To celebrate the World Cup in Brazil, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a set of posts explaining elements of soccer. We hope you enjoy posts like Why do People Like Soccer? How Does the World Cup Work? Why Do Soccer Players Dive so Much? What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer? What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer?, Why do World Cup Soccer Players Blame the Ball? and Reflections on the 2014 World Cup for the United States. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil begins on June 12 and ends on July 13.
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The United States played wonderful soccer and, for a few weeks, our nation obsessed over the World Cup. The U.S. team is gone but the World Cup goes on. This Friday and Saturday are the four quarter-final matchups between the final eight teams in the tournament. There are very few surprises, which, as Greg Howard of Deadspin points out, is not that much of a surprise:
Soccer is strange, in that it isn’t very strange at all. One would think that such a low-scoring game would lend itself to randomness, to the odd fairytale ending, to relatively shitty teams fluking their way into the history books. This doesn’t happen.
The final eight teams may be mostly predictable world powers but that doesn’t mean the results when they play each other are predictable. From here on out, (with the potential exception of one game on Saturday which we’ll cover in the next post,) no result will be surprising. If you’re interested in seeing it out to the end, here’s a little information about the two quarterfinal match ups on Friday to feed our fledgling soccer addicted brains:
France vs. Germany, Friday, July 4, Noon on ESPN2
First things first here — this game gets bumped to ESPN’s second channel not for Nathan’s hot-dog eating contest, which is what I feared, but for the men’s semifinal of Wimbledon, which still seems wrong-headed but is definitely more acceptable. France vs. Germany is the first of two regional match-ups on Friday and, although tho countries have a long and horrible real history of conflict, they aren’t the biggest soccer enemies. France and Germany have only played against each other three times in World Cup history and not since 1986. France beat Germany 2-0 in 1986, lost in a shootout in 1982, and won 6-3 in 1958. In this year’s World Cup, Germany came in as the more heralded team but France has played more convincingly and excitingly. It’s possible that the result of this game will come down to the most coincidental and mundane of factors: France does not have the flu, Germany does.
Brazil vs. Colombia, Friday, July 4, 4 p.m. on ESPN
This is the best matchup of the quarter-finals by far. It’s got everything: the host country, two bordering soccer-crazed countries, and two young super-stars. As the host country, Brazil is under an enormous amount of pressure to win the tournament but I haven’t been impressed with their play so far. They seem too reliant on their one star player, Neymar, but a more positive way of looking on that would be that he is such a star that all the other stars on the Brazilian team seem pedestrian in comparison. Neymar is an interesting figure. He is young, 22, and this is his first World Cup. He is a slight figure and is often rolling around on the ground in simulated or real misery from one injury or another. He’s also quite brilliant. I first saw him in person playing in a “friendly” match against the United States team right after the 2010 World Cup. The 18 year-old Neymar had been controversially left off the Brazilian World Cup team that year and was clearly out for revenge against the people who left him off and the United States team bore the brunt of his fury. Brazil won that night 2-0 but it might as well have been 20 nothing. Neymar was everywhere at once and completely uncontrollable. Not only is Neymar on a mission to win the World Cup for the home country but also to wear as many hair styles as possible while doing it.
On the Colombian side of the ball, the star player is the similarly young and brilliant James Rodriguez. Rodriguez is leading the World Cup in goals scored and has “picked this summer to go full blown supernova on the soccer world” according to Billy Haisley of Deadspin.com in a fine profile of Rodriguez. Alas, I have less to say about the Colombian team because I haven’t been able to see one of their games yet but according to my Mom (who is a soccer expert in her own right,) Colombia has “Great teamwork and a star, Rodriguez. It’s a real pleasure to watch them.” If for no reason other than that they seem to be the most joyous team in the cup, celebrating goals with group dances, I hope the Colombian party continues.
Aw… Thanks for the shout-out! Thanks for the explanations for Friday’s games!