On the day when Brazil finally showed an inclination to turn on the style and Croatia and Australia served up arguably the best match of the tournament, it says it all about this World Cup that incompetent referees grabbed all the headlines. Between them they contrived to miss bear-hug tackles and basketball-like defending, visualised fouls where none existed, couldn't even get the basic 1+1=2 arithmetic right when it came to counting yellow cards and succeeded in turning a potential classic encounter into a damp squib. Yet the same jokers will be queuing up for the big job on World Cup Final day. Heaven help us!
Everyone was surely expecting something special from Italy and the Czech Republic. While a draw would be enough for Italy, having been upset by Ghana, the Czechs needed to win to progress and, knowing Italian inclination to lure teams on to the sucker punch, I sat back in anticipation of a cracker, although I was immediately disappointed to find that, despite looking bright when he came on at the weekend, Libor Sionko was not included in the Czech side.
The early signs were very good. The Czechs looked lively, the recalled Milan Baros was keen to be involved in everything and they were getting on top. It looked like the Italians had been dealt a savage blow when Nesta was injured and had to be replaced by Materazzi, But the sub turned out to be pretty handy in the opposition box when he climbed to head home the opening goal from a Totti corner after 26 minutes and suddenly the Czechs were up against it..
With players like Rosicky and Nedved in the side, however, it would've been crazy to write them off and I fancied them to come back, especially if Italy reverted to type and sat back on their lead. It all turned sour right on the stroke of half-time when Polak went into a harmless challenge on Totti, he did no more than stand his ground as his opponent tried to turn, the Italian collapsed in a heap and, having booked the Czech earlier, Mexican referee Benito Archundia couldn't wait to whip out the red card. Berk!
There was no way the Italians would lose it after that. Although the Czech Republic stuck to their task and had a couple of half-chances, the Italian defence, with keeper Buffon commanding, were right on top of the job. And your friend and mine, Rino Gattuso, was absolutely brilliant in midfield, getting stuck into the crucial tackles and also making good use of the ball. The extra man became more and more significant as the clock ticked on and what should have been a ding-dong battle became a cat-and-mouse game as the Italians knocked the ball around cleverly.
An almost inevitable late break by Inzaghi sealed the Czechs' fate so my attention quickly switched to Nuremberg for Ghana v USA. An early strike from Dramani, after he'd caught Claudio Reyna on the ball, gave the Africans an early lead but the Yanks hit back and were level through Clint Dempsey. Having recovered from the early setback, the Americans undoubtedly fancied their chances of getting the win which, given the result in Hamburg, would have taken them through, only for their hopes to be undone by that arrogant clown Markus Feckin Merks.
In first half injury time USA defender Oguchi Onyewo won the ball cleanly in the air, his opponent Pimpong stumbled but was looking for nothing, so everybody, Americans and Ghanaians alike, were astonished to see Herr Merks goose-step to the penalty spot. It was a shocking decision, a non-existent penalty kick awarded by the only man on the planet to see anything worthy of a whistle. Tosser!
Upset by the decision, the Americans lost the plot for a while and, although they got back on top towards the end, the clock was against them and the Africans held out. The media men have been talking up the plus points of having an African representative in the last 16…but at what cost? Ghana owe their continued interest in the World Cup to a jumped-up nobody elevated to some status by the brain-dead cretins of FIFA. Controversy is never far away when Herr Merks is in charge of a match.
Off to the pub for the evening games, with the council telly tuned in to BBC1 for Brazil and the satellite dish giving us Croatia v Australia, I needed eyes in the back of my head. Hey, I had a sore neck by the end of it all. Both games were absolutely superb, Brazil played with the swagger we expect from them, while the high drama from the other game was hard to beat, despite the best efforts of Graham Poll. Jerk!
It was good to see Ronaldo at last looking interested. "I predict a diet," joked the commentator. A group in the pub had been in Seville in 1982 (before it became a latter day Lourdes for the Mhanks) when Brazil had humped Scotland and the memories came flooding back when Tamada made the mistake of firing Japan into the lead. "Remember David Narey, ya muppets," one of the guys shouted as the Japs celebrated. A few bets were made on the likelihood of Japan still being in front at the interval and, with the final seconds ticking away, Ronaldo nodded home the equaliser. I enjoyed that pint. Nice one Ronnie.
A long range shot from Juninho and a great goal from Gilberto had Brazil in easy street early in the second half, then Ronaldo wrapped things up with an excellent fourth. There is still so much more to come from this Brazil side and I believe that, once the knock-out phase gets serious, they'll be on their toes and ready to strut their stuff big time. Mind you, I'm still not convinced about them defensively and, while I'd expect them to see off Ghana, the potential quarter-final clash with Spain could be very interesting.
By the way, didn't the knackered bloke have a stormer? He couldn't have got more than half a dozen kicks of the ball in the course of the entire game and may well go down in football history as the first 'playmaker' to be run ragged by a right-back. Did you clock him seven minutes from the end when, in acres of space with the ball at his feet, he was stumbling all over the place like a drunk man? Cicinho had made him dizzy, giving an outstanding performance tramping up and down the right flank, and the number two shirt must surely be his once Cafu calls it a day.
Meanwhile, over in Stuttgart, Croatia got off to a flyer with a free kick from Darijo Srna after only two minutes and, backing Big Dado, I was rooting for the guys and the red and white checked jerseys. But the Aussies were not prepared to roll over and, after being denied a stonewall penalty when Viduka suffered three falls and a submission in a challenge from Simunic, they got the break they deserved when the referee managed to spot a hand ball offence. With Viduka, Cahill and Kewell in the side, I couldn't believe my eyes when Craig Moore stepped up to ram the kick into the net. I can only remember him ever taking one penalty for Rangers (in a 1-1 draw at Tynecastle more than two years ago) so this would appear to be a new string to Skippy's bow.
A howler by goalkeeper Zeljko Kalac enabled Niko Kovacs to fire Croatia back into the lead but again the Aussies fought back and, after a couple of near things, Kewell grabbed their second equaliser. But it was chaos all around as Graham Poll, running Markus Merks close for the idiot of the tournament award, found himself in the middle of a bad dream. Flashing cards here, there and everywhere, there was no way the game would end with 22 players on the park. Both sides had a man sent off and Simunic even managed to stay on after getting himself a second yellow. Sharp as a tack, Poll then applied the new three-strikes-and-you're-out rule, showed Simunic a third yellow for verbals after the final whistle, then pleaded innocence by saying he'd got mixed up by all those funny foreign names. So what was such a plonker doing in charge of an international match in the first place?
All in all, a very entertaining day of football…but wouldn't it have been so much better if we were raving about Totti, Rosicky, Ronaldo, Prso and Kewell, instead of the self-publicists with bad attitudes and whistles?
LITTLE BOY BLUE