Thursday, July 08, 2010

Europe and now maybe the World

My daughter's boyfriend, Dave told me that Spain’s World Cup would come to an end last night. As far as he was concerned, Germany were unstoppable. As good as the Spaniards were, they wouldn’t beat a team who had shown Argentina the door with a four nil defeat.

Well,as we all know now, he was wrong. Xavi fooled the Germans by directing a long shot with his left foot which flew directly to Puyol’s head and from there past the keeper into the net.

That wasn’t the only time that Spain looked as though they would enter the final of the competition. On my television it looked as though Spain had the upper hand for most of the match. Their passing left to right and back again dazzled the opposition who seemed powerless to keep the ball. Queen Sofia was there and looked delighted that her team had triumphed.

I am not going to make any predictions for the final and nor should Dave. What I do know is that my neighbour Manuel will be stocking up with fireworks for Sunday in preparation. I can’t wait to hear them go off!

1 comment:

Man United Dave said...

Hi Keith. Football's a game of skill, craft and guile therefore predictions are all part of it (as with any sport). You should ask Mr William Hill or Mr Paddy Power whether people shouldn't make predictions!! It's when you incorrectly predict a score and don't have the ability to recognise that you got it wrong, when the problems occur.

I genuninely thought the Germans would beat the Spanish, and I don't know how the game went because I was at a (brilliant) Crosby, Stills and Nash concert last night, but fair's fair, the Spanish are through. Well done!

Honestly, I think Spain will now beat Holland on Sunday. However, my heart wants the Dutch to win because of two things: Firstly, I spent time in NL as a child as one of my Dad's best friends is Dutch, and secondly, if the Dutch win then the tournament would not have gone along with everybody's expectations (ie. a Spain win) and that would be great - if there's one thing that destroys sport for the neutral (but not the player / team involved), it's predictability. Of course, when your own team is involved you just want to win, but when the final is between two people or teams that you have no allegiance to, then it's nice to see a different outcome form time to time. A Dutch win would add a bit of that in my opinion.

I'm not supporting Holland because I want to see your team lose, but nevertheless, come on 'The Oranje'!!

Either way, it is a final between two teams who have huge potential but haven't quite hit top gear yet. Let's hope they both reach top gear on Sunday and provide a finale fitting for such a tournament. However, I fear that because of the nature of the game (ie. the world's biggests football match), each team will be trying hard not to lose (rather than to actually win), therefore it will be a scrappy, low scoring affair. This then comes full circle as to why I thhought (and wanted) the Germans to win. They were the only team to show any kind of attacking impetus during the World Cup knock-out stages but it wasn't to be.

One thing's for sure though, you should join in the prediction thing - it's fun, I promise!!

PS. your firework comment shows that you have actually predicted Spain will win - be careful ;)

Good luck on Sunday.