Day of desolation

Wow, I found it a lot easier to blog when there weren't any, you know, real games going on. After watching two or three games a day, I find myself needing to do those real life things that get neglected when a World Cup is on, and consequently the Conspiracy has been a bit ignored this weekend. Being debilitatingly bummed after the USA's dismissal didn't help.

Anyway speaking of bummers, god help you if you watched Ukraine's penalty kick victory over the Swiss today. This complete and utter tedium that this game generating was, in and of itself, fascinating, so much so that it generated a wire article solely devoted to how dull it was. Football365 called it "the worst game in World Cup history."

So how did this game, played at the highest of stakes, get to be so bad? Basically, both sides wanted to counterpunch, and neither were willing to be the one to force the play. Consequently, too few players got forward to support the attack. Couple that with a basic lack of quality, and the result was awful. It's really a shame you couldn't have told both teams at the final whistle, "right, if neither of you score in extra time, we're going to let Mexico go through in your place, because they were great and you were awful." Then you'd have seen some play.

It's a shame that coaches and players have become so afraid of losing that they're unwilling to actually go out and win a game. If I were the Swiss coach I'd have thought, "you know, we will never ever get a better draw than this in the last 16 of the World Cup. Let's go out and make our country proud." But instead he told them not to lose. Crazy.


Of the four teams today, it was ironically only Italy who were committed to the attack. Knowing their would surely be outlasted by Australia in extra time, they committed some numbers forward, and got a bogus penalty as their reward. bad luck for the Aussies who fought hard and maybe deserved better.