The Beautiful Tournament, the World Cup

The World Cup reminds us every four years why it's one of the greatest sporting events to grace this planet. Even with the numerous reffing gaffes, players rolling around like they'd been shot when they hadn't been touched, and  egomaniac coaches, the tournament was fantastic. To counteract those things, we had fantastic goals, many upsets, and even Paul the soccer predicting Octopus (he went a perfect eight-for-eight in choosing matches, including picking Spain in the final).

The United States got off to a great start by managing a tie against England. I didn't see the game, but I did see the goals. They looked a little something like this:

Then, in our second match, it looked like we were going to suffer another disappointing group stage elimination when we fell behind Slovenia 2-0. We rallied in the second half to tie that game and should have won, had there not been a bizarre disallowing of our third goal. It's a week after the even has ended and I still never heard an explanation for the referee's ruling. I doubt we ever will. That brings us to our third match, which with England taking an early 1-0 lead in their coinciding game against Slovenia, became a must-win for the United States. I then got to experience my favorite soccer memory of my lifetime. As we went to stoppage time in the second half, looking like we were doomed to a tie with Algeria which would not be enough to move on, we got a brilliant goal from Landon Donovan. It started with a great save by Tim Howard, who started it up the field with a fantastic throw. Donovan crashed the net to get to the rebound, caused by the rush, and banged it home. I was streaming it in my company's break room and jumped up and yelled. Two other people asked me if I had money on the game and I simply responded,"No, it's my country." It's very disappointing that they didn't understand this. It made me feel like I, along with my friend Ben who passionately streamed the World Cup with me, were the only soccer fans in the country. But to me, it didn't matter. I smiled for the rest of the work day and watched the replay 10 times on youtube before going to bed that night. Here it is again, if you'd like to relive it as well:

I still get chills watching it. It was amazing. Donovan can join Ryan Miller at the bar, as he too, should never pay for another beer in this country. And also, clearly, Ben and I weren't the only ones watching. The second location is where I watched the Ghana game the following Saturday. And although it ended in disappointment, the atmosphere was amazing and it was incredible when Donovan tied the game. Here's a picture of the scene at halftime that I took.

The upsets in this tournament made it very interesting as well. Even though Spain, one of the favorites, ended up winning, it was still their first time winning which makes it alright with me. I'd much rather see them win than Brazil or Germany, who always seem to win. I'm envious of my friends Dan and Julie, who were over there for most of the tournament including the final. I would imagine the party is still going. But back to the actual upsets. Who saw Japan making it to the round of 16? If not for penalties deciding their match, they might have gone even further. The Netherlands taking out Brazil, especially in a come from behind fashion, was also very shocking. The Netherlands is a very good team, don't get me wrong, but for a bit, the tournament seemed destined to have a final between Brazil and Argentina. But then Europe took down South America via Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands. I would look for Brazil to end their dry spell when they host the next tournament in 2014, assuming we make it past 2012 of course.

The tournament's final wasn't pretty, as Holland picked up nine yellow cards and a red, while the Spanish weren't exactly gentlemen either. My favorite play in the game aside from the goal (which was obviously onside if you understand soccer, by the way) was a Spanish player taking the rules into his own hands. He got sandwiched by two dutch players, which probably should have been a foul by the way they took him out. However, when he got up and looked around, he saw that there was no call. He then said, "Eff that noise" and threw one of the two offenders to the ground with a quick swing of his arm. I assumed that would be a yellow card, as it was deliberate, but it was just a foul. Perhaps the refs knew they had missed something, but either way, the game could have been officiated better, which could be said for most of the tournament. Luckily, it didn't completely ruin the World Cup. In my opinion, the best team still ended up winning, even if the USA, England, Mexico, and several others got screwed along the way. Ghana got screwed within the rules and then screwed themselves, and after their cowardly display against us, I didn't feel all that bad about it. I already can't wait for the qualifying games to begin in a couple of years as we begin the road to Brazil. If we can play better defense, we could be very dangerous. Here's to 2014.