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Some Soccer Thoughts Euro 2004 |
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Some Soccer Thoughts Euro 2004 |
Random Thoughts
About The Beautiful Game
From An Ugly American Outsider Looking In
by David Kennedy
Euro 2004
The
world’s second biggest football tournament, The 2004 European Championships
– Euro 2004 – is upon us. If you didn’t know that this is the world’s
second biggest football tournament, just ask any of the old guard European
pundits; they’ll tell you.
The problem I have with this thinking is that the belief is based almost
exclusively on European hegemony, that all things European are inherently
superior. Now Gavin Hamilton, Kier Radnedge and Paul Gardner of World Soccer
magazine would vehemently disagree, which would be like Hitler flatly denying he
hates Jews. Hamilton, Radnedge and Gardner all claim that the European
Championship is a much better tournament than the World Cup; that UEFA’s
running of the championship is much more efficient than FIFA’s running of the
World Cup; that a 16 team tournament (of which Euro 2004 is) is much more
preferable than a 32-team tournament (of which the World Cup is); and that the
European Championship is much more conducive to the kind of individual
creativity, flair, invention and hypnotic ball wizardry lacking in the World
Cup, where negative, ugly, suffocating defensive tactics and organization,
athleticism, pace, workrate and tactical proficiency led to boring,
unimaginative play…
…EXCREMENT!!!
I’m not going to get into why these three, and pundits like them, need
to be put out to pasture; suffice it to say that every old-timer thinks his day
was superior to each succeeding generation. Hell, I say the same thing about
baseball, but instead of lamenting about how great the good ol’ days were and
disparaging everything about the current state of the game, I have stopped
following baseball altogether, or at least until it returns to a reasonable
facsimile of what I once knew it to be. Football, like every sport and
institution in society, evolves and changes, sometimes not for the better, which
doesn’t keep it from evolving and changing.
There was a time once when football at a high level was play by western
and southern Europe, Brazil, Argentina, and for a while Uruguay. Starting in the
Fifties with eastern and northern Europe and then in the Sixties with Africa and
the Far East, football began to become more global; in the Seventies the world
football community began to include the rest of South America and the Middle
East; in the Eighties North and Central America came into the fold; and in the
Nineties Asia and Oceania completed the international community. But while the
rest of the world is finally included in the global game, the most extensive,
traditional, and well-funded soccer infrastructure and foundations are still
found in the same four places they always have been: western and southern
Europe, Brazil and Argentina (by now Uruguay has fallen to second-class
citizenship). As a result, there is a certain snobbishness idiosyncratic of the
keepers of the flame in those four venues, with European football denizens being
the most uppity by virtue of the fact that they are the Old World, the game was
invented there and therefore played there the longest, and they have the
unmatched financial muscle to play it better than the rest of the world. Hence,
European soccer hegemony…
Lets concede for the moment that European soccer is a better brand, and
that the rest of the world is not even playing an entertaining facsimile of it.
If, for example, South Korea or the USA aren’t as “flamboyant”,
“magical” or “individually” creative as their European counterparts,
then under what circumstances would either try to be when they face the
so-called European elite? As in Korea/Japan 2002, why would Guus Hiddink of
South Korea try to build a team around a creative magician he doesn’t have,
especially if he has to face two really great ones against Italy (Francesco
Totti) and Spain (Raul)? If the idea is to win, then wouldn’t Hiddink build a
team around shutting Totti and Raul down, mark them out of existence, cut off
their passing lanes and don’t give them space to create, then have the
discipline to keep doing it for 90 minutes while waiting for the mistake that
eventually is going to come? Of course he would…
…But Europeans like Hamilton, Radnedge and Gardner don’t see it that
way. They’d rather accuse the rest of the world of playing a boring game than
recognize the shortcomings in their own brand of football. Don’t blame South
Korea, Senegal, Turkey or the USA because they had the foresight to come up with
a strategy to compete with the rest of the soccer elite, Europe included. Put
the blame squarely where it belongs, on the caretakers of the national teams of
Italy, Argentina, Portugal and Spain for (1) sacrificing players who played well
together for players who were stars and had international name-recognition; (2)
having players who, for whatever reason, didn’t play up to their abilities;
and (3) having coaches who either executed poor game plans that were way too
conservative or didn’t know how to make in-game, on-the-spot tactical
corrections that could have salvaged their tournaments and by extension their
international careers.
Need proof? At Korea/Japan 2002, Italy could have beaten South Korea, but
after getting up by a goal early, Giovanni Trapattoni got conservative, got
defensive, replaced an attacker with a defender, and tried to ride it out
despite the oncoming Korean onslaught. In the same tournament, Spain’s Jose
Antonio Camacho scrapped what had worked for four previous matches, two
attackers up front that netted an average of three goals per game, for a single
attacker and two wingers against South Korea, a team whom had shut down
everybody’s wing attack up until then – Spain never scored.
All that being said, if Hamilton, Radnedge and Gardner had even bothered
to take notice, they would realize that the winners of the last two World Cups
– France and Brazil, however magical and creative they did play – were both
built around discipline, defense and organization.
France only allowed one goal during the run of play all tournament long,
by far the best defensive performance ever displayed in a World Cup, and you saw
what happened four years later when they had a leaky defense. Coach Luis Felipe
Scolari took a lot of heat from his own countryman by playing “bullyball”
leading up to Korea/Japan, but by doing it Brazil played hard, suffocating
defense even though they had only three out-and-out defenders, and they took
control of the midfield, which created all those magical chances for Ronaldo,
Ronaldinho and Rivaldo.
Hell, the best club in Europe over the past two seasons, FC Porto, are a
testament to what you can do even if you don’t have the financial muscle of
the elite teams. Jose Mourinho took over a team three seasons ago that
couldn’t win a continental game to save their lives, built a defense in the
back, found two expatriate Brazilians – Deco and Derlei – under the radar
for a bargain, convinced them to play organized in the back while finding
openings in counter-attack, and then rode roughshod though the likes of Lazio,
Celtic, Manchester United, AC Milan, and Deportivo de la Coruna on their way to
both the UEFA Cup and Champions League. Nobody in their right minds would ever
mistake Porto for being boring or unimaginative…
…But hey, Hamilton, Radnedge and Gardner are Europeans, so I’ll bet
France in 1998 and Porto in 2004 would get a pass…
…But enough of that. Despite what I think of what pundits are saying,
the European Championships always seem to be a great tournament. This year
should be no different. I won’t go into the extensive analysis that I normally
reserve for the World Cup, but here is a quick preview:
Group A
Greece is going to have to do it with defense because they
can’t score to save their lives. It would be easy to bet against Greece under
any other circumstance, but German coach Otto Rehagal has won everywhere he has
coached (Werder Bremen, Kaiserslautern, Fortuna Dusseldorf) so he knows how to
build a winning team. Rehagal relies of five defenders in the back, with the
wingers moving the ball forward. Problem is that neither forward wingers (Vassilis
Tsiartis, Stelios Giannakopoulos) nor the two up-front attackers (Angelos
Haristeas, Demis Nikolaidis) can really get off the scoring schneid. Greece’s
only hope is to keep the score low, play disciplined defense, win the possession
and hope for a mistake on the opposition end. Greece allowed only four goals
throughout the qualifying campaign…
…Unfortunately, all four of those goals were against Portugal.
Luis Felipe Scolari, the winning coach of Brazil at the last World Cup, now
coaches this team, so they should be more fluid and attack-minded than they were
two years ago. Problem is, this team still has the same players they’ve had
for over a decade. I’m not sold on Figo and Rui Costa anymore, they’ve had
over ten years to get it done and if they haven’t done it now they aren’t
going to. Fernando Couto and Rui Jorge were old and slow two years ago, what
makes Big Phil think opposing attackers won’t run at them again? Ricardo is a
vast improvement in goal over Vitor Baia, who quite possibly had the worst World
Cup of any goalkeeper in the tournament. I like Pauleta up front, with Nuno
Gomes in reserve, and they are relying on a lone striker with two wingers (Figo,
Simao) for service. Portugal will qualify for the quarterfinals from this group,
but if they have any realistic chance beyond that, I think they need to
seriously consider getting younger in the back, in the midfield – where Deco
would probably do much better than Rui George – and on the wings – where
Cristiano Ronaldo is ready to break out.
Not holding out much hope for Russia,
whom had a hard time getting here from the easy qualifying group they played in.
They aren’t very good offensively (Bulykin, Kerzhakov up front), they aren’t
very good on the wings (Gusev, Karyaka), the only attacking midfielder of note
is Dmitri Alenichev, and the defense is good (Onopko, Ignashevich, Evseev,
Sennikov) but prone to mental lapses and ineffectiveness down the wings. Coach
Georgi Yartsev worked miracles just getting them this far, because it isn’t
going to get any better in this group.
The usual soccer enigma is back for more: Spain.
Always loads of talent, always loads of expectations, and always crashing out
sooner than they should have. Everybody on the roster is a Who’s Who of
football stars (Casillas in goal; Salgado, Marchena, Helguera, Puyol in back;
Albelda, Alonso, Valeron in the middle; Etxeberria, Vicente on the wings, Raul
up front) who a winners with their club team but disappointments with the
national team. Coach Inaki Saez doesn’t have them playing particularly well
coming into this tournament; finishing second to Greece in qualifying proves
even this bunch of creative wizards can be shut down by a disciplined defense,
so Greece and Russia may be more difficult fixtures for Spain than anybody
imagines. Still, they should qualify out of this group, but in all likelihood
either France or England await in the quarters, where I think Spain dies on the
vine.
Group B
Croatia has proven time and again over the last six years
that they can be world-beaters on the international stage. Unfortunately, this
is not your father’s team. The last World Cup proved that Croatia needed to
get younger and fast. So gone are some of the Old Guard players, to be replaced
by youngsters who had a hard time of it during qualification from a group that
they should not have had such a hard time with. Robert Kovac, Igor Tudor and
Boris Zivkovic still anchor a five-man backline, with Josep Simunic and Stjepan
Tomas the weak links on the left. Because Croatia are so young and inexperienced
they need a five-man backline, with only three midfielders (Dario Srno, Milan
Rapajic, Niko Kovac) in the middle. Not really good service to the two front men
(Dado Prso and any one of a number of options), and they weren’t prolific
finishers anyway. This is a young team that will gain from this experience, but
I’m even less sure of their coach, Otto Baric, and his ability to run things
of this level.
Gotta like Sven Goran Eriksson’s ability to build teams quickly; case
in point: England.
Two superstars (Beckham, Owen) surrounded by a score of hybrid players who can
play a number of places on the pitch – just the kind of team Eriksson likes to
have. He will change tactics and personnel on a moment’s notice based on what
he thinks will get him a win at any given moment. Problem is, as good as many of
these players overall talents indicate, there is nobody on this team like a
Zidane or Ballack with a killer instinct. Young and fast team that will be best
served with Rooney partnering up front with Owen (Owen had nobody to compliment
him in Korea/Japan, and it mattered). I’m still not sold on Steven Gerard as a
playmaker. Scholes in the hole between the two strikers is a must, and it’ll
be interesting to see where Eriksson plays Becks; on the right where he is more
effective in Eriksson’s scheme or in his favored center. Terry partners
Campbell in the center of defense, and Cole and Gary Neville are great fullbacks
with good service down the wings. Not high on James or anybody else they have in
goal. That said, I like England’s chances in this tournament. They may get
farther than anybody gives them credit for, but without a real killer instinct
they won’t win the tournament.
Everybody’s favorite is France,
who return as defending champions looking to put behind them the embarrassment
of Korea/Japan, where they looked old and played old. More talent than anybody
in this or any other tournament. Henry is the best player in the world right now
and clearly the best finisher, nobody is a more creative magician than Zidane,
there isn’t a midfield in better control than Vieira and Makelele, and Pires
is a perfect compliment to Henry on the right wing. What can be France’s
undoing is the same thing that did them in two years ago: A defense that is old
and slow. I like Desailly, Lizerazu and Thuram as much as the next guy, but they
should have been put of the bench a year ago, and Barthez in goal just hasn’t
been in form in close to three years. I really believe that Jacques Santini had
better recognize that Gallas, Mexes, Sagnol and Silvestre represent France’s
best chance to repeat. Failing that, they still make it to the semis.
Man do I feel sorry for Switzerland.
They are plagued injuries and a predominance of players who ride the pine for
their respective clubs and as a result are not in form. They won an obscenely
easy qualifying group to get here, and now have to face the likes of Croatia,
England and France. Nothing special in goal (Stiel), on defense (where their
best defender, Henchoz, won’t even start and was on the bench at Liverpool),
and in the midfield. It speaks volumes when your best finisher (Chapuisat) turns
35 during the tournament and hasn’t played an important club match in five
years. Some serious changes need to be made to this squad and Real Soon.
Bulgaria is back from an almost six-year absence from major
international tournaments. They needed to get newer, fresher players and, as
with virtually all eastern European teams, needed to get better in the back.
Nobody really stands out individually, although Ivan Petkov anchors a hard
backline, Stilian Petrov brings the attack through the middle, Ivailo Petkov and
Martin Petrov bring the attack down the left wing, and Dimitar Berbatov does the
lion’s share of finishing. No real depth here, so if things go wrong coach
Plamen Markov doesn’t have any real options to choose from. Straight-up 4-5-1
means they create from the wings and clog up the middle. A team built on
organization and discipline; don’t make mistakes, control the possession,
counterattack in the air and hope the other team gets tired.
I’m going to say it right now: DENMARK IS GOING TO WIN EURO 2004!!! Won as tough a
qualifying group as there was. Coach Morton Olsen has kept the core of this
group together for over three years, and it shows because they are fearless.
Denmark is playing in-form everywhere and has star-quality players everywhere in
the starting XI: in goal (Sorensen), on the backline (Helvig, Laursen, Henriksen,
Jensen), and in the middle (Gravesen, Wieghorst). Where they really excel,
though, is on the wings (Gronkjaer, Jorgensen) and in the penalty area (Tomasson,
Sand). All XI players are tough and will take on anybody. And what’s more,
they have tons of options on the bench. This group is not that easy, but Denmark
will make it their own. Have not lost to France the last three times they played
them, and this little factoid will matter in the knockout stage.
Italy goes into every tournament they play in with the
expectation of winning it. It’s hard not to when you have the kind of talent
they have. World-class players everywhere (Buffon in goal, Panucci, Cannavaro,
Nesta, Zambrotta in back, Zanetti, Camoranesi, Perrotta in the center and on the
wings). But two things have failed them over the past six years: (1) Coach
Giovanni Trapattoni’s scheme and tactics have been way too conservative,
oftentimes playing defensively after going up a goal, and (2) midfielder creator
Francesco Totti just has not stepped up to the plate and worked his magic in
critical international competitions. Trap has to let this team out of the
offensive box, letting that classic Italian footballing magic take over, and
Totti has to step up and make things happen, because as good of finishers Vieri
and Del Piero are, if Totti doesn’t get it done then they won’t either.
Italy may think of Bulgaria, Denmark and Sweden as beneath them on the football
hierarchy, but all three of these teams are dangerous and have something to
prove. Italy should wriggle its way out of this group into the knockout stage,
but there has yet to be any indication that Trap can’t be anything other than
conservative.
You want to see cautious, workmanlike, ultra-tactical
football, look no further than Sweden. This team performs well under a certain tactical
framework, which served them well in allowing only three goals in qualification.
It has to be the discipline, because ordinary goalkeeping (Isaksson) and
ordinary defensive wingers (Lucic, Edman)are anchored by a hard center defense (Mellberg,
Swensson). There are problems up front, where Allback and Ibrahamovic aren’t
finishing with any quality or regularity. If the attack is going to get off the
schneid, it is going to have to begin with Ljungberg on the left flank and
Svensson in the middle; Nilsson just isn’t a creator in the right. I’m still
trying to figure out how this co-coach thing with Lars Lagerback and Tommy
Soderberg works. Sweden should be much better than they are, but in a group with
an in-form Denmark and a motivated Italy, I’m not exactly sold.
Right now the Czech
Republic is playing great football, not losing a single
fixture in a qualifying group that included Holland. Quality abounds everywhere,
with the midfield (Galasek, Rosicsky), finishers (Baros, Koller) and goalkeeping
(Cech) being anchored by world-class creativity on the attacking wings (Nedved,
Poborsky). Nothing spectacular individually in the back (Grygera, Bolf, Ujfalusi,
Jankulovski right to left), but they work well together, are discipline and
organized, and anticipate and dispossess well. Coach Karel Bruckner has this
side playing in-form at the moment and is looking to improve upon the runner-up
finish from 1996. Neither Germany nor Holland is playing very well right now, so
don’t be surprised if this side is the shock winner of this group.
Coach Rudi Voeller has Germany in survival mode going into this tournament. Most of
the players on the roster are either coming off injuries or have not played
in-form for most of the past year. Kahn in goal had a less-than-stellar year,
his back is a worry, and his legendary reflexes, agility and intensity gave way
to uncharacteristic mental relapses at times for Bayern. A patchwork backline
(Novotny, Woerns in the center, Hinkel and Lahm on the wings, Rahn, Rau and
Rehmer in reserve) is replete with injuries and out-of-form players. Frings and
Hamann are still the rock of the midfield (along with Ramelow in reserve), but
Schneider and Ballack just haven’t been as dominant as they have been in the
past, and in this big a tournament, that matters. Klose hasn’t been nearly the
finisher he was two years ago, and they are gambling on Kuranyi or Bobic to show
up, even though neither has had a penchant for doing so when it mattered the
most. Voeller worked miracles in leading a bunch of no-names to the World Cup
final; even with this gift of a group draw I’m not seeing lightning strike
twice.
There is no team more schizophrenic right now than Holland. Dick
Advocaat’s charges are as talented a group as there is playing football, but
they sure as hell haven’t played like it for over three years now. The problem
lies with Advocaat’s inability to decide what he wants to do and how he wants
to go about accomplishing it. Holland has probably the best finisher in the
world (van Nistelrooy) but nobody who can compliment him up front (Kluivert,
Hasselbaink, Makaay just can’t seem to gel well with him). Probably the best
scheme is to let two attacking wingers (van der Vaart, Robben) bring the attack
into the penalty area and let the two midfielders (van der Meyde, Sneijder) make
things happen in the center. Davids is still a pit bull at ball winning in front
of the defense, but Holland has relied way too long on defenders (Reiziger, Cocu,
DeBoer, Zenden, and Seedorf in front of them) and a goalkeeper (van der Saar)
who have not been in form since the end of the last century. If Holland is to
make any noise in this tournament, then Advocaat has recognize that they have to
get younger, stronger and faster in the back. A possible gift draw could mean
that they back into the quarterfinals by default, but a possible matchup with
either Italy or Denmark will expose their backline.
In all likelihood, Latvia doesn’t win a single match at Euro 2004, but somebody had to get a playoff from an obscenely weak qualifying group; this was the “best” squad from a sea of bad ones. The best players from an obviously mediocre Latvian league make up most of this squad. Their best player is forward Marian Pahars, who is in afterthought in the English Premier League with Southampton. Kudos to coach Aleksandrs Starkovs for getting them here, but this is as good as it gets. Until they get more players plying their trade in some of the better European club leagues, don’t expect Latvia to make any real noise on the international stage. It could get very ugly indeed.
So who looks good this time around? Nobody has ever repeated as European champion; I’m betting history holds that up. France has the talent, organization, and creativity to make it to the semis after beating up either Portugal or Spain in the quarters, but I think that is as far as they get. I think Denmark can win it outright if they finish second in their group, beating Holland in the quarters and running past France’s old and slow defense in the semis. England is a good team but not a great one, so second in their group gets them a date with wither Portugal or Spain in the quarters, and England is too fast up front for either. Quite possibly the best match in the tournament is the potential quarterfinal matchup between Italy and the Czech Republic, which I think will be a knock-down, drag out affair. Whoever wins that match will find an England squad that just doesn’t have the will and backbone to go any further. Because I think Trapattoni is a leopard that just can’t change his spots, I’m taking the Czech Republic to get to the finals in Lisbon to face Denmark. While not the football elite that everybody wants to see, I think a Czech Republic-Denmark final would be fun and entertaining, replete with the kind of individual achievement most soccer pundits yearn for. In this potential final, I’ll take Denmark…
…Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong…
David Kennedy is the host of The Sport Authority, a weekly radio sports talk show in Sacramento, CA. Weaned on American football, he is now a keen follower of world football and the English Premier League in particular, and sees a lot of his beloved San Francisco 49ers in Manchester United, whom he has adopted as his soccer favorite.
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