5 Things We’ve Learnt So Far From The World Cup
1) Referees, linesmen and fourth officials are all complete wastes of space. We need robotos or some kind of technology that can not only apply the laws of the game in a fair manner but that can also get the concept of sending a player off after two yellow cards and realising that judging whether a player is offside a few seconds after the ball has been played is always going to work against the cunning striker who holds his run perfectly to beat the offside trap. Surely this is obvious?
2) Don’t EVER Write Off The Germans. We’d all done it. We looked at their squad with no real star names apart from Michael Ballack, we listened to the strong murmurs of discontent with coach Jurgen Klinsmann and we smiled smugly when we predicted an early exit for the hosts. Germany are looking good, they’re increasing their power with every game and they are in a winning mindset. Beware the Germans, they just might go all the way.
3) Great Players Don’t Necessarily Make A Great Team. Both France and England are suffering from Real Madrid disease as they find that accumulating a squad of world class players is no substitute for assembling a world class team. Argentina, Germany and Brazil to an extent have succeeded in shaping a team that’s greater than the sum of it’s excellent parts, France and England’s coaches have all the tactical nous of a 14 year old playing Championship Manager.
4) Greedy Players Score Great Goals. Joe Cole did it, Maxi Rodriguez did it to put a battling Mexico side out last night and there have been countless wonder goals spreading back to the first game between Germany and Costa Rica which have all been scored by players who have their eye on personal glory as much as team glory. If they’ve got the talent to back it up then this is the mark of a winner.
5) FIFAs World Rankings Don’t Mean Anything. Czech Republic (2nd) - OUT, Mexico (4th) - OUT, USA (5th) - OUT. France are 8th and looked out of their depth for most of the game against Togo (ranked 61st). Germany are 19th and walked all over a 16th position ranked Sweden like they weren’t there. Get rid of these ridiculous rankings as soon as possible. Who needs rankings anyway? We prefer our teams to do their talking on the pitch not in a contrived mathematical formula.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Past World Cups
0 opinions for 5 Things We’ve Learnt So Far From The World Cup
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: