find the team, in these moments only they reduce two meetings where they will have to win or win to try to obtain the valued passport. The last meeting was disputed in the stadium Defenders of the Nunchaku, where the places won for the minimal difference.
The initial eleven were the following ones: Paraguay – Justo Villar; Darío Verón, Julius Caesar Cáceres, Paulo Da Silva, Aureliano Torres; Enrique Vera, Jonathan Santana, Edgar Barreto, Cristian Riveros; Salvador Cabañas and Nelson Haedo Valdez. Argentina – Sergio Romero; Javier Zanetti, Sebastián Domínguez, Gabriel Heinze, Emiliano Papa; Juan Sebastián Verón, Javier Mascherano, Fernando Gago, Jesus Dátolo; Lionel Messi and Sergio Agüero.
The Paraguayans dominated the first time, where Haedo Valdez marked so much of the victory. In the second half, the things paired a little but anyhow the level of collective game of the Argentinians it was the awful. His international figures, like for example Lionel Messi, do not shine as they do it in his respective clubs: what will be the result of this novel?
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A Day at the Football
I took Jacob of course, and also Dawn, my fiance (I successfully proposed last Sunday), for her first ever soccer game (not including watching me play futsal last Tuesday).
As we approaced the stadium, by train then bus, it was clear that the Celtic support would rival the Roar support. I’m guessing over half of the 31,000 people were Celtic, which is kind of embarrasing but very cool at the same time. Approaching the stadium itself there was colour, bagpipes and chanting hoop-clad yobos. All fun.
Still in the tunnels, the PA began playing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. I thought that was kind of cool, but a bit daggy. Then I started hearing voices – many, many voices – competing with the PA. I ran through the closest entrance and witnessed the entire southern end on their feet belting out the song. Wow! Now that was very, very cool. This crew was, quite frankly, showing the locals how it was done. It was already a brilliant event, indeed a unique cultural experience, and the game hadn’t begun.
Next comes my one complaint. We went up the first set of stairs, along with many others, which stated clearly that they led to “Sections 726-732″ (we were in 731). AT THE TOP was a single security person telling us that this entrance was closed to us. I’m talking seven flights of stairs. Maybe place the guy at the bottom of the stairs? Or maybe a single sign, “Please use another flight of stairs”? As I told the poor guy (who had clearly been given a bum job), this is terrible management. I emphasise again that the stairs were actually correct ones, according to the signs. They did not lead to closed sections, they were just for reasons known only to the management not being used. Anyway, good for the thighs, and a small complaint when compared to the total experience.
This crowd was brilliant. We were at the opposite end to “The Jungle”, where the Celtic hardcore were designated, but we were surrounded on all sides ourselves by Celtic support and wild celtic accents. From our birds-eye view you could see green hoops throughout the stadium. Being above “The Den”, where the Roar loonies are, we could not actually see them, and truly it seemed like a Celtic home crowd. Not flattering for the Roar fans that’s for sure, but bloody brilliant to see and experience.
After the first Celtic goal, I almost hoped the Roar would not score because the cheer would have been embarrassing. I have never heard such a roar from a crowd. I had my Roar scarf on and of course hoped the Roar would not embarass themselves (to be sure, the first 30 minutes looked very competitive), but it was actually difficult to maintain my loyalty. With a crew like this, thousands of miles away from their home, Celtic deserved to win, they almost must win. “You’ll never walk alone” indeed.
About half way through the second half Jacob noticed a Mexican wave getting going, which looked pretty feeble and he noted, “That’s not going to get far.” The stadium was just over half full after all and the season-ticket side was very thinned. How wrong we were! It went around FIVE times and then some, and it quickly became obvious that the momentum was from the huge portion of ‘away’ supporters throughout. I remember when Australia played Paraguay in the same stadium, to a packed house (50,000+) and being so impressed when it nearly went round three times. These guys just know how to party.
And not one but THREE seperate streakers. Talk about a complete package of entertainment.
Yeah, yeah the game was good. Both sides attacked throughout and it was always exciting. Nice to see Robbie Kruse back and he was very impressive for the first half after which he seemed to sort of lose control. Overall I wasn’t embarassed for the boys in haz-chem. Celtic was just too good.
In the throngs back to the station after the game there was some brilliant (and all good-natured) yoboism from the hooped fans, climaxing in a staged group sex session between about five of them in the middle of Caxton St.
Dawn had fun, and not just for the reasons of spectacle, which bodes well for our future marriage. She said she actually found herself ‘rivetted’, and I could see why. As I said, the game wasn’t cagey, but open, attacking and attractive. That’s the way to seduce new fans.
Fantastic day at the football. Thankyou to whichever geniuses managed to organise this one. And, for what it’s worth, and I hope these things have some impact, a Red Card to Racism.
PS. Jacob and I have booked our packages to The World Cup South Africa, paid deposits and, according to the correspondence, have tickets to Australia’s three group games. How cool is that?
Grand Final Tippng
What do you reckon?
I’ll update everything and do a final wrap of the Bloggers Cup after the game. Last I worked it out Mike was still holding a lead, miraculously after going intercontinental for a few weeks, but Eamonn was pushing hard.
Btw, I’m happy with the Roar’s season. Better than last year, which was my first. We beat Sydney. Does the rest matter?
Fantasy Queensland
The bad news is that as this A-Leage thing kicks off again I have realised that work commitments will prevent me from seeing many games at all. I’ll be able to see the Saturday night ones and the late Sunday night ones. So today’s game between Roar and Phoenix was the first true season Roar game I’ve missed for two years or so.
It’s good to see a few bloggers spark up, but fewer seem active so far (I can hardly be saying this self-righteously). I’ll be following the A-League media closely, and it’s good to hear the voices beyond the mainstream.
Now the Roar has these new players. To be honest I’d still have to go to the web page to remember their names but they sound hopeful and, ahem… hopefully they’ll be great. One of them popped a goal earlier today. The’Roar were tipped to lose that match so maybe the draw was good, and I’m sure Frank will say that, “with the two home games to follow” and all that. Let’s say in relative ignorance I’m cautiously optimistic about the Roar’s chances. I agree with Ed Vegas’s critique of Tony’s pre-season review, let’s say, for similar hopelessly partisan reasons.
And my fantasy team is up, in both Tony’s league (details in the aforelinked post) and Peter and Eric’s, and it has a theme. It is, as much as possible within the rules, a Queensland State of Origin Team.
My main problem was I could only choose four Roar players, and most A-League players from Queensland, unsurprisingly, play for the Roar.
In the mid-field I have Matty McKay of course, as captain. In the full vision of this program it is Frank Farina and Matty McKay who put up the challenge, to NSW and Victoria. It would be a home and away round-robbin with the winner taking all, played over a four week period of the off-season.
I’m getting my description of my fantasy league team, which has all sorts of compromises because of the rules, with the real vision behind it. To carry on with the latter the idea would be that any A-League or Youth league players could be called into the team. Internationals from the home state would be completely up to the club to negotiate for (good luck to them) but there would be no salary cap to do so. The organising clubs would naturally be Queensland Roar, Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory.
The overall philosophy of the idea is that it is a short tournament that could get a mass following in a concentrated way hence raising revenue and attracting people to the game, in a uniquely Australian way. There’s no reason why South Australia, WA or even New Zealand could not have teams in such a competition, except firstly that I’m not sure if they’d find enough home-state bred ploayers in the A-League to field, say, 16 including 2 goal keepers, and secondly because as far as I’m concerned the real contest is between Queensland and NSW and I have no good excuse to leave Victoria out.
Clint Bolton (SFC)
Andrew Packer (QR) – Jon McKain (WP) – Karl Dodd (WP) – Michael Thwaite (MV)
Zullo (QR) – McKay (QR) – Steve Corica (QR) – David Dodd (QR) – Robbie Kruse (QR)
Dario Vidocic (on the bench in Germany) – Tahj Minniecon (QR)
On the bench I’ve got keeper Griffin McMaster (QR), Ben Griffin (QR), James Downey (PG), Chris Grossman (QR) and Tim Smits (QR).
But for the Foxsports Fantasy League you can only have four Roar players, and are restricted as to which positions you can place only 12 players in to, so I’ve done my best within the rules, and have only had to draft one defender in to complete my team. If will not be competitive naturally, because it is constructed so irrationally, but I’d be keen to see someone similarly construct a NSW or Victoria fantasy league team for some real competition.
Because as everybody universally knows, Queenslanders are better.
Goalkeeping for Loonies
With West End United in my first official season ever we were an over 35s team who somehow got conned into being in a young man’s comp. We lost every game, but had a lot of fun and I daresay were forced to improve a tight passing game in an attempt to combat the speed and strength of youth. Jamie, our Mexican goalkeeper, was injured for a few weeks. The email went out, “We need a goalkeeper.” In my stupid enthusiasm I emailed back, “Call me a desperation plan,” and quite promptly received the reply, “Dear Desperation Plan…” I’ve crapped on about all that in other blogs (there’s no links in this post for the technical reason that I’m working without a mouse and having multiple windows open would be just too tedious), but that’s a brief.
So when it came to the first game of the futsal team, The Red Eye Pirates, Dorian, the co-manager (with his partner Harmony), basically said to me, “Hamish, you’re the goalie because you’re the only one with any goalkeeping experience whatsoever.” I do like it and I’ve stayed. Frankly I’d step aside in a second if the team decided they wanted a good goalie, but they won’t hear of it. They keep lying and telling me that I’m great, which is very nice. They’re a great, fun bunch of folk. Love them all.
Anyway that’s the answer to the first question of how I became a goalie. The rest is some notes on what it means for a 40 year old novice to attempt to become a good goalie. Occasionally I try to talk about this with people and it’s inherently boring, because it’s so personal, but here I can write about it with the knowledge that noone need read it or apologise for not doing so. This blog is part-diary sometimes and to those who read regularly, my apologies. Indulge me or not – it’s not important.
A bloke from another team who I see sometimes in town told me that he thought we had an initial advantage when the opposition shows up and sees us, some of us old and wiry, sitting around smoking cigarettes. We look like easy meat. That first time we beat this guys team and he reckons by the time they’d realised we weren’t that easy, it was too late, and we beat them. Needless to say the second time we played them they convincingly bested us.
But for the bunch of party animals we are, we’ve started doing ok. We’ve won four of the last five and last Tuesday we played a team that beat us 1st time 10:8, and did them 6:3. I had a good game – maybe one of my best – but there are still glaring reasons why I’m not a real goalkeeper but more of a committed reflex machine.
Next question is, ‘How do I improve?’
My limitations are many. My footwork is relatively hopeless, especially as it’s now firmly out of practice. So even for kicks from close to the box or from our end of the sideline, someone else takes it. There’s no goal kicks in futsal, and I think my goal-throws are fine and improving. But that’s a big disadvantage as it takes one of only four outfielders out of the place for options. Kicking back to me is risky as since I can’t catch it (yes, I did that once), I will often stuff up the trap and/or redelivery. And only when I spot a very nervous, poor attacker will I take them on outside the box (I will come out, but not try to tackle or dribble past them unless they’re clearly pathetic). Actually taking bold runs with the ball as some goalies do (to a very interesting effect I think – it’s disconcerting and often players see the empty goal and forget that they are still defending) is out of the question.
So obviously I should work on my footwork, but I don’t much except for an occasional kick with Jacob or a little before the games with the team. Whatsmore it will take a lot of work on my footwork to bring it to a point where it could make me a more useful goalie – ie where I could take on kicking roles that others now are doing for me.
So it’s back to this nervous, hyped, strangely focussed reflex machine. I’m steadily improving my timing when it comes to running out, I have no fear for my life which is handy on the ground in my area, and I do have ok reflexes. Probably my biggest asset from the perspective of the rest of the Pirates is that I actually want to do it.
This wouldn’t even apply to last Tuesday’s game because I made my best saves with my feet (oh, and one with my face from about 2 meters which had me off stinging for a few minutes), but my biggest frustration, which I think is eminently improvable, is that I often get my hand to a ball but the ball goes straight through to the net. These are the saves I reckon I can get better at, in two ways.
First I’ve got to learn, and make it a reflex knowledge, when to use my open hand and when to punch. I’ve practiced punching a bit with Jacob (we sort of drill each other at goalkeeping sometimes, as he does a bit of goalkeeping in Indoor), and I reckon I’m even quite accurate, but it’s yet to become a fluid reflex in the heat of play. The second thing is to just work on strengthening my fingers, hands and wrists, which I’ve been doing. It just seems like the most immediate way I can work on stopping some extra goals.
Meanwhile, in my first game this season I did something to my right pinky, in the third game I took a similar sprain to my left pinkie. Then about 4 games ago I did this to my right thumb. All of these minor injuries sort of get a bit less tender during the week, but none of them have recovered, so I now go from week to week with three somewhat sprained digits. I’m barely aware of it during a game and I don’t think it effects how I play, but I do wonder what the Pirate’s physio would say if such a creature existed.
We might be party animals. Look, it is not unknown for us to have a couple of beers before a game or for some to even have a nasty, unidentifiable smoke. Beers after the game is compulsory – that’s explicit. But we are still strangely competitive, and we have a great desire to win. We’re trying to get regular Sunday training going (have done a couple but shockingly I haven’t made it yet), and we discuss tactics a lot – probably much more than teams who have star players they can rely on. (To be perfectly honest, our victory last week was partly because we had Peter as a guest, who is very competent on the ball and can strike – he scored three of our six goals. Peter is, needless to say perhaps, not a party animal.) So we do improve, and we have a hoot in the process.
But keepers apparently peak at about 36. I begun when I was 38. I’m after a sort of sub-curve of improvement, given that I never played before. Maybe I’ve got until I’m about 42 to peak in my ‘skills’. Meanwhile, that strange, focussed, rudely existential place, when I am in goal… well, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. There is no other time in my living which compares to that mental and physical experience. For that alone it’s worth it. Thank you to the Pirates for having me.
