occasional posts by risa aratyr
After some weirdness in the Group stage — a close shave victory over the Black Stars and a surprising defeat to Serbia — Germany returned to the form they’d displayed against Australia and proceeded to clobber England and clobber Argentina. They expected to clobber Spain. A few days ago I posed the question, “How the … Read more WC Fields [semi] — Germany v Spain
GERMANY v ARGENTINA On paper? A not-to-be-missed match, end-to-end, neck-and-neck. On the pitch… Argentina got creamed. Germany won by a resounding 4 – 0 margin. The one and only question I had at the end of the 90 minutes was, “How the hell is anybody going to beat these guys?” Argentina’s pride was crushed as … Read more WC Fields [1/4 finals] — Day #2
That’s what I’m talking about. Sure, Portugal can cream North Korea 7 – 0. Not that I put unlimited faith in the FIFA/Coca-Cola ranking table, but when team #3 plays team #105… well, duh. Being on a numeric par, the Spain/Portugal fixture promised a tighter match, and delivered on that promise — though not by … Read more WC Fields [k.o.] — Spain v Portugal
Chile has been looking surprisingly spry on the field. Against Spain, though, they looked just that bit slower and clumsier than they had in their previous matches. Were they playing less well? Or did they seem to be off their stride because they couldn’t muster the extra reserves required to up their tempo, dexterity and … Read more WC Fields — Chile v Spain
It was Portugal, I suppose, that restored order to the World Cup; “order” in the sense of teams fulfilling expectations, that is. Not that there’s any logical reason to form expectations in the first place. So what that FIFA ranks Spain a lofty #2 and Switzerland a lowly #24? What makes footy such an exciting … Read more WC Fields — España v Honduras