Sunday, July 11, 2010

If I ruled the world....

Or, rather, if I coached the world...

This would be my 'team of the tournament' from this World Cup:



David Villa * Miroslav Klose



Kaka


Diego Forlan * Bastian Schweinsteiger * Wesley Sneijder



Jorge Fucile * Per Mertesacker * Arne Friedrich * Philipp Lahm



Vincent Enyeama



I had been tempted to go for a 4-4-2 with Holland's Arjen Robben wide on the right; but I wanted to find room for Kaka, who did play pretty damn well, even if he wasn't able to carry his team single-handed to the final (as Brazilian figureheads seem to be expected to do). And I'm moved to pass Robben over on moral grounds: his rolling around on the ground and pulling faces every time he suffers the slightest contact with a defending player (and sometimes when he suffers absolutely no contact at all) has become quite sickening. Moreover, I don't think he's really lived up to the promise of his first two run-outs after coming back from his thigh strain: in the last two games, the threat of his jinking runs was rather too easily contained by Brazil and Uruguay.

I think this formation gives more flexibility - with Schweinsteiger sitting just a little deeper, providing the pivot between defence and midfield as he has for Germany, and Forlan and Sneijder free to drift around where they will, perhaps even swapping sides, while Kaka links with the front two. More or less a 'diamond formation', in fact.

It's hard to look beyond the German back four, who have been awesomely impressive as a unit: Friedrich and Mertesacker offer a fine blend of experience and youth, and are an even rarer combination of height/strength and pace/poise on the ball - I lost track of the number of perfectly-timed recovery tackles, often inside the penalty area, that these two made. I liked Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué of Spain as well (especially Piqué; Puyol, bless him, is getting just a bit long in the tooth), but I think the German pair has the edge.

There's a lot to be said for taking the complete back four (and perhaps the goalkeeper too) from a single team, for the understanding that they'll have. Certainly, Philipp Lahm at right back was an automatic choice. He's been in sensational form, and doing a great job as captain for Germany; despite his diminutive stature, he's looked a dominating presence, and covers a huge amount of ground between defence and attack - even, on occasion, switching sides to fill in for the missing-in-action Jérôme Boateng over on the left. Spain's Sergio Ramos and Brazil's Maicon looked good going forward, but perhaps a little less robust in defence.

The left-back position caused me the biggest headache. I'd been tempted to take the entire German back line, but I think young Boateng has been the 'weak link' in that; not that he's played poorly, but he doesn't yet have the commanding stature of the other three, and he has tended to take a long time to recover position after forays forward down the flank. France's Patrice Evra and our own Ashley Cole are probably the two best left-backs in the world at the moment, but the dismal performances of their countries denied them a chance to shine at this World Cup. Spain's Joan Capdevilla is a rotten cheat (he got a Paraguayan player sent off by feigning - or grossly exaggerating - a facial injury), and Holland's Giovanni van Bronckhorst is really a bit past it (and hasn't done all that much apart from that stunning opening goal against Uruguay in the semi-final). Thus, Uruguay's very solid Jorge Fucile gets the nod.

The man between the sticks was a little bit of a problem too. I think Gigi Buffon is still the best keeper in the world, but he only played 45 minutes because of a back injury. Iker Casillas is starting to come good again now, but looked nervous as a kitten in some of the early games and has committed a few truly spectacular handling errors from which, for me, his subsequent good saves have not yet completely redeemed him (the Spanish fans got rather over-excited about his double save in the dying seconds against Paraguay, generously overlooking the fact that he really should have held on to the first one). Young Manuel Neuer of Germany was extremely impressive, but my vote goes - slightly sentimentally, perhaps (some consolation for the shabby way the team's been treated by their country's President) - to Nigeria's Vincent Enyeama, who was certainly the outstanding keeper of the group phase games: he only made one small error (which, alas, cost a vital goal against Greece), but a string of outstanding saves had kept his side in contention in that game up to that point (even though reduced to 10 men by a red card), as also in the very tough matches against Argentina and Korea.


Agree, disagree??



[I wrote this on Saturday night, before watching the final two games, but I'll delay posting it until some time on Sunday. Perhaps one of the Dutch, Spanish or Uruguayans will make me look a fool with a dazzling display in the last match, but this is my pick based on the bulk of the tournament.]

7 comments:

Jeremiah said...

Thomas Mueller on instead of Kaka?

I'm not as much of an aficionado of the sport as you, but I wasn't that impressed with Kaka, and Mueller was key to the German attack. They missed him terribly after his being forced to sit from that atrocious handball call. Just a thought.

Froog said...

Muller had a good tournament, but he's only a youngster, and more a taker than a maker of chances. Also, he was playing as one of the trio of supporting attacking midfielders with Podolski and Ozil (and I'm not sure I'd pick him ahead of either of those two, for a start) rather than as an outright forward.

He'd be amongst the subs in an all-star pick for sure, but there's no way he'd get in ahead of Villa or Klose up front (or Uruguay's Suarez in third place; or, probably, Tevez in fourth - although he didn't have the best tournament, didn't really have the chance to show his Premiership form).

And as an attacking midfielder - ahead of Kaka, or Forlan?? Really???

Kaka was, is, pretty goddamned awesome - but he didn't have the opportunity to show his best against serious opposition because he was unjustly banned for the Portugal game, and then bludgeoned out of the game by a brutal Dutch midfield in the second half of that encounter.

I think the real controversy here is whether you'd take Lionel Messi over Kaka in that role. Messi is so good, there's almost an argument to play him completely out of position - as a full-back or something - because he's going to terrify the opposition wherever he is on the field. However, I felt he wasn't happy or showing his best in the withdrawn role Mad Diego gave him, and didn't do enough (battering the woodwork half a dozen times against Greece - doesn't really compare to Forlan nearly taking the third-place play-off to extra time with that nearly perfect free kick [what a way to bow out of international football!]) to justify inclusion here.

Honestly, top of my 'bubbling unders' was Landon Donovan for that Kaka role. He was outstanding for you guys, but he struggled to boss the game with such a comparatively weak team around him, and I don't think he could have had the same sort of impact against Holland or Germany that he did against Slovenia or England.

Jeremiah said...

I'll defer to your expertise. Landon is definitely our best player ever and the hope is we'll look back on him as a kind of prototype US impact player, somebody who grew up playing the game, wanting to play in Europe, thinking that World Cup success is possible, etc. We'll see.

Froog said...

Gerard Piqué would have played his way into this selection with his performance last night - absolutely outstanding: a great passer of the ball as well as a great defender.

Amongst the many great mysteries of this tournament for me is WTF did the Dutch not give Ryan Babel a run-out, even as a substitute - you know, when you're heading towards a penalty shoot-out you know you're going to lose, and Robin Van Persie wouldn't recognise the side of a barn? Unbelievable! The lad looks like he's going to score every time he gets on the pitch for Liverpool.

Not quite as bonkers as Del Bosque's misguided attachment to Fernando Torres (you have to suspect he's got some kind of a man-crush going on there, because Torres' form has been absolutely dismal in this tournament: I really thought the decision to bring him on in place of Villa at the end last night might have cost Spain the trophy).

Anonymous said...

Putting Messi in for Klose and Xavi in for Schweinsteiger.

Echo the comments on Robben and it finally caught up with him. He has been like the boy who cried wolf all tournament. Eventually it was his undoing. Puyol blatantly fouled him in plain view of the official and I couldn't help but think that all his past divings may have caused the just desserts of not calling the foul.

I think its the first time watching a game that I ended up rooting for a different side at the end than at the beginning. After Nigel's high cleat to the chest on the back of a string of questionable challenges, I really began to pull for Spain, and in the end I like to think Karma caught up with Robben and the boys.

Froog said...

I'm not sure you could put Messi in as a forward on his form in this tournament - not that he played badly, but he was played out of position, didn't have a chance to show off his finishing skills as an out-and-out striker. Of course, he's a gem of a player, and you'd ordinarily try to find room for him in any team. But for these 'team of the tournament' things, you have to try to restrict yourself to the contribution that people have made during the tournament, and the positions they've played in during the tournament.

Xavi, I think, would be vying for the Sneijder (or Forlan) spot in midfield, not Schweinsteiger's holding role. Great player, but he doesn't really have much of a tackle in him.

Thanks for looking in, Hopfrog. I hope we'll hear from you again.

Anonymous said...

Re: Messi, your right Klose is the better call based on the criteria. Despite Messi not being very Messi-like, I still thought he did a great job of elevating the play of his teammates until they ran into a German side they clearly underestimated.

Re: Xavi, I just reread your post and noticed you have the center midfielder playing a little farther back to shore up the defense. Missed that the first time, and if that is how your going to play the shape then I will have to yet again agree with you.