2022 World Cup Diary – Part Twelve – the Quarter Finals
Brazil, Holland, Portugal and England go home
Saturday 10th December 2022
Friday and Saturday saw the return of World Cup matches after a break of two days. The feast of football is almost over. We have now seen 60 of the 64 matches played, the first 56 of those over an intense 17-day period. I caught the first four and last three days of those in the UK, two of them I was traveling to Qatar and back, and the other eight days I was in Qatar attending matches in the flesh.
It’s handy to watch the knockout games on TV – you do ultimately, have more sense of the specifics of a game that you don’t get from being there… unless you have a screen with the TV feed in front of you as the media and certain of the VIPs do. And of course, certain people enjoying hospitality (alcohol) out of sight of the pitch will watch the whole game on a TV screen at the stadium, simply enjoying the food and drink provided rather than take their physical seat and see live action. There’s no denying it’s useful to see the whole of the pitch in front of you, but unless you are at the side of the pitch, you do lose some perspective and in the bigger stadiums you can be a long way from the action, and simply can’t make out details. Was it a foul or not? – that kind of thing.
I do wonder as I get older how long I will keep attending. The eight full days of my visit for this tournament did end up being quite intense, I think mainly due to the amount of travelling from the accommodation to do anything, as well as the miles of walking around the Clusters and at the stadiums. It’s as well the Mrs decided not to attend half of the games on that score.
Anyhow, the quarter finals, and what do you know… the inflatable World Cup used at the start of the matches – the one that deflates like a flaccid penis near one of the corner flags once they drag it off – was back. What happened to it during the round of 16? I did have a theory that there is one inflatable trophy that is moved from ground to ground – although the last round of group games with the simultaneous kick offs indicate there must be at least two. Maybe one got punctured? Maybe there was a strike by the guys that operate the giant inflatables that we weren’t told about? These are the big questions… or maybe not.
The real question is how FIFA feel about their dream semi-final of Brazil v Argentina not quite working out. So let’s get down to business.
Croatia 1 Brazil 1 – Education City Stadium
So a first half in which Croatia were able to limit Brazil’s danger through taking control of the midfield, where the opposition felt a little lightweight. It was a feeling of waiting for the game to take off, and the second half was much better. The Brazilians showed greater ambition and the fact the Croatian keeper had a bit of a blinder tells you all you need to know about the balance of play. The European side kept it goalless until extra time, which turned out to be highly entertaining. Neymar’s goal was a special moment in which he took the bull by the horns with a couple of excellent one-twos before his sheer force of will gave him the angle for his shot. Then, after 105 minutes of football, Croatia decided they could play the game after all. Why wait? They were good enough to play more than the survival football we had been witnessing, and duly went and equalized. The game stats are telling. Brazil’s 12 efforts on target compared to Croatia’s one, and yet possession was split down the middle. But of course, survival is everything and not losing gives you a 50/50 chance come the shoot-out.
England’s Michael Oliver refereed the game and let Luca Modric off a yellow card that would have seen him suspended for the semi-final. Referees seem to be under some kind of informal instruction not to issue cards that will lead to suspension for the semi-final now, at least for the big names. All cards are wiped after the quarter finals to ensure the showpiece final does not see key men miss out, as, for example, Michael Ballack did for Germany in 2002. Brazil failed to score from two of their spot kicks in the shoot-out and were out. Neymar is 30 years old. Young enough to have one further finals, but like Messi and Ronaldo, he is running out of time to land a World Cup. During the second half of normal time, Brazil had the chances to win this game, but were foiled by Livakovic in the Croatian goal, and ultimately, he was the best player in this tie.
Argentina 2 Holland 2 – Lusail Stadium
It was a bit surreal to see a game of this magnitude with such a low number of Dutch fans present. We are accustomed to seeing swathes of orange in the stands when Holland play at major tournaments, yet there were so few here. It wasn’t because Argentinian fans bought their tickets – the Dutch FA were offered a significant allocation, as all competing nations are. The likely truth is that they simply didn’t fancy Qatar, and the Netherlands is a very liberal country where freedom is valued. On that level, the sudden death of an American journalist reporting at this game – the 48 year old Grant Wahl, has raised questions. Wahl told his gay brother that he had received death threats following his confrontation with World Cup staff before the Netherlands-Senegal match on November 21. In an angry exchange he was ordered to remove a rainbow t-shirt he was wearing in support of the LGBTQ+ community. One assumes a post-mortem will be carried out by the American authorities which will shed more light on the cause of his death. There are suspicions of foul play, but given the spotlight on the tournament, it is difficult to believe one journalist would be picked out in this way. Time will tell.
Argentina switched to three at the back, perhaps to take account of the goals the Dutch scored against the USA coming from wide. A cagey first half was illuminated by an excellent Argentina goal when Messi somehow threaded the ball through to the left wing back Molina, who put his side ahead with a low shot. The Dutch, playing pragmatic survival tactics, simply weren’t very good and created few genuine opportunities. After 70 minutes, Acuna won a penalty, Messi converted it and you thought that was that. Not in this tournament though. Van Gaal sent on the ex-Burnley forward Weghorst and the Netherlands started lobbing crosses into the area. Johan Cruyff would have been turning in his grave. Still, it worked as they pulled one back, with plenty of time left on the clock, not least the added 10 minutes of injury time. The Spanish referee was very experienced, but he had a shocker in this game, giving too many cards out for dissent. Additionally, by the rules of football, Messi should have been given a yellow for deliberate handball, but later he was booked for dissent anyway.
Argentina panicked during the lengthy injury time period, and the free kick conceded at the death was such a cheap one to concede. You sensed they had lost their heads, couldn't handle the pressure at that point. If Cruyff would not have approved of the first Dutch goal, he’d have loved the equaliser – a wonderfully worked routine that gave Weghorst a second goal. Argentina did recompose themselves for extra time, and almost the final kick of the game saw them hit the post. By this time, the referee was giving out yellow cards left right and centre. Some Argentinians are suspended for the semi-final, and left back Acuna will be a huge miss. In the end he was subbed to avoid getting a red card. So no further goals saw the second quarter final in a row go to a shoot-out, and former Arsenal keeper Emi Martinez proved to be the hero by saving the first two penalties he faced, which proved enough to put his country through. On a purely footballing level, a Brazil v Argentina semi-final would have been a more entertaining prospect, but Croatia have proved the great survivors, and who is to say they can’t continue progressing from spot kicks. Cup football is all about not losing, however you do it, and in Russia 2018, they won their first two knockout games the same way before defeating England in extra time in that semi-final in St Petersburg. If they can contain Messi, they have every chance of making a second consecutive final.
Morocco 1 Portugal 0 – Al Thumama Stadium
We had news of ticketless fans outside the stadium preventing those with tickets to get in – presumably through sheer force of numbers and I am guessing some kind of extra cordon – although the wide circumference around all the stadiums would make such a thing selective, with focus on the main routes of access. All the same, I would have felt intimidated by the line where security did their thing airport style after the first physical ticket scan. It’s possible to storm this entrance with enough numbers, but even then, there are further numbers of security behind. I was never sure who were actually police and who were hired hands. In the 2012 Olympics they drafted in the army to do the security checks and you didn’t bother trying to take liberties.
Onto the match, and eventually the empty lower tier seats filled up, although the upper tier, deep into the first half, seemed to have plenty of empties, visible when the camera angles showed them. Apparently there was not a mass dump of extra tickets on the FIFA website, so the conclusion must be that people bought them but never showed up. Qataris? Touts? In a stadium of around 45,000, it was disappointing to see several thousand seats went unused.
Morocco did what they have been doing well all tournament and defended resolutely. And then were gifted the lead when the Portuguese keeper failed to reach a cross before En Nesyri, shortly before half time. Not long into the second half, it became the Ronaldo show as the benched ego entered the fray to save the day. He had one attempt, saved by the keeper. His team-mates had clearer chances, but Morocco don’t concede easily, as Croatia, Belgium and Spain can testify. Portugal ran out of time, their performance so much inferior to the previous round, and Morocco became the first African country to reach the last four of this tournament. Fair play to them, but in honesty, they play survival football, albeit very spirited, and in spite of the romance of their story, it’s not a great watch. I am trying to imagine getting worked up about a Croatia v Morocco final. It would be a bit of an ‘after you Claude’ in terms of attacking commitment, and I’d probably put a bet on it going to penalties.
France 2 England 1 – Al Bayt Stadium
Ah well, what can you say? England have suffered plenty in penalty shoot-outs since 1990, but this variation on a theme saw them going home over a week earlier than the nation hoped, and without hanging around for extra time. They shaded the game, were unfortunate with the refereeing, but when all is said and done, Harry Kane did a passable impression of a former Spurs player in the form of Chris Waddle by blasting a penalty into orbit. That was the key moment. England go out, France go on and will likely beat Morocco. A final against Argentina was the dream in 1986 once England had been knocked out – Platini v Maradona – but it didn’t happen. Maybe we’ll see Mbappe v Messi 26 years on. France didn’t play that well – they were just more clinical than England at the key moments, and Hugo Lloris pulled off a couple of excellent saves. Ultimately, it’s another chapter in the long list of England footballing failures on foreign soil. It was there for the taking, but it wasn’t to be. Maybe they’re cursed.
Next diary entry will be after the semi-finals.
Comments
Post a Comment