some pre-ordained ballet

June 29, 2006 3:59 PM

Design. Architecture. Football. The awe-inspiring sight of the entire Argentina team moving fluidly as if to some pre-ordained ballet was simply Liquid Football. 24 passes throughout 8 of the 10 outfield Argentines, ... was largely improvised in real-time, entirely determined by the context of the opposing team - which cannot be accurately predicted at all.
posted by signal (68 comments total)

So where's the link to video...?!?
posted by twsf at 4:07 PM on June 29, 2006

via bldblog.
posted by signal at 4:09 PM on June 29, 2006

Ah, here it is...
posted by twsf at 4:11 PM on June 29, 2006

<3 graphs
posted by cortex at 4:30 PM on June 29, 2006

I just love the announcer, just as the ball is coming up it's "This is what argentina are so great at, I've seen their youth team do this, play the ball endlessly around the opponents penalty area then suddenly to break with devastating consequences..." (ball to cambiasso, to crespo, backheel to cambiasso, goal).
posted by kjell at 4:36 PM on June 29, 2006

So... as a non-soccer fan, I have to ask: why this doesn't happen more often? Here, the passing seemed purposeful, with the drive towards the goal inexorable and only diverted momentarily to kick it out for better positioning... but only a moment, then once again driving back towards the goal. To my American sports-sensibilities, this seems logical: the purpose is to score points, and this was a series of passes that appeared driven to do just that.

The thing that's so unlikeable about soccer from my position is the way it seems that teams spend 85 minutes just kicking the ball around like Homestar Runner, with no apparent awareness that a goal even exists at each end of the field. If the teams spent more time trying for this execution, wouldn't we see lots more 10-8 games that are more exciting? Yes, I know that billions of people love the sport in its current form, but is there some cultural reason that teams who use the soccer equivalent of the "triangle offense" are so rare?
posted by hincandenza at 4:43 PM on June 29, 2006

Meh. A thousand monkeys playing soccer for a thousand years would eventually score that goal. Which is, effectively, exactly what happened. Show me one of those in every game & I may start to believe that there was any real "architecture" or "design" behind it.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:43 PM on June 29, 2006

You know, so much of sports is just stupid testosterone-fuelled pissing contest mixed with drugs and marketing that you just want to give up on the whole stupid world. But then every so often something like this comes along and you're reminded of the way in which sports allows for these entirely unscripted, unplanned and unplannable moments of transcendence--where all the possibilities of the human body seem heightened and the relationship between movement and time seems oddly elastic--and you think o.k., screw Nike and Adidas, and Gatorade, and chest bumps, and steroids, and agents, and athletes-as-role-models, and athletes-as-celebraties, and ALL that crap...sport can still be one of the pathways to the sublime, no matter how fucked up it gets.

Beautiful.
posted by yoink at 4:49 PM on June 29, 2006

I just cannot wait for the next american 'football' thread. I really can't.

I hope to meet some of you guys there, where I'll be happily snarking away, Ill be all like 'this is crap' & 'grown men wearing shoulder pads & tights, it aint dignified' & ' where's the skill in that? its just like wrestling really' and 'why do they stop every three minutes? that aint like no sport I see'.

You know, just like a real Mefi thread should be.

Tossers.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:59 PM on June 29, 2006

Can we lose the offtopic snarkiness and leave the thread to the people who actually read the fucking article? It's really good, seriously.
posted by signal at 5:00 PM on June 29, 2006

And we'll politely note that at least in american football, they are driving constantly towards the GOAL. You know, the PURPOSE of the whole GAME- to score more points than your opponent. As opposed to dicking around mid-field like a bunch of ADD kids with unusually large calves.
posted by hincandenza at 5:01 PM on June 29, 2006

"Liquid football"... if I remember correctly he's totally ripped that off Alan Partridge.
posted by Decani at 5:07 PM on June 29, 2006

Lesson 1: Read the link first. He credited Mr. Partridge. I am an anus.
posted by Decani at 5:08 PM on June 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

If you hate it, don't watch it. Avoid all thread, articles and shows about it. Maintain your hate, and revel in your ignorance, celebrate your distaste - somewhere else. Not in World Cup threads.

Is that so hard?
posted by dash_slot- at 5:10 PM on June 29, 2006

Scientists announce breakthrough for people who hate soccer! "Don't watch it!" says research team leader. "It's a shame so many monkeys had to die in the course of this research, but think of the benefits in terms of time saved snarking on websites! We expect productivity to go through the roof." Early indications suggest that a similar strategy may be successful for films and TV programs people don't like but feel compelled to critique at length, too. Research is ongoing.
posted by yoink at 5:16 PM on June 29, 2006

That's quite a chip on your shoulder, dash_slot. Did you get that in a soccer accident?

Hincandenza had an interesting question: why doesn't this type of play happen more often. If you're so knowledgable about 'football', then why don't you answer the question instead of derailing with an infantile rant about nothing at all?
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 5:17 PM on June 29, 2006

Though the writing is a little pretentious in the article, I love that he is unashamed to think about it like that. It's quite different to how my friends or brothers talk about it (and I only ever get excited every other year), but it tells me something different. I will have to reread it at least one more time, and follow his links.

As ever, my favourite soccer site of the moment is [gloriously unpretentious] WorldCupBlog, and the newly discovered (by me, anyway) Unofficial Football World Championships site.
posted by dash_slot- at 5:17 PM on June 29, 2006

I'm surprised some Englishman beat the Argentine mafias at SCI-Arc and Columbia to this connection.

UbuRoivas, nowhere does the author of that essay say that the play was pre-scripted. Also, your thousand monkeys comparison doesn't really apply. Either they would turn out more impressive goals (a thousand years is a very long time) or, if you have them making random movements, then it wouldn't apply here (especially since they would be picking up the ball with their hands, which, if you dont know the rules, is not allowed in soccer - I mention the rules because you dont seem to be able to identify an incredible goal).

What happened here was improvised. Yes, design can be improvised. Music can be improvised. Even architecture can be improvised. The layout of many old cities, if looked at over a long period of time, takes its shape through a form of improvisation. Or maybe you'd wish to call it chaos, or people each making decisions while considering certain rules. Either way, humans are involved in the design process, and this was a lovely goal.

Did you just watch the video or did you actually read the article?
posted by redteam at 5:18 PM on June 29, 2006

I'm not a sports guy. I don't watch sports very often. I don't remember who plays for my home teams. It doesn't hold my interest as a hobby.

But I can dig it. I'll watch a game now and then, and I'll enjoy what's going on. And one of the main things that happens in a interesting game—whatever the sport—is that you see people on the field/court/etc actually thinking. Reacting to the situation. Managing tactical resources, including energy.

You fire toward the goal like a maniac when it makes sense. You don't just hammer at it constantly, because you'll tire too quickly and it won't be 10-8, it'll be 10-2, because you're gasping and limping and getting owned.
posted by cortex at 5:20 PM on June 29, 2006

UbuRoivas - there is no "architecture." The team weren't sent out on the pitch to perform a rehearsed goal. It came together through the individual awareness and skill of the players.
posted by fire&wings at 5:20 PM on June 29, 2006

(And part of the reason you don't see this sort of thing All The Time is that you have to wait for the defense to let you get away with it.)
posted by cortex at 5:21 PM on June 29, 2006

twsf: if you're going to link the video, you ought to link the one with the more entertaining play-by-play. (It's the second goal in the vid).
posted by simra at 5:22 PM on June 29, 2006

Architecture != stasis. Architecture == a plan, a structure, a well-designed system within which to work.
posted by cortex at 5:22 PM on June 29, 2006

I'd love to have ashirt with that newspaper graphic on it. Amazing play, and a well done graph of it!
posted by cccorlew at 5:25 PM on June 29, 2006

Nice essay, that, and I'm buying David Winner's book the moment I finish typing this comment.

hincandenza - if you really want to mess with your goal-oriented American sports head, watch some cricket ;-)
posted by jack_mo at 5:31 PM on June 29, 2006

why doesn't this type of play happen more often.

Yeah, and why don't pitchers pitch perfect games more often, huh? That's really exciting when they do that. What's their problem? I want to see more perfect games!

It's exciting because it doesn't happen often. It doesn't happen often because it's really, really hard. If you have a sense of how hard it is, it's interesting to watch people trying to do it, even when they fail.

All sports are artificial worlds composed of artificial rules. You could make soccer higher scoring, which would simply mean that each individual goal became less interesting (tell, me, how many goals from the first half of a basketball game can you remember? Precious few; the ones we remember are--for the most part--the ones in the dying seconds, with the clock ticking down and the game on the line).

Is baseball a "better" game if it is more highscoring? Well then, why not artificially juice the ball? Why not mandate smaller ballparks? Why not lower the pitcher's mound and move the pitcher further away? Why not shrink the strike zone down to almost nothing? No? Don't like those suggestions? That's because you are used to the current "world" described by the entirely artificial rules of baseball. You can watch a scoreless inning and be hanging on the tension of the overall game situation, and thrilled by the minutiae of the moment to moment plays that resulted in that scorelessness (the runner advanced to second on a sac fly, the power hitter intentionally walked to first, the double play that removes the threat etc.)

Now, all the "useless dicking about in midfield" that you object to is the same--to someone who understands the "world" created by the artificial rules of soccer--as those elements in the baseball game that also lead to no score are to you.
posted by yoink at 5:32 PM on June 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

Agreed, dash_slot. If you don't like soccer and you want to leave snarky comments in here, then you aren't adding anything new or interesting. Especially to us American soccer fans. You think we haven't heard some smart-ass go on about how soccer is gay or whatever before? When you talk like that, it just shows that you don't get it. You're like someone who just writes "AMERICA SUX" in a political thread.

Stop wasting your time.
posted by redteam at 5:36 PM on June 29, 2006

To answer hicandenza's question:

This goal would probably not have happened against quality opposition, or even a team that were really up for the challenge. You will see that while the Argentinians pass the ball none of the white shirted Serbian players close down the Argentinians, none of them attempt a real tackle, they stand off the whole time, seemingly in awe. There is no real genius in the Argentinian goal before the last 5-6 passes where it becomes fast one touch passing that is very hard to emulate, or defend against. Not many teams could stop that goal in it's last 5 or 6 passes. Argentinians are confident in their ability - football you might watch might feature full backs hoofing the ball up the field to the forwards because it's all they are capable of. This goal is close to genius, even if you ignore the 20 preceding passes. Every player knows the next move before he moves the ball on, and in that time the preceding played knows where to go next to benefit the move.

It's like standing in front of Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein and demanding to know why the rest of art - including clumsy American art like Thomas Kinkade - isn't all like this. It just isnt. This is the unattainable summit in it's field, easily the greatest World Cup goal ever scored - rightly touched by nothing produced elsewhere.
posted by fire&wings at 5:42 PM on June 29, 2006

Hey, fire&wings, I agree with you completely except for the greatest goal ever part.

This is the greatest goal ever (2nd link in slo-mo with added schmaltz).
posted by redteam at 5:53 PM on June 29, 2006

redteam - No chance. I'm Scottish and I would still plump for Cambiasso :)
posted by fire&wings at 6:01 PM on June 29, 2006

wow, you guys think this is the greatest world cup goal ever scored? glad i live in the youtube / googlevideo era then, so i can see it this easily. definitely looks great but i haven't seen that many world cups so i can't compare.
posted by jcruelty at 6:12 PM on June 29, 2006

I saw this goal live the other week when it was on. It's the kind of fluid movement that you could show to anyone and, essentially, say "that is what football should be", and realise that if they didn't get it they were somehow dead inside. Of course, football isn't often as astounding as this – it would get pretty boring, as someone upthread suggested – but it's the potential every match has to produce something like this which makes it so exciting.

(Unless, of course, you're watching Scotland, in which case the only potential a match has is to produce either a valiant failure against a rubbish team or a win of absolutely no consequence against a great one.)
posted by Len at 6:13 PM on June 29, 2006

Great heel pass from Crespo. That's about all I remember from that goal.

why doesn't this type of play happen more often.

It happens all the time. Football is more like strategic chaos. That's what makes it interesting. It's almost impossible to run a set play except, well, off a set play (corner kick, free kick, throw in).

New Scientist had a fascinating article about chaos theory and football strategy but jeez, that was like 11 years ago. :)
posted by mrgrimm at 6:34 PM on June 29, 2006

Also, uninitiated viewers of soccer need to realize that those 25-30 yard crosses as well as the ability of the receiver to 'catch' that pass exactly where they want it--be it with their toe, chest or head--takes quite a bit of skill. Make that a LOT of skill. So those flawless passes among the Argentine players is just as impressive as a perfectly executed move by a blocker to create just enough space for the running back (that is probably a bad analogy).
posted by Juggermatt at 6:41 PM on June 29, 2006

Absolutely glorious. Viva Argentina! Thanks for this.
posted by luminous phenomena at 6:59 PM on June 29, 2006

Yeah, and why don't pitchers pitch perfect games more often, huh?

Bingo. Epiphany.

There is not doubt in my mind that well played soccer is a joy to watch. But the reason I dislike watching it is simple.

It's not the scoring. There's lots of 1-0 baseball and hockey games. Hell, those are often the best ones. No, the problem is simple.

Poorly played soccer is boring. Poorly played soccer can be summed up thus -- run up wing, center, clear, repeat until game ends.

Poorly played baseball and football can be entertaining -- heck, they can be downright funny (Leon Lett. Thanksgiving. DON'T TOUCH THE BALL, LEON! Oops. Cowboys *lose*.)

I've always wondered at soccer fans -- the ultras, esp. They seem to go to a great deal of effort doing things -- things that take thier attention away from the game.

It makes sense now. If the game is boring, you become the entertainment. Ultras really didn't take off in the US, because even the most hard core fans, painted up, signs, etc. watch the game, because the game is almost always watchable.

There's a reason hockey has the icing rule -- hockey figured out long ago that "run up the wing, center, clear, repeat" isn't fun.

Soccer has chosen not to do that. So, when the teams are playing well, you end up with stirring, dramatic, fun to watch 1-0 games. And when they aren't, it's run up, center, clear, repeat.
posted by eriko at 7:00 PM on June 29, 2006

I'd love to have ashirt with that newspaper graphic on it.

i was thinking the same thing. if they're smart, they'll figure out a lot of us would like one.

help a yank out. are such football diagrams common?
posted by 3.2.3 at 7:18 PM on June 29, 2006

Wow, what hypersensitivity on the part of the soccer-fanciers here. I didn't think anybody was saying that the game is gay or lame or black or whatever...the comments were more like queries as to why this doesn't happen more often.

My own comment was meant to be analogous to the idea that you notice coincidences simply because they happen to be coincidental, whereas non-coincidences are not registered. This phenomenon inflates the seeming frequency & significance of the coincidences. In the same manner, teams regularly launch these many-pass midfield attacks, reach the vicinity of the goal and miss. Miss woefully, as often as not. Hell, I bet Argentina missed another forty in that very match, which were all forgotten. But when one single goal goes in, it is cited endlessly as perfection. No...it's just a law of averages. Do it enough, and it will eventually work. A simple enough point that can apply to the plays of the week in any sport.

Also, not a soccer-hater here, although I think it is a bit of a dickheaded code that hands a game to Italy on a platter in the last second for the kind of dive that would make the lovechild of Jacques Cousteau & Sir Laurence Olivier proud.

As for the article...um, a bit of a wank, if you ask me.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:21 PM on June 29, 2006

Though the writing is a little pretentious in the article

As for the article...um, a bit of a wank, if you ask me.

I'm sick to death of folks tagging a given piece of writing as "pretentious" when what they really mean is "erudite" or "learned" or simply "refers offhandly and with a sense of casual mastery to concepts with which I am, at best, vaguely familiar."

There's nothing "pretentious" about Dan's writing, here or elsewhere. He's just an actual Deep Thinker, with a longstanding and thoroughly interdisciplinary interest in the relationship between the empty and the full, adaptation in and to complex systems, and how the introduction of "noise" or randomness into such ordered systems frequently produces structures of still greater beauty.

He doesn't need me to defend him, of course, but if you're not capable of making use of what he's got to offer I'd argue that the problem may well be with you and not him.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:06 PM on June 29, 2006

I'm sick to death of folks tagging a given piece of writing as "pretentious" when what they really mean is "erudite" or "learned" or simply "refers offhandly and with a sense of casual mastery to concepts with which I am, at best, vaguely familiar."

And I am equally sick of people who call a spade a spade being assumed to be ignorant by others who are presumably overawed by what they assume is erudite simply because they cannot understand it. There, tit-for-tat in the baseless ad-hominem stakes.

You might have noticed that the author himself suggested that he might get a season ticket for Pseud's Corner for this piece, no? OK, so what does he do, in a nutshell? Make a couple of analogies between improvisation-within-structure in football, against people using architectural space, or improvisation in music, without doing anything beyond asserting the analogies.

Well, fuck me dead if nobody has ever commented on variations within structural constraints before! It's almost as if chess had never been invented. What other gems do we find? A high level, unresolved speculative aside on the possibility that football can be notated like music or dance. A quotation of another writer's suggestion that Dutch design has somehow infiltrated the minds of its footballers, which was obviously a joke. And the rest was filler. Sorry, but I don't call that particularly learned or erudite, but I don't think that was the author's intent. It was a pointless play with ideas for fun. Also known as a wank.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:41 PM on June 29, 2006

Dan's writing kind of represents what the rest of the world sees in soccer that Americans don't. Everything that happens on the field has to be compared to something else: science, art, sex, religion, legend, etc.
posted by b_thinky at 11:35 PM on June 29, 2006

Well, b_thinky, the references to John Cage may have been appropriate, at least. Didn't he write a piece called 90'00", in which nothing happens?

(sorry, couldn't resist)
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:05 AM on June 30, 2006

Very interesting article. Having just read the brilliant Brilliant Orange referred to in the article I was looking for more of the same type of stuff.

As for the derailers, all I can say is fuck you and fuck off. If you don't like football (yes, real football where the players kick the ball with their feet rather than some sort of poncy, armoured rugby) then don't comment. Go and do something else. Go and read another FPP. Please dont shit in a thread over something that other people care passionately about.

As far as I can tell, American sports revolve around hot dogs and tv adverts. The US is a place where a sort of steroid driven version of rounders passes as the national game. Even the sports that are fun to play (like basketball) are fucking terrible ordeals as spectator sports. My views on American sports are as vaccuous and facile as those posting about football but haven't got a fucking clue about it but I dont go filling some thread about the superbowl about it. By the way, last time I checked more people were interested in Superbowl ads than who actually won the thing.


A quotation of another writer's suggestion that Dutch design has somehow infiltrated the minds of its footballers, which was obviously a joke.

UboRovias: in that book there are many mentions as to how the fact that the Dutch mentality is invariably drawn towards the best use of space.

Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Modern Art Museum in Amsterdam and also one of the country's most influential art critics argues that every culture has its own way of seeing....
Catenaccio is like a Titian painting- soft, seductive and languid. The Italians welcome and lull you and seduce you into their soft embrace, and score a goal like a thrust of a dagger. The Dutch make their geometric patterns.

To make sense of the vast flatness of their land the Dutch developed a way of calibrating distances from the horizon, calculating space and paying meticulous attention to everything within that space


Call it wank if you want but anyone who knows anything about international football will be able to identify such patterns of play and connect them with the local culture and natural environment that it has come from.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 1:36 AM on June 30, 2006

Call it wank if you want but anyone who knows anything about international football will be able to identify such patterns of play and connect them with the local culture and natural environment that it has come from.

That is actually a very intriguing theory. I would like to hear more of it, particularly as it would reflect immensely on our own Aussie style of play. After all, Australia and Holland are very similar, in that both are vastly flat, predominantly urban countries, in which the flatness of the land must somehow seep into the urban mentality through various means.

We also both have the benefit of significant migrant communities, which are well represented in the national teams, and which must have their own conceptions of geographical and architectural spaces that somewhat alter the standard national approach in wonderful & surprising ways.

Is it possible that the advent of Total Football in the early seventies was related to early waves of immigration? I would guess "yes", because otherwise I can see no reason why - if it is so characteristic of the Dutch outlook, in architectural & urban design terms - it was not around for decades before that...
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:33 AM on June 30, 2006

Hurrah for ClanvidHorse. He's summed up exactly what I wanted to say.

Actually, the best comment I ever heard about Basketball came from the mouth of Mark Lawrenson (he of Liverpool and BBC Punditry fame) - "Why don't they just play the last five minutes of the game - that's the only interesting bit."

And the best world cup goal of all time? This. No question. Although the Argentina goal comes pretty close...
posted by ninthart at 2:43 AM on June 30, 2006

To make sense of the vast flatness of their land the Dutch developed a way of calibrating distances from the horizon, calculating space and paying meticulous attention to everything within that space

Hey, I think I'm getting the hang of this. The Dutch must play like the Egyptians, right? Because what is described above is *exactly* the foundation of geometry - in which the ancient Egyptians had to recalculate plots of land after every annual inundation of the Nile.

(ninthart: heh. agree about basketball. have yet to form an opinion either way on american football coz it's almost never shown here)
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:03 AM on June 30, 2006

help a yank out. are such football diagrams common?

They're fairly common. I cdon't know about all UK newspapers, but you see them in the Guardian newspaper pretty much every week during the football season, normlly as part of the pundit's columns where they discuss tactics/problems of teams (eg. Team X have been playing like this (diagram) but I think they'd have better luck against Team Y if they set up like this (diagram)). I can't see any online though.

I haven't seen them used as much for match reporting, although in the case of a special move like this they are used.

Things might be different in other countries/newspapers though.

They always remind meof the match screen on old version of Championship (now Football) Manager.
posted by drill_here_fore_seismics at 3:30 AM on June 30, 2006

The Dutch team of the 70s was predominantly indigenous although there was some Spanish influences prior to then. The black players from the Surinam etc didnt really start to appear regularly for the team until the mid to late 1980s.

One thing that would distinguish a Dutch from Australian mentality are the limitations imposed by a tiny landmass. Holland and Australia have roughly the same size of population but Holland is tiny in comparison. Every bit of land needs to be made use of in the Netherlands and there is the reclamation of land from the sea. While there is a flat landscape in both there is a confinement in Holland that could never be conceived of in Australia. Having been in both Dutch and Aussie houses, the thing that strikes me about the Dutch ones are the near vertical staircases and the buildings leaning over the street at an angle. Aussie houses I've been in were spacious with plenty of light and although nice lacking in character. (They just looked like any American suburban houses I've been in). Nothing that could be distinguished as being particularly Australian. (Even in the Dutch suburbs there is a Dutch style of housing).

Football styles emerge from the cultures that surrounds them, not in the ancient history of the place. Dutch people confront confinement every day due to the lack of space. A facetious comment about ancient Egypt is just a waste of time and a piss poor snark.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 3:51 AM on June 30, 2006

Good post, signal. Very interesting.
posted by sciurus at 4:18 AM on June 30, 2006

OK, pissweak snark, I admit.

That was all aimed at this theorising about national styles of play relating to supposed cultural traits, based on landscape etc. There *are* apparently differences in styles between the English, Spanish & Italian leagues, for example, and the Africans always seem to have their own adventurous, exciting styles of play. Likewise, individual clubs may have their signature traits. However, I think those differences cannot be explained away by simplistic pseudoanalysis.

What rankles me is that as an ex-student of sociology & that particularly European brand of post-structuralist philosophy that the author of the article seemed to be emulating (it read a bit like Roland Barthes' *Mythologies*), attempts to relate national teams' styles to some sort of underlying cultural psyche sound suspiciously like amusing pub-talk elevated through clever selections from art history. So, Dutch football owes more to De Stijl than to The Nightwatch? OK, as long as we ignore the latter. It just seems that you could draw any conclusion you like based on what you select.

On the other hand, as a Capoeira player, I can see the concepts of ginga and malicia (trickery) in the Brasilians' play, and the Germans are all hyper-efficient anal-retentives, so there may be some mileage in these stereotypes, after all.

Um, in terms of architecture, inner-city Sydney is not unlike Amsterdam in its verticals, and based on terraces in places like Liverpool or Manchester, from what I have seen of those cities. However, common architecture is probably in a different league to the high design architecture that I assume the writer was thinking of, or the ponces quoted in the book on Dutch football.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:21 AM on June 30, 2006

The Argentine team has been the team that has impressed me the most so far this game. They were the first team to make me sit back and think, "Now that is soccer." (ignore Americanism)
posted by Atreides at 4:34 AM on June 30, 2006

I agree with UbuRoivas about the linked article: amusing, perhaps intriguing, but hardly "deep" or evidence of genius. But the hell with that; muchísimas gracias, simra, for those seven-and-a-half minutes of Argentine brilliance, with appropriate commentary: No se puede jugar mejor!! I laughed with joy seeing Tevez brush past two defenders as if they were flies before sending the ball to its preordained destination. But then I saw redwing's link with Maradona doing the same to the entire English team and chills went up my spine. This is the perfect preparation for Argentina-Germany. Revenge for 1990! Or, in the erudite words of a commenter at this forum: vamos argetina carajo!!!! que le damos a alemania con el carlitos tevez y leo messi!!!!!!
posted by languagehat at 6:26 AM on June 30, 2006

dash - thanks for the worldcupblog link. I hadn't seen that one.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:37 AM on June 30, 2006

That Argentina goal was fantastic but, as was said before, the Serbs were utterly abject in that match. The game against Mexico is a much truer reflection of how good they are.

If Germany score in the first 15 mins of the game this afternoon they will go on and win it. Their defence is slow and have looked laboured in most games but under Klinsmann all the midfield and the strikers think they can score goals from anywhere - and they're right. The German team is full of self-belief and they score early the fans will go beserk (despite Argentina's protestations that they enjoy having the crowd against them). Look for a 4-2 result to Germany.
posted by patricio at 6:49 AM on June 30, 2006

That was a pretty briliant goal by Germany against Argentina right now.....
O what the heck, I'll cheer for our neighbours.
TOOOORRRRR!!!!!!!!
posted by jouke at 9:38 AM on June 30, 2006

I've always wondered at soccer fans -- the ultras, esp. They seem to go to a great deal of effort doing things -- things that take thier attention away from the game.

It makes sense now. If the game is boring, you become the entertainment. Ultras really didn't take off in the US, because even the most hard core fans, painted up, signs, etc. watch the game, because the game is almost always watchable.

I saw some research done about hooliganism and why it's so unique to the game of soccer. The theory was that since goals are few and far between, fans have nothing to trigger emotional release. When the emotion builds...and builds...and builds... and still nothing happens, they go berzerk and are left with no choice but to stab one another and start fires. Apparently.

In most other sports (football, basketball, boxing) there are fairly regular intervals at which fans can release their energy. A huge dunk. A first down. An uppercut. Etc.

Interesting theory, seems to make sense.

As for the derailers, all I can say is fuck you and fuck off. If you don't like football (yes, real football where the players kick the ball with their feet rather than some sort of poncy, armoured rugby) then don't comment. Go and do something else. Go and read another FPP. Please dont shit in a thread over something that other people care passionately about.

As far as I can tell, American sports revolve around hot dogs and tv adverts. The US is a place where a sort of steroid driven version of rounders passes as the national game. Even the sports that are fun to play (like basketball) are fucking terrible ordeals as spectator sports. My views on American sports are as vaccuous and facile as those posting about football but haven't got a fucking clue about it but I dont go filling some thread about the superbowl about it. By the way, last time I checked more people were interested in Superbowl ads than who actually won the thing.

Why are soccer fans so sensitive? It's like every time someone merely asks a goddamned question instead of getting an answer they get a tirade like above. I don't see anyone on the thread claiming basketball or football is superior to soccer. Except for that one guy... kind of... but I don't think he meant it that way. :)
posted by b_thinky at 9:39 AM on June 30, 2006

@b_thinky:
it's like asking "why's your wife so ugly"
posted by jouke at 9:50 AM on June 30, 2006

Why are soccer fans so sensitive?

All 3 Billion of them? Wait a sec, let me go ask.
posted by signal at 9:58 AM on June 30, 2006

Well, goddammit.
posted by languagehat at 10:47 AM on June 30, 2006

Good old Jens. I normally loathe Germany, but he's the Arsenal 'keeper and so I have to give him some love, y'know?
posted by ninthart at 11:07 AM on June 30, 2006

Hmm, having tipped Shevchenko to win the Golden Boot, and Germany to win 4-2 I think it's time to quit the punditry.
posted by patricio at 11:22 AM on June 30, 2006

He was damn good. It was losing Abbondanzieri that did in the Argies; first, because they had to go with their second-string goalkeeper, and second, because they had to use up one of their substitutions on him—though that still doesn't explain why Pekerman didn't put in Messi, who I confidently expected to score within five minutes of entering the game. But all this will be hashed out in the Argentine press over the next four years...
posted by languagehat at 11:23 AM on June 30, 2006

"He" being Jens, that is, not Shevchenko, who slipped in when I wasn't looking.
posted by languagehat at 11:24 AM on June 30, 2006

The goal against Serbia & Montenegro has to rank among the best I've seen. The tactical decisions and substitutions in the second half of the Germany match are probably the dumbest I've ever seen; and my team used to be managed by Terry Venables.....

Why on earth did Argentina just try to hang on to a 1-0 lead for 20 minutes in a quarter final against a home nation? Argentina have only themselves (*cough* or there manager *cough*) to blame for throwing away the 2006 World Cup....
posted by davehat at 11:25 AM on June 30, 2006

I'm now predicting a goalbath^TM for Italy v. Ukraine.

In a good way!
posted by dash_slot- at 12:13 PM on June 30, 2006

Beautifully crafted article! ... sublime!

The World Cup has absolutely captivated me -- much to the surprise of anyone who knows me. I am thrilled with every match I watch! (Although today I am mourning for the Argentines!)

I am a team-sport hating woman, btw ... and have alwayys been proud to wear my surfer/skater tee-shirt: "Where's my balls?!"

Now, I think I should write about how soccer is like surfing ... the balletic skills, the endurance, the pusle of the action, the emergence of the 'magical' moments, peak connections, meditations in the troughs between action ... and the grueling, exhausting 'punching out' to get to the lineup. Every wave is different; all we bring is our puny skills ... any 'victory' is as much luck as skill. It is NOT about the score.

Soccer (futbol!) is universes away from that other ball game that requires mindless frontal poundings and brute force. Anyone who only plays for "goals" is obviously never going to understand soccer.

John Cage? ... LOL ... more subtle hints from the article's writer. Afterall, what kind of sportsman could quote, "Everything is to the point."?
.
posted by Surfurrus at 12:18 PM on June 30, 2006

"pulse" of the action!! ack ... what a typo
posted by Surfurrus at 12:21 PM on June 30, 2006

D'oh! Italy won. Go the Germans! Well, until you meet Brasil, that is...

Whatever cultural heritage has informed the Italian style of play, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is obviously not part of it. After all, the tower has remained on its feet for centuries...
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:19 PM on June 30, 2006