Soccer and Life

The curtain of the World cup soccer event was finally closed. Here are some of my observations.

Spain deserves the win & championship this time. The way it plays is concise & precise with mix of good defense & effective offense. Their goals mostly look pretty & satisfying. The way they pass & control balls are marvelous. You always see some moving triangles (formation) rolling around the field. Some players even perform some ballet style kicking. It is just amazing to watch the mix of moving triangle & occasional long passing to penetrate defense & create opportunities for goals. 

Asians are underdogs historically in the world cup soccer. This year only Japan (Asian teams) got into the round of 16. South Koreans are tough but without style. North Koreans got zapped 7:0 by Portugal. It was just too brutal to watch. Japanese seem to copy German playing style & do very well this time. It was lost to Paraguay by sudden-death 12-yard kicks. Ironically, Paraguay lost to Spain similarly by missing a 12-yard kick. The fate treats all countries equally after all.

Conspicuously, the Chinese team is completely missing. They didn’t even make to the qualifying matches. It is a shame that the world factory with 1.3 billion people can’t come up with some decent soccer team. I said it sometime ago that one way to boost the morale in China & reduce the grudging emotion toward Japanese is to beat Japanese in soccer games. After that, the next best thing is to beat them also in baseball matches. Chinese government is good in playing pingpong politics. But it is really 小兒科, good for American only. I envision a breakthrough of Chinese-Japanese relation if the Chinese beat Japanese in both Soccer & Baseball. Many Chinese people have inferiority complex in dealing with Japanese due to the frustrations & failure in getting an upper hand in many human endeavors. In near future, it seems not very positive on the soccer front. We heard all bunches of scandals related to soccer in China, 打假球, gambling, embezzlement etc. These soccer players make a lot of money & we haven’t found any star player worth mentioning. It looks pretty misery right now. As to Taiwan, it is also a shame. Holland has 16 million people & produces a good soccer team. Taiwan has 23 million people & a dud in the world stage soccer. The only consolation I can think of is that India looks even worse with its 1.2 billion people & a mute in the sporting world.

France & Italy, two good old European teams failed miserably this time. They lacked of team work & organization are in shamble. Great countries seem produce mediocre teams, perhaps too much freedom or lack of discipline is the cause.

Brazil & Argentine, two good old Latin teams also failed miserably in the field. They were vociferous, loud mouth & lack of respect to other people. They were outplayed by their European opponents handsomely & sure they deserved it.

Netherlands almost pulled out a miracle but failed in some subtle ‘kick’ or ‘臨門一脚’. Their striker Robben failed several times in doing it. It seemed he just delayed a second in his fatal strikes. Opposite to this, the Spanish final strike by Andres Iniesta was timely & accurately done at the right place & right moment. The following link is the reference: (18:00-end)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=587aK8t6noM

Due to copyright issue, the above link on YouTube is not available.

I understand the Dutch’s agony as they got so close. Dutch couch removed the medal (hung around the neck) immediately after the ceremony in front of the TV camera. It was a vivid drama. He was protesting the unfair officiating as most Dutch felt that way. Statistically, there are more arguments or bickering in soccer matches than football or other sports.

Flopping is rampant in the games. Many players seemed to use this to eat up time when they are ahead. You saw some guy held his leg in pain & needed stretcher to carry him out. But as soon as he was outside the field, he sprung up like a tiger, amazing. This kind of tactics is shameful but most players seem don’t feel that way. This gives people a sense of ‘雖勝不武’.

12-yard kick to determine the outcome is never a satisfactory solution, nobody likes it. Soccer has too many obscure rules that restrict scoring. This makes low scoring a norm & very often leads to boredom. I think this is one reason that American don’t like the game. Soccer rules favor the defense & discourages the offense. But the excitement of the game rests on the scoring. The only makeup of this is the last resort, a show case of 12-yard kicks. But this kind of kicks favors the kicker & put goal keeper in a misery situation. Nine out of ten, the ball is indefensible. It takes enormous skill of goal keeper to beat the kickers. Nobody likes this kind of solution. If you win, you feels god is on your side or lucky. If you lose, you just think it is not fair because the outcome can be either way.

The game between Germany & England is interesting. When the score was 2:1, English striker kicked a ball hitting the upper beam of the goal & bounced back to the ground inside the goal. But the referee didn’t or couldn’t see the ball from the low angle. The event happened so fast, it was hard to see the dropping point of the ball. However, the replay by TV camera showed clearly since it was mounted from the above. It is so obvious & you can understand the frustration of the English team. I do think high tech can help referee in this respect. FIFA is behind the time as most tennis tournament already use electronic eyes in helping umpires in the calls.

German team played very well most of games but the one with Spain, they looked so much different. It seemed they played too cautiously & Spain took advantages of it. I found that the match between German & Argentine was a classic one. It shows their skill & play style vividly in the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVym58Szeug

Due to copyright issue, the above link on YouTube is not available.

During the game between Uraguay & Ghana, a Uraguay player used hand purposely to block the ball out of goal. The penalty was stiff, he got red card & couldn’t play the next game & also a 12-yard penalty kick was awarded to Ghana. Unfortunately Ghana’s star player, Asamoah Gyan, missed the goal by hitting the upper beam. Otherwise, Ghana got in the round of 8 since it occurred at the final moment of the match. Subsequently, Ghana was beaten during a battery of 12-yard kicks. Gyan did the 12-yard kick flawlessly but it didn’t matter. In life, you have to do the right thing at the right time & this is just the example. I really feel sorry for Asamoah Gyan since he is going to feel bad for the rest of his life. As to African people, that is the frustration, 失 落 感 & 無 力 感, since Ghana team is the only hope for African people. Ironically, Uraguay subsequently beaten by Spain in a similar manner by missing a free kick in hitting the ball on the upper beam of the goal. Fate intervenes, spooky? Karma? Or just God treats everybody equally.

Diego Forlan of Uraguey is a fantastic player. His chest-high kick with ball hitting ground & get into the goal is marvelous. His ‘飛 燕 轉 身’ kick has a quality of ballet dance. When Forlan was on the ball, Uruguay seemed like a team with a chance. When he wasn't involved, its prospects were far more bleak. He has been awarded the Golden Ball as the World Cup's best player. He was also voted the most outstanding player of the tournament by accredited media after leading his team to the semifinals.

Vuvuzelas, a stadium horn was allowed to use during games. It was noisy & really served no purpose. I found it rather annoyed. I try to picture what will happen if they are allowed in tennis matches. One consolation, Maria Sharapova's shriek will be completely drown out.

Octopus prediction

Octopus, Paul the Oracle, made a big news as it successfully predicted all games of German team & the final of the event. From the theory of probability, it is a remarkable record, one out of 256 chances to be specific for 8 correct tries out of 8 games. How can you explain this? Although the octopus is the only invertebrate that has been conclusively shown to use tools. But it only has one brain & 8 arms. The only plausible explanation is that there must be some one or a team behind the whole show. It is highly possible that a team of soccer experts did the prediction based on the existing gathered data. With some aid of computer, it did a best job in prediction. Then using some high tech device to control the behavior of this Octopus (Paul, the Oracle) to pick the winner of the game. It is not uncommon for those sea world arena or aquarium to train animals to perform some tricks. Using remote devices, they can control or change the behavior of an octopus by some training or conditioning. Of course we don’t know the details of the trick, however, it is not hard to figure out a way to change the smell of the cage or mussels that attracts the octopus. Anyway, it was pretty clever & fun to pull out the stunt like this & made a big headline in the world. Paul, the Oracle (章大仙) was more famous than Obama at least in two weeks time span during the soccer matches. At this time, good & heartwarming news is hard to come by. The octopus prediction is sure one of the most memorable event in the year of 2010. Here was how it picked up the Spanish tank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9lZ2IJocqo