dorkyboy » 2006 » June

introduction.

typically random ramblings and late night dribble.


enhance your calm

filed under: world cup football by df @ 28/06 | Comments (1)   

i’m okay now. i’ve been avoiding all those websites i had been trawling for the last few weeks. i didn’t want to rehash it, ad nauseum.

surprisingly, now that i’ve gone and had a look, it’s not actually being beaten to death as a story. particularly not the doom and gloom aspect of being knocked out of the competition by a dubious penalty in the last 5 seconds of the game. more, the articles seem to be focusing on the good that was done, the heads that were turned and the critics that were silenced. as well as on the future. where do we go from here?

the football fans in the office here, to begin with were rather amused that we were down 1-0 to japan. even more so those not so knowledgable about the game, regarding japan in themselves as something of a football triviality. and then we came back. and then we made brazil work, and croatia. and then, we came to italy. and we matched it with them, stride for stride, even before ‘the matrix’ was sent off. and after, we played all over the top of them. now the smirkers in the office are rather more awed by the socceroos. perhaps next time, i won’t have to remind them that i told them so.

so where do we go from here? i certainly hope we can build on this, though, rather selfishly, i really don’t care what impact this all has on the a-league. domestic soccer doesn’t interest me terribly, not even the european leagues. if our guys choose to go and play with european clubs, which they will, and earn big bucks playing against top flight opposition, good on them. as long as they front up when they’re asked to wear the green and gold, i don’t really care where they ply their trade.

anyways, at the moment the world cup has been relegated to something of a passing interest, and i hope that’s just because i’m still emotionally scarred from the other day. i’m not entirely sure who’s still in the tournament that i can really care about and get behind. australia is out, sweden is out, mexico is out. after thier performances the other night, neither the netherlands (out) nor portugal really interest me at the moment either. i’m sick of hearing about brazil, argentina are a team of floppers and divers with funny hair, england are boring (and it’s england) and of course italy is a complete no no. so that leaves me with france, who i struggle to raise even a ‘meh’ about, the ukraine, basically the same, and the hosts, germany. i’ve never been a big supporter of germany, but who knows, maybe i’ll get behind the hometown heroes. maybe portugal will win their way back into my good books with a clean and exciting performance to knock out a hapless and lethargic english side?

i guess that will all sort itself out over the next few days. in this going to be last football related post for a while? next few days will probably sort that out too.

i am proud of the way australia performed and very disappointed at the manner of their exit, but i suppose that’s football, love it or hate it.

and here we go again

filed under: world cup football by df @ 25/06 | Comments (0)   

good to see fox sports is the first to roll out an article (which i won’t be linking to) dedicated to reminding us of the italian heritage of a number of the socceroos. could we not let this lie?

i also read that over 50% of fox sports readers have voted our qualification to the round of 16 as australia’s greatest ever sporting achievement in a recent reader poll. suggests to me that the average fox sports reader is about as intelligent as the average fox sports columnist. kieren perkins win in the 1500m at the ‘96 atlanta games was a distant second with 7% of the vote. i’m certainly proud of australia’s achievements at the world cup, but i don’t think i’d go that far. besides, it’s not over yet is it?

two very contrasting games tonight saw both of my ’second teams’ knocked out of the cup. firstly a pretty uninspiring effort from sweden against germany. it looked a fairly limp effort to go down two goals in the first 10 or so minutes, but they did pick up a bit after that. having lucic sent off was a real killer though, and a pretty questionable decision from the referee, especially in the circumstances. on that effort, he should really have been giving out yellow cards like candy, but nobody ever accuses refs of being consistant, right?

as if it’s not hard enough to come back from two goals with a man down, henke larsson then goes and misses a golden opportunity to spur his side on by blasting his penalty kick into row z.

to their credit, the blue and yellows did manage to keep germany scoreless for the rest of the game with keeper andreas isaksson making a number of excellent saves. sadly it hasn’t been a brilliant tournament for sweden in general, with a couple of slow performances in group play and whilst they showed plenty of spirit to draw with england in their last group match, today that seemed largely lacking for long periods of the game.

second team out for me tonight was mexico, and what a great match this was to watch. i missed both the goals at the beginning of the game unfortunately, but what i saw afterwards was a fluid, open game with mexico going toe-to-toe with (arguably) cup favourites argentina right until the very end. mexico, too were slow in the group stages, particularly in their draw with angola, but today showed why they still attract a great deal of neutral support. in particular, they look a completely different team with jared borgetti on the park. he’s the team’s leading goal scorer by a country mile and although it was captain marquez who scored for them tonight, borgetti gave the argentines all manner of headaches up front with his amazing aerial ability. for an old guy, he’s certainly got some springs.

at the end it came down to extra time and one of the most remarkable pieces of individual brilliance we’re going to see at this and maybe any other world cup. in the 7th minute of the first period of extra time, argentine captain juan pablo sorin sent a long cross from the left wing to the right edge of mexico’s penalty area where it was met by maxi rodriguez who chested it down onto his left foot and struck a stinging, dipping volley into the top left corner of oswaldo sanchez’ net. it was a freakish piece of work and one that mexico sadly wasn’t able to recover from. up to that point, even though argentina had looked slightly more likely to score again than mexico, it looked like the match was destined for penalties as both teams were well organised at the back. so well organised in fact that it took this incredible piece of work to seperate them.

it’s a shame to see mexico play their best football of the competition in a losing game, but they should be proud of themselves for taking it to an argentine team that’s been in brilliant form so far.

holy god

filed under: world cup football by df @ 22/06 | Comments (2)   

i have never before screamed at a game of soccer, but i did tonight. three times if i recall correctly.

i’m still not entirely sure i understand what happened at the end there because the australia vs croatia game was on the ‘alternate’ channel, so we cut away to commercials essentially 2 minutes after the whistle blew with no replays. infact, almost as soon as the third australian goal (which didn’t count) hit the back of the net, we went to a closeup shot of the ref handing out more cards, so i didn’t even get to see the celebrations.

i think, and i’m still not sure, that the ref had already called time when the shot was made, hence the goal not counting. i screamed, because i thought we’d scored again to make it a win instead of a draw, then had an immediate letdown as i realised it hadn’t been counted, only to see in a wave of confusion that the match was over. by that time i’d already done my emotional dash. i actually wouldn’t be surprised of most of the australians in the stadium were left without a spontaneous response to our qualification, after the scrum and confusion at the end.

tonight i think we played some of our best football of the competition, particularly in the first half. we got stung yet again in the first few minutes of the game, by a super free kick by kovac. i don’t think there was much that kalac could have done to stop it, and i reckon there’ll be plenty of debate about schwarzer’s ability to have stopped it, but i don’t think he’d have got it either.

it’s almost like if we don’t have a lead to chase, we don’t know exactly what to do with ourselves. we need waking up.

the second half wasn’t quite as good as the first, but i think croatia put more pressure on and that may have contributed. in the first half we seemed to have midfield really nicely controlled, and in the second that seemed to slip a bit. our passes didn’t find their mark as often as in the first and we weren’t able to mount as much pressure as a result.

josh kennedy looks to have turned the game once again, not by getting up above the croatians and scoring goals, but by getting up above them and causing them problems in controlling the high balls as easily as they had done previously. it was his height not long after being sent on that caused croatia difficulties with the ball that was played down for kewell to equalise.

and speaking of, what a perfect time for harry to finally find the back of the net. viduka looked good yet went goalless again and harry looked very much the same. both of them look be lacking touch just a little bit, and end up trying to do too much with the ball before getting off a shot and subsequently losing posession. there was a prime example of harry on an awesome long run straight through the heart of midfield, played himself into an open position, tried a piroet to get himself a bit more space instead of just taking the shot, and ended up leaving the ball behind.

all that was forgotten though at about 78 minutes when he knocked home the equaliser, and i probably frightened our neighbours.

in the last ten minutes we did everything possible in trying to lose ourselves the game, and horrible horrible memories of dying minute collapses came flooding back, and i’m sure not just for me, but this time it was different. the football gods were on our side for a change and this time, somehow, we managed to keep the ball out despite some truly ineffective clearing and eventually get it up the other end where the last minute whirlwind of ‘what the hell?’ happened.

overall the refereeing was pretty good, although i’m still mystified by a few decisions and there was a very obvious second handball (by the same guy who committed the first i think) which was missed. the last few minutes degenerated though, which given the pace of the first 80, could almost be forgiven. bad news for australia is that brett emerton, who had a great game on the right flank, will miss the next game after picking up further yellow cards, both of which i think were a bit silly. emerton was looking amazingly pacey in the second half, breaking free a number of times up the right with the only problem i think being that nobody could keep up with him in support.

and so we’re through, with the job to do against italy next. whilst not setting the tournament on fire so far, italy have looked pretty solid and more attacking than we have come to expect under what i believe is a new(ish) coach. again i’ve got to say, if we go down to an early goal to italy, we’re going to be in trouble.

australia seems to be growing with every game, and i see no reason that we can’t take the game to italy. i hope like hell that we do, and i forsee more yelling at the television in my immediate future.

i think i need to go and have a lie down now.

big day, part the second

filed under: world cup football by df @ 22/06 | Comments (0)   

the world cup is permeating everything. i’m listening to above and beyond’s radio show, trance around the world and after just one track, the cup has been mentioned already.

and so, australia take on australia b this evening in stuttgart, needing a win or a draw to advance to the next round for the first time ever. a win guarantees our qualification, whilst a draw relies on japan not beating brazil, and by a fairly healthy margin at that, in order to make up the goal difference. if we lose, we’re out.

disregarding all the cultural connection crap for a while, it shapes up as an interesting game regardless. the physical matchups look very similar, as do the styles of play to my uneducated eye. i’m expecting it to be very close. croatia have the disadvantage of having robert kovac suspended for picking up two yellow cards in previous matches, but australia have defensive problems of their own, with a number of players in defense still carrying yellow cards. we seemed to manage this pretty well against brazil though, and with an english referee more used to the style of play on show in the premier league, hopefully that won’t be an issue.

i still think we’re going to win, and evidently so do a number of croatian ‘experts‘, but i certainly wouldn’t be putting money on it. don’t get me wrong though, i still have faith, but i’m certainly not going to rush in blindly and declare australia as any kind of favourite. it’s going to be really, really close.

photoblog

filed under: photography by df @ 21/06 | Comments (0)   

just a quick apology also to those of you who actually come and look at the photos. i know there are a few of you. i haven’t put one up in a while and i need to get on that. i have been taking a few here and there, but i haven’t really sat down to process any of them yet, so i don’t know exactly what i have.

this is also an attempt to bump the last post on the page off so i don’t use albeit twice on the same page.

oh. dammit.

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