World Cup: Day Four
A lot of goals! We like goals!
There were a lot of goals in this matchday, which is fun. But there was also a lot of stupid stuff. Let’s talk about some stuff that went down.
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Germany 7-1 Curaçao
Selene from our Discord server suggested that for this section I should just write:
Lol. Lmao, even.
I don’t know. Germany are a lot better at football than Curaçao. I spent a lot of time struggling on this section because I didn’t have anything productive to say about the four time world champions beating an island nation of 156,000 people. So let that be the story. I saw people draw conclusions about Germany’s attacking players impressing, and I just don’t see the point. This did not feel like a meaningful football match. Let’s come back and reassess when they play some better opponents.
Netherlands 2-2 Japan
After 62 games managing the Netherlands over two spells that total six years on the job, Ronald Koeman finally got to manage at the World Cup
Four years ago, the Dutch were coached by Louis van Gaal, one of the country’s greatest ever football minds and someone whose influence genuinely changed the sport. Van Gaal wasn’t to everyone’s tastes, but he could be a maverick innovator, seeing things in ways no one else did. Koeman is… not that. He’s not exactly known for having a “philosophy”. He can sometimes do good work through smart adjustments to nullify the opponent, but even when it works well, it tends to be pretty dull.
And this is an era where Dutch football has really needed a philosophy. Without even watching the game, I could’ve told you what the pass map would look like.
Everything goes across the back to the wide areas. Striker Donyell Malen is almost totally isolated. The wingers only pass to the defenders and the holding midfielder. More advanced midfielders Tijjani Reijnders and Ryan Gravenberch pretty much never pass it to players in front of them or even to each other. It’s all just going from side to side and around without the penetrating passes that you actually want. The Dutch national team always play this way when the manager is anyone other than Van Gaal.
This was a weird game. The Dutch got ahead early in the second half not long after taking a poor corner, when Gravenberch got the ball in a wide area and put a superb cross in while the centre backs were still in the box. It’s not exactly total football, but Virgil van Dijk can be very hard to defend against in these situations. That lead didn’t last two long, when Keito Nakamura smashed it in from the edge of the box with a huge deflection. I’d love to tell you this was a really good bit of football, but it was dumb luck.
The next goal at least had some good play, as Gravenberch dribbled through a congested midfield really well to pick out Crysencio Summerville who, yes, just hit a shot from range pretty well. It’s a stupid sport sometimes. Then Japan got it to 2-2 through a corner and another big deflection. I don’t know. This game was pretty fun to watch, but it was really disappointing from the perspective of wanting quality football. Unlikely goals can create drama as the momentum shifts (the old “goals change games” cliche holds true), and it’s just fun to watch thunderbastards. But this did not convince me the Netherlands or Japan are particularly serious contenders.
Ivory Coast 1-0 Ecuador
The team that showed attacking ambition beat the side that wanted a defensive battle of attrition.