The Tournament pt 1 - Dark Horses
Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 2:07PM The World Cup soon cometh. And in the downtime between Spurs’ latest epic, era-changing victories, it’s a nice distraction. There will be a fair few players on show that we have an interest in, but more importantly it’s simply the greatest celebration of football ever created. I know it’s the fashionable thing to say that the Champion’s League and club football has surpassed the World Cup and the international game.
To that theory I say this – bollocks. International football is still the ultimate proving ground for the best players in the world. We’ve see countless ‘top top’ players succeed on a domestic and European level, only to be totally shown up by some minor former Soviet republic in a World Cup Qualifier.
This World Cup has all the ingredients of a straight-up banger. Wild fans, all the best teams, evenly matched groups, an element of danger and games at a reasonable hour. I will be surprised if it’s not seen as the best one so far. So who will succeed? Who will fail? And what the hell is going to happen? In a series of frankly scintillating previews, I will tell you. First of all, I would like to deal with that group of teams that everyone is always ranting on about – The Dark Horses.
The first World Cup I ever watched in detail was Italia ’90. And the ‘Dark Horse’ for that tournament was Yugoslavia. In reality, they were not a dark horse – they were a strong contender. But not much has changed. The lazy answer to the dark horse question seems to be, for this WC, Serbia. But trust me, Serbia will not make it out of the group stage, despite the fact that their main rival has just lost their best player. They (still) haven’t got a centre-forward to match their decent midfield and excellent defence. Zigic doesn’t count; he’s just a shit Peter Crouch.
Also, discount Cameroon and Nigeria – they had good teams 20-odd years ago, but have since suffered from the disease of ‘thinking you’re too good to listen to any form of coaching’. Ivory Coast are probably better placed to succeed, but suffer from the similarly specific African disease of ‘good team, shit keeper’. However similar the outfield skills of teams are, expect Chris Ronaldo and co to completely sodomize Boubacar Barry. Of the African teams, I would have tipped Ghana to have the most success, coming through their group and losing in a great game to England in round 2. But that was before Essien was injured. But who knows, maybe the stage is set for the Ghetto Kid to make himself a hero…
The group that I think could provide the most unexpected surprises is Group A. Mexico showed flashes of what they are capable of against England, and in the past 2 WC’s they have practically eliminated themselves due to pure psychological incontinence. If they can overcome these demons, I could see them beating Uruguay, Argentina, and maybe even Germany. They have a better team now than in the past 2 tournaments, but the mental weaknesses still remain.
Uruguay may well be a better bet. Despite the bizarre decision not to take the brilliant Christian Rodriguez, they could still be a force. Whoever qualifies 2nd in that group will have to play Argentina – a team blatantly there for the taking. Then after that it’s Germany, who technically should be underdogs for a lot of games these days. Unfortunately no one seems to have told them. If either Uruguay or Mexico can raise themselves out of their collective psychological pits of despair, expect significant things to happen.
One thing is for sure, and that’s whoever meets Argentina in round 2 will give them a hell of a game. The Mexico-Argentina game in ’06 was a wonderful game of football, and one that Mexico really should have won. If they can carry that experience through, and really believe in themselves, they will expose Diego Maradona’s side. Then on to Germany…
While on the subject of Germany, let’s mention another Dark Horse. Germany. Whilst there is no way my logical football brain can entertain the prospect of them winning it, I’ve seen enough in the last few years to tell me that they will do better than they should. They are a very pedestrian team. They lack anything but the most basic kind of firepower up front. Their CBs are cumbersome.
But they have that mentality of superiority. It has carried them to WC and EC finals in this decade that they had no right to be in. And it will probably propel them to at least another semi. Ballack’s absence is irrelevant. You could put a team of German pub players in the WC and they would probably beat the majority of African, Eastern European and South American teams. They are the Martin O’Neill of international football – built for tournament play, essentially inferior, but don’t know when they are beaten (a potent mix).
Now onto 2 teams which are the antithesis of the German side – South Korea and Japan. South Korea remains the last true enigma of World Football. People will always tell you that their achievements in 2002 were due to dodgy refereeing, but that is mostly elitist football propaganda. They rode their luck against Spain, but beat both Spain and Italy fair and square, and were the better team in both games. They have those performances in them. They are quick, strong, and technically good. But they have the crumble factor.
As do Japan. In the last WC, Japan comprehensively outplayed both Australia and Croatia, but failed to win either match. They are a brilliant passing team, and they actually have pace and great organisation too. Sooner or later they will learn to shoot and then we’re all in trouble. Along with Russia and England, they are the great inadequates of world football. All the talent and tangible resources you could want, but lacking any form of winner’s mentality.
If you really pressed me, I would tip both Greece and Denmark to come through and the 2nd place teams in their respective groups. The experienced European bully-boys boring everyone on their way to routine 2nd round elimination. But if either of Japan or Korea brings their game-faces, then we could be pleasantly surprised. Korea should beat Nigerian and Greece comfortably, but something tells me Greece will old-man their way through. Not a dark horse so much as a shit horse.
Dark horses are notoriously tricky to predict. The problem lies in the fact that whenever a team is tipped as a dark horse, they suddenly are put in the pressure situation, and the freedom that they would have experienced is taken away. This usually leads to a total breakdown, the most famous example being Colombia in ’94.
The teams that make a good fist of being dark horses are usually the teams that no one in their right mind gave a chance to – Cameroon in ’90, Bulgaria in ‘94 and Senegal in ’02. This is where, paradoxically, the Asian teams could have the advantage. No one, quite rightly, is tipping them to do anything, so the pressure is off and anything they do achieve will be a bonus.
by guest-blogger Chrisman
Still to come – The Favourites, The Fakers and the The Players.
Reader Comments (28)
Germany a dark-horse? What planet are you on mate.
Crippled horse more like.
Mexico, Denmark, Paraguay and Australia (depending largely on Kewell's fitness) are the ones that I believe could go on a decent run. Denmark being the most dangerous, I watched their qualifying closely (living in Sweden) and they will do well. You heard it here first, or maybe you didn't.
Dark horses? Considering everyone expects us to get knocked out on pens, I'd say England are dark horses.
I've been trying to keep an eye on the friendly and looking over the qualifying results, if I had to pick some underdogs to come second or possibly sneak a group win I'd have to go for:
Group A: URUGUAY - very dangerous going forward don't seem too shabby at the back, a great chance to cause an upset me thinks.
Mexico, beaten by USA in qualifying, did not look too good defensively against England, and probably a couple players too many in the vein of Giovanni Dos Santos
France: daft coach, ran very close by Ireland, I'm Irish, if that's the best you can do against the Irish football team your are in trouble.
Group D. SERBIA - another team with a great chance to cause an upset. Very solid throughout the team particularly with Vidic and co at the back, possibly not the most dynamic, group looks tough on paper, but still in with a great shout.
Australia, don't think they have enough to do it. The Germans, surprisingly ropey defensively, in my opinion they are in constant decline despite some good showings. Ghana, don't know what to make of them or any other African teams following the African Cup of nations.
I agree with Denmark as mentioned before, and Switzerland possibly have a good shout of second.
I think the darkest horse around is North Korea. Nobody seems to have a clue about them at all and nearly all of their players play domestically. You look at their group and think there is absolutely no way they will even score a goal, let alone qualify, but for all we know they have 2 wayne rooney's up front, 4 kaka's in midfield etc. etc.
I have a vision of them all being 7 foot tall and built like brick shithouses having been pumped full of special sauce during their apparent 6-month build-up to the tournament. In 1966 they aced the group stages and went 3-0 up against portugal in the QF before eventually losing 5-3. Nobody knows what style they play or who their best/worst players are.
I, like many, have been expecting them to get raped by Kaka, Ronaldo and Drogba. Christ I'd be amazed if any of the players have even set foot onto a football pitch with an African person, or even seen one in real life before. (could be being massively ignorant here - sorry if that's the case)
However, I can see them being really though to break down and could cause at least one major upset.
It doesn't really matter though because none of the North Koreans are going to be able to watch the games seeing as the station that airs them is from the South, who are more than a little pissed about one of their boats getting 'accidentally' torpedoed last month.
Expect Kin Jong-Ill to tell an adoring public that North Korea won the World Cup, and he score 3 hat-tricks in the final against the USA
I heard something the other day that Germany have only ever once failed to make at least the quarter-finals at the WC. Among which, they've made the final seven times. More than Brazil. I'm not sure it's right to label them underdogs, but I get what you're saying. They've made a good habit of entering tournaments under the radar- and once there, not necessarily playing all that well- only to find themselves, somehow, in the latter stages. I guess they don't mind what you call them- underdogs, favourites- they'll do as Germans do and probably win the thing.
Bastards.
Good post, btw.
talking about maradona heres a clip of him playing for spurs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zvRA1aHKqU
oh and dark horses s.africa and ivory coast., with european winners spain, holland or england.
croatia were dark horses in 98
mini me - total coincidence. Been clearing out the cellar today, but ended up sitting down looking at old programmes including the Ardiles Inter testimonial. Great night and I think there was 38,000 there. I remember vividly Maradona's warm ups before the match where he was kicking the ball at least 50 feet in the air over and over again. A sort of amazing keepy uppy!
Oh, and I was told by a reliable source (12 year old!) that Honduras will go far...
quarter finals Argentina v ivory coast------England v France --------Brazil v Australia------Spain v Germany.-------- Semifinal Argentina v England---------Brazil v Spain----------Final Brazil v England ========this depends on Huddlestone going to the world cup and the score 2-1 to Egland in 84 min by Crouch froma a Hudds sending Lennon away and crossing to crouch who taps in and a nation erupts in jubilation and Tears of Joy. that is my DARK HORSES OH yyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeees
let's just hope Stevie G and Rooney have been taking their 'special tablets' eh davspurs? ;)
USA
Foxy M they have not had E for energy and this is not the prem poor Tom had a mare full of nerves the Italian mobster has made him look crap 45 20 and ten mins is no good to learn to play with strangers. He looked frightened to death and just got rid of the ball quick has he could . Its a shame because i seen us winning with tom Playing lets hope a miracle happens and Lampard gets crocked.
This blog post is a straight up banger!
"oh and dark horses s.africa and ivory coast"
racist
hahaha! what another shite England performance that was.
Please please please will this last debacle make the press and idiots STOP believing we are any better than our usual QF capitulation..(and even that looks like it would take a bit of luck this time round)
Fabio is a hustler and he's pulled the wool over everyone's eyes! Trying a new formation for the first time and giving it half hour, not knowing his best team yet, playing players in shit form when he told us exactly the opposite. I'm laughing when I should probably be crying. Nah, Mrs Doubtfire in a suit is Sven without the two dicks.
ENGERLUND! What a load of old shite!
Perhaps we can watch without expectation for once? Nah course not, we're ENGERLUND! Gonna walk it! Fucking ell how depressing!
We were shit. Again.
It's a warm up freindly. Most England players were trying their best no tto get injured. Despite playing shit, we've beaten 2 decent sides. Now I'm not necessarily saying that we have a big chance at this World Cup, but the performance today was totally meaningless. The key to following England is to expect absolutely nothing, and to be fairly comfortable with it. Then anything they do achieve is a nice surprise, and if they fail miserably then it's no worse than you were expecting.
They are like the Fulham of the international game. It's about a minimum 85% likelihood that we will be eliminated on penalties, and it's been the same for the past 5/6 tournaments. If you bear this fact in mind, then you can enjoy the WC and England's inevitable 'heartbreaking' penalties exit will elicit the a chuckle, a shrug, and 'oh well, better luck next time'.
The fact is, and has been for the best part of 20 years, that we stand no chance of ever winning an international tournament unless we actually can summon the bottle to win a penalty shootout. All the talk of Rooney, good defence, goalscoring midfielders, flying wingers blah blah blah...it's irrelevant. It was completely and utterly inevitable that we would lose to Portugal on penalties in 06. If you looked at how the draw was positioned you could pretty much predict how and when England would exit the tournament about 6 months before it started. I watched the game in a big chain pub, crammed full of gurning nutjobs. It was good fun, and when it went to penalties, the tension in the place was triffic. I was completely free of tension, and already booking my taxi home, because the outcome was so inevitable, there was no tension. Anyone who actually thought we had a chance of winning it was either drunk, foolish, or both. It's not a lottery, it's not a game of chance. It's a game of skill and nerve, 2 traits our key players seem to absolve themselves of at key moments.
So England are/were 'shit'. Well they aren't actually shit, they're ok. Not bad, but not good. That is what England fans find so hard to accept - we are mediocre. It's either 'yeah we can take on and beat the best in the world' or its 'oh the pain, oh the horror, worst team in the history of mankind'. The truth is that our great players aren't as great as everyone makes out. So when we inevitably 'underperform' every one is confused, like 'wtf?? we are supposed to be brillaint, so howcome we are so crap??'.
The truth is we aren't that good in the first place. It make sme laugh when ppl see 2 successive WC QFs as 'underperforming' - yeah it's only undeperforming based on the rabid and pig ignorant opinions of the media/public. In reality they haven't underperfomed at all. So whilst this post might seem to be really negative, I'm actually crediting the England team. They try their best, give it a good shot, but at the end of the day are a QF team at best. I will still go in this tournament believing we can do it though. We could luck out and get through a few rounds...then it all comes down to that old chestnut - you ain't gonna win an international tournament without winning at least 1 shoot-out.
But hey guys, dont take it too seriously, dont pin all your enjoyment on england doing well. Approach it with the mindset that England aren't actually very good, but they will try their hearts out.
Chrisman you compared England to fulham but i've actually always seen us as the spurs of international football. How often are our fans accused of giving it the biggun only to watch our team bottle it when it matters? We think we have a divine right to be up with the best but we are blind to the mediocrity of certain key squad members. I'm hoping that by finally nailing that 4th spot against all odds that we have altered our destiny and in some strange karmic way have cleared a path for the national team to at least clear the quarter final hurdle.
It's a funny one though. I love the world cup because it is an ocassion that brings drama, excitement and for one month every 4 years it's totally acceptable for everyone to just get drunk and watch football, when for the rest of the year it is kind of frowned upon by the part-timers. However, I actuall detest the way England play football. Very little skill, inginuity or invention. We just seem to try to will ourselves to victory in each match. Ww sacrifice truly skilled and exciting players for this 'tried and tested' bollocks. Tried and tested in what way exactly? As in tried to win something for the last 8-10 years and failed every time? This is why I want to see Lennon and Johnson both play along with milner. Young players with no fear. That's what we need to win. And if we fail again? Ok boohoo but give a shit. Once the world cups over I've got the most exciting season as a spurs fan that I've ever had and that means way more to me.
Milner and Johnson are hyped up waaay too much. Slightly above average PL players, will probably make no impact at all on the big stage. Milner has had half a good-ish season for Villa, and all of a sudden he is our saviour. I understand why you are saying it though, because the alternative is the quite terrifyingly bleak prospect of accepting that our next generation of players is, essentialy, rubbish. The cupboard is bare.
Seeing England as the Spurs of international football....I disagree. It's the whole myth of England....in reality we are punching above our weight, not below. A more accurate comparison would be Stoke prob. You just have to come to term with the fact that we aren't that good. The supposed 'golden generation' are a bunch of cosseted, mentally weak players. The only one with any real bottel is probably Ashley Cole! The previous generation (Adams, Shearer, Ince, Gazza, Seaman, Teddy) was probably actually better. The next generation...well I see England really slipping because the next set of players just isn't there. In reality, We've still not caught up from Heysel. The players have got worse, but the hype surrounding them has got bigger, and has masked this to a certain extent.
Yes England don't play great football, but under Capello and Eriksson they are at least trying to pass the ball. An improveemnt on the Hoddle/Keegan days. The last true contender team we had was '96, but then the good work done was undon by appointing Hod and Kev after. Nice blokes, but not cut out for the pretty difficult job of turning England into contenders. Eriksson got loads of unfair stick, but I suppose people saw that the job he was doing wasn't too bad once they saw the alternative (Schteve). Even now people are starting to moan again about Capello cos we are not playing like Brazil, and, shock horror, arent a million times better that Mexico or Japan - 'teams we really should be beating easily' - says who exactly?!?!
I am supporting England and Portugal (cause we failed to qualify yet again) but my money is on Argentine , lots of people expect them to bottle it but i see them going far
Brazil and France are very likely to fail , Italy always does well even with the mediocre team they have (except for De Rossi who is a great player)
But Spain is the real force to deal with , they have an impressive squad , confidencewise they are way up there and they have finally learned to adapt their style of play to the modern game.
Anyone who believes the Yankees can go on a good run ?
Chrisman , well summed up in first comment...about expecting nothing, I never do.but also agree with Fox that its more Spurs than Fulham.
With England It's right though, we are mediocre, and I've been looking at people in disbelief when they bang the drum about how we'll win it..Perhaps with more people facing up to the realisation that we can beat the minnows but are found wanting mentally when coming up against a half-decent side, the expectation will dwindle, we'll expect nothing, and then who knows, we'll probably go win the fucking thing against all intelligent odds.
There I go again, can't quite escape the delusion even though I know it's out on pens again.
Argentina there for the taking. You don't have a scooby mate.
so, Mexico, Uraguay, Korea, Japan and Ghana to go through, Serbia, Nigeria and Cameroon to fail. What amazing predictions, and what a wonderful man who made them.