Mid Quarter-Finals update

The Games

The Netherlands took revenge on Brazil for 1994 (3:2 loss in the Quarter-Finals) and 1998 (PSO elimination in the Semi-Finals) by coming back from behind to win 2:1. This makes Brazil the first CSF team to be eliminated this world cup by a non-CSF team. I think that the last time this happened was 1966.

Ghana played better than Uruguay from the 20^th minute on but except for a great long distance shot at the end of the half were unable to score. Ghana come closer than any other CAF nation to reach the semis (Cameron, 1990, lost to England 3:2 in extra time; Senegal 2002, lost to Turkey 1:0 on a Golden Goal in extra time).

On the other side, this is Uruguay first trip to the Semis since 1970. This is a team which made the Semis in 4 of its first 6 WC appearances and failed to ream the Quarters since (four appearances). From a Uruguayan point of view, this was a one man show (Forlan) until literally the last minute when in a strange twist of fate Suarez turned from a villain to a hero when Gyan missed a penalty kick in the last second of the game to become the goat of the game.

The interview

After the game we stayed to watch the Uruguayan celebrate, the joy and happiness of the fans was a site to see. The majority of the fans at the stadium supported Ghana, from signs like "The United States of Africa vs. Uruguay" to "BaGhana BaGhana" replacing the South African "Bafana Bafana". Nadav who replaced Lior in our team of four supported Uruguay and was draped in a Uruguayan flag and I had the Israeli Blue and White flag.

As we were walking outside the stadium back to the car we were approached by a man that asked us if we are willing to be interviewed by the BBC radio worldwide service as Uruguayan fans – Nadav and I did oblige. We had to wait for a while an upset Ghanaian fan was being interviewed. The interviewer than turned to us, asked for our names and proceeded to ask us about Suarez being a villain or a hero. We both expressed the view that before the miss he was a villain. The fact that he saved a sure goal and the PK was missed giving Uruguay a chance to advance made him a Hero. We were then asked if it is right for a cheat to be a hero, and my answer was that this is life. Overall, the interview lasted about 2-3 minutes – my first time on worldwide radio.

Observations

FIFA is now talking about giving Suarez a two games suspension for his hand ball/save – this is wrong!!! I don't think that there has ever been a case of DOGSO-H (Deny an Obvious Goal Scoring Opportunity by Handling the ball) in which a player was suspended for more than 1 game. Why even talk about a longer suspension? Because Gyan missed the subsequent PK and Ghana failed to advance? The punishment for DOGSO is already very severe: a send-off, followed by a PK following by a mandatory one game suspension.

Let's review, this WC, Khune (ZAR) and Kewell (AUS) got a red card for DOGSO, neither was suspended for more than a game. Are the rules at the WC Quarter-Finals different than earlier stages? Is there anything in the rule book which says that the punishment if the attacking team misses the PK should be more severe than otherwise? Call it cheating, call it taking one for the team or call it exploitation of the rules; it makes little difference – as far as I can recall no other player in this WC was suspended for more than a game and there is no footballing reason for this to be any different.

Two quarter-finals games are done and I'm down to two teams; Israel – didn't quality, Brazil – out in the Quarters, USA out in the Round of 16, so now I'm down to the 4^th (Netherlands) and 5^th (Spain) teams.

Arjen Robben (yes, Adam he is only 26 years old, and thanks for saying that I look younger than him) showed us how a single player can disrupt and frustrate a good defensive team by doing all the little things right. Most people will have Sneijder as the man of the match; after all he did take the shoot that turned into an own goal and he did score the winner.

As far as I'm concerned there is no doubt that Robben was the key to the game. He forced the Brazilian defense to foul him all game long (even when Brazil had control of the game). His efforts led to a yellow card on Bastos the Brazilian defender and later to his substitution which caused poor marking on the Robben corner kick which led to the winning goal. Robben was also the player who was fouled in the attacked third just before the Sneijder cross and the own goal. I don't expect most fans to notice this type of contributions, but I do which that commentators and post-game reports would highlight this type of play.

Trivia

Last time Brazil lost a WC game in the Southern hemisphere was 1950 to Uruguay in a game in which they also led 1:0 and lost 1:2.

Brazil has played in 97 WC games, Melo's own goal today was the first they have conceded.

All of Forlan 4 world cup goals were scored against African teams (first was against Senegal in 2002).

In the last 7 World Cup Penalty Shoot-Out the team to take the first penalty won the PSO. The last team to kick second and win was Spain against Ireland on June 16^th 2002 in a PSO which saw 4 PKs missed in a row and 5 of 6 – Ireland miss the second kick and both missed the 3^rd and 4^th kicks.

So far in WC history there have been 22 PSO (first in 1982); 144 out of 203 were converted for a success rate of 70.9%. Twice only 7 kicks were needed (1986: Germany 4 – Mexico 1; 2006: Ukraine 3 – Switzerland 0) and twice 12 kicks were needed (1982: Germany 5 – France 4; 1994: Sweden 5 – Romania 4)

Round of 16 Summary

Confederation Status

Confed	Tm	2R	QF	P	W	D	L	Pts	G+	G-	GD	Win%	Pts%	Pwr
CSF	5	5	4	18	12	5	1	41	27	8	19	81%	76%	84%
UEFA	13	6	3	29	10	10	9	40	33	27	6	52%	46%	42%
CONF	3	2		11	2	4	5	10	9	13	-4	36%	30%	33%
AFC	4	2		14	4	3	7	15	14	28	-14	39%	36%	31%
CAF	6	1	1	19	4	5	10	17	16	23	-7	34%	30%	24%
OFC	1			3	0	3	0	3	2	2	0	50%	33%	21%

Intra-confederation games (e.g. Spain-Switzerland, are excluded)

I added a Power ranking (Pwr) which is the average of Winning%, Points%, Teams in second%, Teams in Quarter-Finals%. So UEFA gets (52%+46%+6/13+3/16)/4 = (52%+46%+46%+23%)/4 = 42%.

For the first time ever, 4 CSF teams have made it to the Quarter-Final round. This is even more surprising since the last time CSF had three teams in the "elite eight" was 1978 in Argentina when Peru joined Brazil and Argentina. In the 32 years since, only Brazil and Argentina managed to reach this level from CSF. On the other side of the coin, this is the first time that only three UEFA teams made it this far, the previous low was 4 in 2002 (CSF, AFC, CONF and CAF representatives made up the other four). In 1994, UEFA had 7 teams in the Quarter-Finals while in 1998 and 2006 they had 6, so this is a big drop.

The CSF performance is incredible, the only one team eliminated (Chile) and that was a result of a loss to another CSF team (Brazil). So far we had 9 intra-confederation games (8 UEFA and 1 CSF) none of them ended in a tie (22 total goals). Except for Ghana, CAF performance was abysmal (they would have been dead last). UEFA, who is having a bad WC, has played more than 50% more inter-confederation games and still has fewer losses.

Observations

For the third time in history a CAF team has made it to the Quarter-Finals, all three teams (Cameron 1990, Senegal 2002, Ghana 2010) needed extra time to advance. USA has won their group and finished in 12^th place overall in the world cup; during 390+ (probably over 410) minutes of playing time they had the lead for about 2 minutes (winning goal vs. Algeria was scored at 90'+2' and the game ended at 90'+4').

Xabi Alonso of Spain got a yellow card in 74' against Portugal , this was Spain's first yellow card of the world cup. On the other hand, Chile finished with 13 yellow and 1 red cards. Among the quarter finalists, Argentina and Paraguay have 5 yellows, Uruguay 3YC and 1RC, Netherlands and Ghana with 8YC, Brazil with 6YC and 1RC (Kaka) and last is Germany with 7YC and 1RC (Klose) . Interesting that both Brazil's and Germany's red cards (really second yellows) were given to stars who are playing attacking roles – these are the type of players who rarely get two yellows in a game.

Miscellaneous

All four of us went to the Paraguay – Japan game in Pretoria, as you know that game ended up going to Extra Time and a Penalty Shoot Out. Getting out of the lower stands Loftus field is very hard and time consuming when the stadium is near full, so by the time we got to our car (we parked right in-front of the Syrian Embassy) is was after 7pm. Our plan was to go to Pilanesberg Game Reserve for a "Safari". Our Hotel in Pilanesberg was about 160km (over 100mi) away from the Stadium and we had to face the fact that the Spain – Portugal match which we all wanted to see was starting at 8:30pm.

We headed west from Pretoria as fast as we could and after about 80km when started heading north is become clear that we are not going to make it to the hotel in time for the game. Adi called the Hotel to confirm direction and the night clerk told him that to get to the hotel we need to make a right at the four way stop sign. Informing him that we are still about 80km away and just started to head north on R556 from the N4 (a major road) didn't change the directions. We gave up on him and trust my memory that we need to make a right before Sun City at R5xx. I was driving fairly fast (100-120kph) on a dark two line highway (after all we have a big game to catch) and hoping that we will be able to identify the correct right hand turn.

At 8:30pm we are about 30km south east of Sun City (which is the precise location of the "middle of no-where") we see two huge TV screens starting to show the game. We pull left and turn, ask for direction for the entrance which was another left and enter the compound after a quick security check. We found some plastic lawn chairs and watched the game. It turned out that this was a setup for the people of the Bafokeng nation to watch the WC games. During half time and after the game the PA announcer welcomed their guests from Israel both in English and Setswana (the local language). This was an experience of a life time.

Since we still needed to verify direction both Adi and I used out Blackberry to ask for directions since "right at the four way stop sign" didn't inspire confidence in us. I also want to ask two men in uniform about directions while waiting for email responses. I got good directions from the two men, as well as an offer for me to wait 15 min after the game and they'll take the local fire truck and lead me to the hotel; I politely declined, but I think that they might have been disappointed.

When we got to the (less than half an hour after the game ended), we got our "chalet" key from the night clerk and driving instructions "Go back the why you come, before the gate turn right and hopefully you will find it" – we did find it.

The next day after a late breakfast, we bought a night safari tour for the four us. Around 11:00 having nothing better to do Lior, Gil and I decided to go for a tour of the game reserve on our own (Adi stayed in the chalet). We had little expectations since we know that the best time to see wild animals in just after sun rise. As soon as we started the tour we picked a dirt road and headed north. After one of the turns a driver of a tour van waves me over to come beside him and tell us to turn back and continue straight on the road from which we turned. As it turned out, about 2km down the road across a little river we saw an elephant carcass and two lionesses were munching on it.

During the night tour we returned to the same place and we also saw a young male lion along with the lionesses. While we were watching a hippo showed put and started bellowing at the lions to go away – she had some baby hippos and thought that the lions would go after them once they were done with the elephant (which died a week earlier). After about 5 min of a standoff, the lions backed away but only as far as hiding behind nearby bushes.

As it turned out we missed seeing a leopard by half an ½ on both our day tour and the night tour (once to early and once too late so on average we saw a leopard twice J). However we did get to see both black and white Rhinos and live Elephants as well to get 3 out of the big 5. The game reserve itself was teeming with wild animals from birds, to gnu (not the operating system), Antelopes, Impalas, Gazelles, Zebras, Giraffes as well as Jackals, Foxes, Warthogs and Baboons (probably several others that I can't remember right now). This was a nice diversion from the world cup and a highly recommended side trip.

 

Mid Round of 16 update

The games

First six round of 16 matches are over and all everyone is talking about id two missed calls. One in the Germany – England game which prevented England from leveling the game after being down2:0 a minute or so earlier – clearly the whole ball crossed the whole goal line and a 2:2 game is very different from a 2:1 game. The second was a clear offside goal which gave Argentina a 1:0 lead over Mexico. Many people will call for video replay as the solution for this; I hope that this doesn't become the new standard. I think that the IFAB should mandate the 5 referees system (one center, 2 linesmen and 2 goal line referees) this will surly solve problems like the England goal, reduce dives, deal with hand balls in the box as well as other near goal incidents (more about this below).

So far the only group winner not to advance to the quarter-finals is the USA, so now 2 of my 5 teams are out and one still has to play round of 16 game. However, my top two remaining teams will face each other in the quarter-finals. The US – Ghana games was a close one, I thought that Ghana was better in the first half; the US controlled the second half, but suffered from lack of finishing ability. Combine this with early (game and extra time) defensive lapses and you end-up losing a game you could have won. What made the loss even harder was getting to the Royal Bafokeng Stadium; it is a fairly new (1999), relatively small stadium (under 45K), not in a heavily populated area (Phokeng about 15 km from Rustenburg). Coming from Pretoria, the traffic jam started 80km east of Rustenburg (almost 100km from the Stadium) – we barely made it to the stadium in time.

This is a game for which we didn't have advanced tickets (it was "supposed to be" England's round of 16 game) so there were a great deal of extra tickets. We choose to split our group and Lior and I ended with great seats, at half time we noticed that Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger were in the box almost behind us (about 10m away). We were seating next to a group of younger US fans and when they started chanting his name he stood up and waived at them. Of course, both Lior and I forgot our cameras, but I did find this picture on the web (this might very well be him waving at us). Katie Couric which was also in the VIP box with them, come at half time to talk to us and actually spent a good 10 min talking about the game and asking the younger fans (who were shirtless) how they are handling the cold. I would rather have a win, but this is a nice memory to add to the mental scrap book.

Last night we went to the Argentina – Mexico game in Soccer city. The game was very entertaining and having the emotions out of the game does give you a different perspective on the game. Unlike the night before, getting to the parking was very easy and since we had advance tickets (I got them in May of last year) all four of us were seating together. On the down side, FIFA selling 5^th tier tickets as category 1 seems wrong (position wise on the field, the location was very good). The distance from the park and walk to the stadium was about 30+ min of brisk walk, however along the route were people selling everything from earplugs to vuvuzelas to pins, gloves and the traditional items for a game such as scarves and hats.

Tonight we got to see Brazil beat Chile, our seats were at mid-field, when we saw we had row B, in the upper deck we got very excited – once we got into our section we were told that the top row is "A" L. The game itself was a great deal of fun and the party with the Brazilian fans afterwards was even better. Once more it become clear that the vuvuzelas are vuvuZeval (Zeval = Garbage). No one could hear the fans celebrating until after the game was over and all the "garbage" producers left – the singing, the chanting, the cheering was the best atmosphere we have seen so far.

Video Review vs. 5 Ref System

Given the great success of the 5 Ref System (5RS) experiment in the Europa League it is a great shame that FIFA choose not to implement it in the World Cup, give credit to Michel Platini for trying to get it implemented in this WC. As I stated above the 5RS, can resolve a great deal more than just goal/no goal calls and all these are done in real time without stoppage in play. A 5RS is easy to implement, not costly, and can be used at all levels.

Video review (VR): if we use the NHL approach of only reviewing goals the benefit it will provide a great deal less than the 5RS. The costs will be higher and the game will suffer delays which could have impact on both playing time and quality. If we decide to review all "high impact" calls we will have to deal with half a dozen or so close calls in the area, about the same number of offside calls, add corner vs. goal kick, a few dive/no dive calls, and potential cards incidents and most games will see 20 review stoppages. When was the last time a review in any sporting event lasted for under 30 seconds? An average review will probably take at least a minute. Can you see the game handling 20 minutes of dead time? Getting to the 90^th minute will become next to meaningless.

Some claim that we can do VR only for obvious cases. Two problems: Where do you draw the line? How do you justify not overturning non-obvious cases in which the ref made the wrong call, but require looking at a second or third angle? These "non-obvious" are just as wrong, have as much impact and can be corrected using the same technology as the one used to correct the "obvious" cases. On the other hand if you review everything, how long will the game last? What will all the interruptions do to the game?

Another item to consider is that many of the calls in the game are "in the opinion of the referee". How is this going to impact VR? Is the Center Referee going to walk to a TV monitor anytime there is a question? Is the booth official going to override the referee's opinion? E.g. not all cases of a ball and hand touching each other are "hand ball". Some are fairly clear one way or the other, but some are such that different people will make different call and both will be within the laws of the game how are such cases going to be handled?

Are we going to prescribe even more to the referees as to how to make calls? This is happening with the 4Ds prescriptions for DOGSO and the result is that referees that are following the 4Ds are making worse decisions (from the sprint of the game point of view) compared with referees that are following the simple view of DOGSO (Deny an Obvious Goal-Scoring Opportunity); see A perfect DOGSO for one such example.