Posts by Bart Janssen
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Bah!
Ok that is the extent of my sadness about the Dutch defeat. I didn't like the way they played but I could see that it was probably their only chance to win and it might have worked.
The spanish play very nice football and it's great they've won, beside they do know how to party.
On the plus side the extra time meant a day off work was required :).
big players didn't really step up to the mark and it seemed that risk-free defence was more highly valued than creativity or attack.
I think this is unfair. The blame lies squarely with the marketing dickhead who agreed to allow a proprietary ball to be designed for the tourney. Yes it made Fifa money but I personally believe it was the reason so many of the great players could not find the goal. Of course the ball designers who made light ball that would be used on the high veldt deserve special mention for lack of neuron use. The great players simply could not control the ball.
But despite the difficulties with the ball Spain showed that passing well wins games and I really loved that.
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Spain ought to take it with ease.
Fighting words there Gio. I may have to slap you with something pickled.
My heart wants Holland to triumph. I think the Dutch will be less predictable than the Germans and that may make it harder for the Spanish to shut them down. But the Dutch defense has shown horrible lapses that the Spanish will punish. The spanish defense has also shown that they can control a very talented offense and I just don't think the Dutch offense is that much better than the Germans.
Much as I hate to admit it I think the Spanish are the better bet for the final but I just feel like the Dutch could cause havoc with the pretty Spanish play in a way that the Germans couldn't.
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I thought it was a terrible game to be honest ... but I like open and expansive football
I know what you mean, it is great to watch incredible athletes (like the Germans) running end to end. But I found the control and tactical way the spanish played incredibly fascinating. It was so neat to watch the way they closed down the front three of the Germans and as a result Klose never saw the ball. And on offense all that boring passing back and forth slowly and very cleverly dragged the German defense out of alignment.
Not exciting no, but absorbing.
I have no idea what the final will be like.
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I'm curious as to how you figure that.
I figure that in a dictatorship much if not all foreign exchange gets directed into the hands of those with the guns. I accept that some money may end up in other hands but my expectation is that little or none of my money benefits the people of Fiji.
While to some degree this is true of any holiday destination, at least for places that are not dictatorships the expectation that some of that money benefits the local population is not unreasonable. Overly hopeful perhaps but not unreasonable.
They're more than a symbolic gesture when they impoverish an entire nation.
Yeah this is the argument against boycotting Fiji as a holiday destination and I'm sensitive to it. But my cynical belief is that my money does not get to the impoverished in part because of the nature of the government.
What would be really neat is if someone could work out where the money goes rather than me just having to guess. And yes I admit it is simply a guess on my part.
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given the opportunity, would you have been?
Nope. But the only thing my presence in Fiji could achieve is transfer of my wealth to the dictatorship of Fiji, with some small fraction going to the Fijian people. That isn't worthwhile and any pleasure I might have on the holiday isn't worth the support it gives the dictators. there are other places I can go to have a holiday.
But you are a journalist. You have the opportunity and means to bring your observations back and pass them on to a wider audience. That is valuable even if it means some of your visit is used to benefit the dictators.
Everyone who holidays in Fiji provides some level of support for the dictatorship. For a journalist that can be balanced against bringing back information. Of course journalists who then write a puff piece about how nice their hotel was and how white the sand was ...
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I have to say the game today was really neat to watch. Full of really great skills with the ball and off the ball. But you really got to see that football is tactical and not just about physical skill.
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You could paint a lifesize portrait of Puyol, he's so slow.
Just be sure to get the ball coming off his head and into the German goal in that painting :P.
Really impressive the way the Spanish denied the Germans. All that speed and raw talent snuffed out but smart slow spaniards. And that German defense coming apart slowly, piece by piece.
So can the Dutch learn from that match and avoid being taken apart as well?
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have a pickled wotsit...oh, go on, make it two
mmm Herring nom nom nom
that was, dare I say it, pretty average
I agree it coulda and shoulda been 5 and the two they let in were pretty awful defensive lapses. They started average had a couple of moments in the middle that were great and then seemed to turn off and almost had to pay for it with extra time.
They won't get away with that in the final.
As for Spain being exposed, they have already played some really average football. But they aren't as slow as England and I can't see them imploding the way Argentina did. Which kind of leads me to think Germany will have to play very very well to get past them.
What I'm hoping for is extra time and penalty shots with a slew of red cards and injuries for the winning team :).
Hey this partisan thing is fun, my father would have been proud of me :).
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deflections...
!?!?!
I don't think you call it a deflection when the keeper gets a finger to it, most folks call that a great shot.And the second was a bit more than a toe poke Humph!
But Robben's header was pretty near perfect, pity he then missed a sitter which would have made it 4.
Proudly wearing Orange today and think this thread needs a bit of partisan one-eyed support rather than all this serious analysis!
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And all three Dutch goals off the post.
Which of course means they were perfectly placed to be as far from the keeper as possible and still go in.
Looking forward to Spain demonstrating that Germany have been made to look good by soft opposition.