Plenty to get upset about
Football's wonder and ugliness 'revealed' in blockbuster quarters
And then there were four, they just weren’t the four most were expecting, unless you happened to gleefully get on to Morocco when they were paying $300 at the start of the tournament.
They’re paying $11 now, which still seems quite generous considering they’ve conceded one goal all tournament and even then they had to score it themselves, with Nayef Aguerd sticking one in his own net just to make Canada feel a little better about themselves.
Still, they won’t beat France… will they?
That very real chance of an upset is football’s greatest gift and, just occasionally, it’s biggest weakness. Because the scoring zone is so much smaller than in oval-ball codes, it’s easier to set yourselves up to prevent a sphere travelling into a small rectangle than it is to stop a human crossing a line.
In other words you can be demonstrably less skilful than the other team and win a big game. You won’t win a league by being less talented, because you can’t sustain the talent imbalance over 38 games, but you can go a long way in a tournament that has a maximum of seven games.
That makes for the sort of great storylines you can’t get in a Rugby World Cup because 19 times out of 20, the stronger team wins a 15-a-side game. There were more pool stage upsets in this Fifa World Cup than there has been in the history of Rugby World Cups.
That makes for great storylines and, as I said, occasionally very dull games as weaker teams limit their ambition to trying not to concede while hoping to pinch a goal.
(Even then, I should qualify that by saying I find those types of games extremely dull; others with a more nuanced football appreciation can find beauty in that struggle.)
If you want bright lights, the biggest occasion and the biggest names, then you’re probably hoping for a France-Argentina final. But there’s also something enticing about the prospect of Croatia-Morocco and a first-time winner.
After being a little disappointed in general at the coverage of this World Cup, I’ve found some gems this week.
Barney Ronay’s part sympathetic, part gleeful evisceration of Neymar’s endpoint as a crassly commercialised icon was something to behold, even if the analogy with the dismantling of Stadium 974 was a touch strained.
Why does Neymar annoy people? Because he’s annoying. The on-pitch theatrics have been grim to watch, most notably the Total Tantrum-Ball stuff in 2018 and the habit of always appealing to the referee, something the journalist Tim Vickery says has links to growing up as a futsal kid, a discipline where fouls are called constantly and the ref is always on hand.
Then there is the gaudy inanity of his public persona. The interminable Netflix documentary, intended to showcase the real Neymar, did exactly that, revealing in turgid, painful detail the basic boredom and airlessness of being Neymar…
This is perhaps the key point about the sporting life of Neymar Jr, beyond the sparkle and the rage; an inescapable note of sadness. Nobody does this to themselves. Football made this thing, the Neymar identity; football will do this, will take your talent and transform it into something grotesque. This is one more reason Neymar inspires such apparently genuine antipathy. Like so many things at this grand-scale pastiche of a World Cup, he can often look like a parody of footballing joy, talent, freedom. Here is the spirit and the beauty that made you love this thing; but reproduced now as a corporate-greed avatar, weaponised as propaganda and soft power.
I was enjoying the predictable Eurocentric Argentina bashing after their victory against the Netherlands, much like it used to tickle me when Australia saw themselves as the moral arbiter of what “the line” was in cricket.
Turns out, they had a very specific reason for taunting the saintly Dutch and while it might have been childish, it definitely wasn’t just being douchebags for the sake of it.
In The Athletic ($), Sam Lee found the whole fracas mildly amusing, which seems like the best place to be on all of this.
This kind of stuff is part of the game and, more than that, it’s part of what makes the World Cup special. And even if teams act like that without provocation, isn’t that part of the fun, too? … It’s all part of the rich tapestry of football. What’s the alternative? No bad guys? No trouble? How boring would that be? In fact, you need bad guys.
Oliver Holt in the Daily Mail did not find it funny, not one bit.
By now, you’ve probably seen the startling picture of his team-mates goading the Dutch side in the moment of Argentina’s triumph in the penalty shoot-out. There’s nothing beautiful about that. It’s ugly. Really ugly. That picture should fill everyone who sees it with disgust and disdain. It’s the opposite of what sport should be.
Tell you what though, that image of the Argentine players running to taunt/ celebrate will be one of the photos of the year, and not just for sports either. Incredible.
Argentina v Croatia, Lusail, Wednesday 8am, Sky Sport 1
France v Morocco, Al Khor, Thursday 8am, Sky Sport 1
On a much sadder note, US journalist Grant Wahl collapsed and died at the stadium while covering that match. There was a time when Sports Illustrated was great and reporters like Wahl, who saw it as his calling to fly the flag for the biggest sport in the world in one of the few places where it was not the behemoth, was one of the reasons why.
More recently he started his Futbol substack.
While football was his passion, his most famous story was LeBran James’ first SI cover.
Click on this link for the story in full, but if you can’t be bothered, here’s the first few paragraphs to give you an idea of how to make a story sell - combine the most famous player to play the game with its hottest prospect and stand back…
Resplendent in a sleek navy blue suit, his burnished dome gleaming in the light, Michael Jordan steps into the tunnel of Cleveland’s Gund Arena, flashes a million-watt smile and gives LeBron James, the top high school player in the country, a warm, we’re-old-pals handshake. “Where’s Mama?” Jordan asks.
“She’s in New Orleans,” LeBron says, grinning at the memory of how well his mother, Gloria, had gotten on with Jordan when they met in Chicago last summer.
It’s 10pm on the last night of January, and the moment feels charged, even a little historic. Remember that photograph of a teenaged Bill Clinton meeting JFK? Same vibe. Here, together, are His Airness and King James, the 38-year-old master and the 17-year-old prodigy, the best of all time and the high school junior whom some people - from drooling NBA general managers to warring shoe company execs to awestruck fans - believe could be the Air Apparent.
Qatari photojournalist Khalid al-Misslam also died suddenly while covering the tournament.
Thank heavens for the Pakistan England series, the second test of which is bubbling towards another terrific conclusion tonight, with the hosts 198-4 chasing 355 to win.
This is cricket’s time of the year to shine but to call the offering anaemic at the moment is probably not capturing the true extent of the iron deficiency.
That second test between Australia and the West Indies was godawful, just dreadful cricket.
Meanwhile, the Super Smash is gearing up for the most low-wattage season in its shorts history.
Young fellas, don’t be like Jarome Luai if you’re ever asked to be your mate’s best man.
I’m not sure whether there’s any real point to this other than to get some exposure for the sponsors but for all youse that knew there was a record to be had in wind-powered land speed, it’s makes a nice pic.
The first reply under the Herald tweet is quite droll, too.
Apologies for not replying to feedback from Friday’s Bounce. I had a full weekend without switching on laptop and really quite enjoyed it! I might be doing more of that this summer.
I had a few people write to me to tell me the volleyball revolution in girls’ sport is already well underway, with David noting that it was the second-biggest sport for female participation in secondary school behind only netball, and that basketball’s participation “hype” in New Zealand did not extend to girls.
Sally H, whose tech Substack, Impactish, you can find here, wrote that it’s been a “vibrant” below-the-surface sport for some time, with well-organised secondary school tournaments, before adding this interesting note: “Arguably it’s continued this way because guess who DOESN’T tend to offer volleyball - the private schools. So, no over-coaching [or] money flowing in to make it dominated by one or two schools.”
Colleen wrote to say her daughters made the switch from basketball to volleyball early on at high school and have not looked back, finding that latter far better organised and with more opportunities.
Interesting.
Thanks also to Peter and Jamie who corrected my England “lap of honour scandal” reference noting that it was after the first test loss at Old Trafford (where a LoH would seem more understandable, given they rarely play in the north), not the drawn second test. Kudos for reading the footnotes!
The Argentinian reaction had a lot to do with Dutch gamesmanship and intimidation during the shootout.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/dec/10/argentina-take-dutch-devilry-beyond-the-bitter-end-in-the-fracas-in-qatar