Match Day Three review

Are they even calling them "Match Days?" I think I stole that from the Champions League.

Never mind, I'd rather do this than write about each match individually (I'll do that in the knockout stage.) Especially since I don't really have much to say about Postcolonial Bowl I. Portugal looked pretty bad after the first ten minutes or so, but Angola didn't have the class to hurt them, or the ambition to try something radical like play two strikers. It was pretty tame, the worst game so far. And to think their last match had four people sent off. Never mind, perhaps Togo will kick France in le nuts collectif.

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The ESPN commentators were bandying around a rumor that the rest of the Dutch squad was displeased with Arjen Robben's ball-hogging during their 1-0 victory over Serbia-and-until-very-recently-Montenegro. I suspect that this might have just been Ruud van Nistelroy being bitchy, because very clearly the strategy was to look for Robben at every opportunity and have him unsettle the S&M (yes, ha-ha) defense. Snieder and Cocu would hold the ball just enough to draw pressure, so that they could play Robben through in space. It was one-dimensional, but when you're one dimension is an in-form Robben, who needs more?

But will that strategy work against better opposition than the Serbs? I think against Argentina they might want to have other options in the attack as well. One thing I would do is shift Van Persie slightly so that he plays behind Van Nistelrooy, rather than to his right. VP had a great combo with Robben on the goal, but generally they were too far apart on the field.

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So much for my prediction that Iran would beat Mexico. But up until the 75th minute it was looking pretty good. Iran was, I felt, the more dangerous team for much of the first half, and when La Volpe burned through all his subs by minute 50, I really thought Iran would take them.

But around about the 55th minute, something weird happened. Iran held back from their pressuring and started to lay off the Mexicans and let them play. When Iran did get possession, they did not commit numbers forward. By the 70th minute I was thoroughly perplexed. Here was a game that they really had the ability to get a result in. Were they tired out?

I don't think so. I think they were just told to play for the draw. Which was the worse thing they could have done, because it gave the initiative back to a Mexico team who really were a bit rattled. With the time to settle down, they applied some pressure and waited for the Iranian defense to blunder. They didn't have to go gung-ho in the attack, but they needed to keep possession by making themselves available for the ball, and to disrupt the Mexicans by defending high up the field. When both those things stopped, the team caved. It was either exhaustion or a shocking bit of coaching by Branko Ivankovic.

UPDATE: In comments, donjuego thinks I don't give enough credit to Lavolpe's second-half tactics, and is absolutely right when he says that Lavolpe's switch to counterpunching proved to be critical. My point was that to have success against a counterpunching team, you can do one of two things: you can either A) punch more strongly or B) lay off altogether and pack the defense. The Iranians did the absolutely wrong thing, which was to try something halfway between the two. As a result, when they were in possession, they didn't commit enough numbers forward, when the Mexicans were giving them space. Consequently they gave up the ball easily, and those who did commit upfield didn't bother pressuring. In any case, Zinho did a nice job of dissecting the Iranian defense and might have done so even if they were more disciplined.