Apparently, when the Brazilians went on to the pitch to warm up before the match, the Ghanaian players stopped their own warm-up session to gaze admiringly at the football legends on display. I don’t know whether that indicated an excessive sense of humility among the Ghana players or not, but that certainly seemed to be the case during the first ten minutes. Like rabbits caught in bright yellow and blue headlights, the Ghanaians stood and watched as Brazil ran riot. They were lucky only to let in one goal.
However, in today’s edition of the Guardian’s World Cup podcast, Brazilian journalist Fernando Duarte insisted that the way to beat Brazil was to go for it, to run at them “as if your life depended on it”. For the rest of the match, Ghana did precisely this, and were let down only by their lack of confidence in front of goal. Like the Mexicans in their group matches, the Ghanaians seemed to want to walk the ball into the net, frequently missing obvious shooting chances and never trying to beat the Brazilian defenders in the air. And of course, the danger with Brazil is that it only takes them a few seconds to whip the ball up the other end and score, while you’re still rueing your last missed opportunity. That’s precisely what they did for their second and third goals, resulting in a scoreline that doesn’t really reflect the match, which was compelling until the last minute.
Right through this World Cup, one of the catchphrases among BBC and ITV commentators has been: “BRAZIL ARE WINNING COMFORTABLY DESPITE NOT PLAYING THEIR BEST!”. But how do we know they’re not at their best? They looked pretty clever in the Confederations Cup last summer, but still lost to Mexico. This year, the undeniably brilliant individual displays have certainly been marred by a lack of collective organisation, but maybe, just maybe… could this be all there is?
Spain have never beaten France in a competitive match, but the evidence of the past two weeks suggested a change in fortune. Spain qualified comfortably from the group stages despite a lacklustre second-eleven performance against Saudi Arabia, while France had come close to spectacular self-destruction to rival their disaster in 2002. A few days ago, after France had limped unconvincingly through their final group game against Togo, I wondered whether the meeting with in-form Spain would mark the end of this once great team, or whether it would finally spur them into action. I really didn’t expect the latter to happen.
For the first time during Germany 2006, France looked like rediscovering their form of 1998/2000. It wasn’t perfect by any means… they’ve never properly replaced Deschamps and Blanc in defence (and doesn’t Barthez know it!) while Vieira and Zidane are slowing with age and Abidal is no Lizerazu. However, they’re playing with confidence and self-belief and the moves are once again flowing around Zidane, who actually looked like he was enjoying himself on a couple of occasions.
You have to feel for Spain, though… the fans and players must wonder what they have to do to get somewhere in an international competition. No matter how good their players are (their squad is filled with world-class talent this time around) they always under-perform. They’ll look back to their demolition of Ukraine in the first match and wonder how the hell Ukraine managed to progress further than they did. I’m as baffled as they are.