WC 2022: Numbers dropping rapidly

QF:

Brazil - Croatia 0-0 (1-1 aet, 2-4 penalties)

Netherlands - Argentina 2-2 (3-4 penalties)

Morocco - Portugal 1-0

France - England 2-1

SF:

Argentina - Croatia 3-0

France - Morocco 2-0

I have been deeply disturbed in this World Cup by real life's strong attempts to disturb my football watching. Whereas I was hoping to actually be in Qatar and see some of the games live, I ended up struggling for time to watch games because of work, a horrible throwback to the World Cup I have the least amount of recollection of, Germany 2006, which I could only watch on a small screen with bad reception and no sound.

Having said all that, I actually did see the first two quarters. I watched Brazil - Croatia with Ena, who not only is Croatian but also seems to care about how the team is doing. And I didn't think they'd do very well against Brazil until it happened. I think Brazil got the game wrong tactically, not going all out to score and thus entering into Croatia's slow grinding down. I didn't quite get what it is about Croatia's team that makes it so dangerous until Ian Wright said they're boring. I don't think it's boredom as such, but a very ingenious way of maximizing their resources. With an aging attacking compartment but a lot of strength and stamina in defense, the Croats knew they can absorb everything thrown at them, and against a flourishing Brazil side it's seldom you can do more than absorb. Keep them at arm's length, don't let them create that moment of magic. It works well for about 2 hours until Neymar's cartoon goal. 

I don't particularly like Neymar and I think he's massively overrated, but that goal was a moment of brilliance. It looked like he's suddenly two people, like when Flash or some fast-moving superhero in movies starts sprinting. Simply unstoppable, no matter how good your defense. 

I thought that was it, but credit to Croatia for coming back from it. A bit clunky, a bit lucky, with a speculative shot from a distance 3 minutes from time, but it worked. And to penalties they went, where it almost feels like Croatia is cheating. Livakovic is without a doubt the best keeper of the tournament in my eyes, so even when he doesn't necessarily keep the penalties out, he inspires a belief in his team-mates that makes them a lot calmer when shooting.

Penalties are a lottery, but in some lotteries, you have a better chance than in others. This was Brazil's story in this World Cup and we can talk about merit all we like, in games like these the tiniest of margins make the world of a difference.

I watched Argentina - Netherlands too, and I was impressed with the Dutch resilience and ability to come back from 2-0 down. Just as impressed with how loud the whole pub exploded for Netherlands' second goal, 100 minutes in. One point where I meet the English football fans is in their hatred for Argentina. it's funny, the Falklands War, Maradona's hand of God, Simeone's cheated elimination of Beckham in 1998, each event could have been enough to make the two countries dislike each other, but all of them combined... it's hard to see a way back for that dislike.

The cards are stacked for Messi to win this World Cup, and unfortunately the Netherlands was a victim of that. Because otherwise, they were the better team.

I tried to not know the result of the other two quarter-finals, but that's close to impossible if you're out in the world or if you touch a device connected to the internet. All the more so when England is playing, and everyone everywhere has their TVs, laptops, and phones connected to the game. So I made peace with the fact I won't live the emotions in real-time, so I had to settle for 3-minutes highlights of Morocco - Portugal. Which told me very little except for the score and the fact that Bruno had the draw in his boot twice, but he was unlucky on both occasions. Especially when he hit the post.

I'm sad for Portugal, but happy for Morocco, and I kind of supported them against France. I'm very happy to finally see an African team in the semi-finals, but I would've much preferred it to be a sub-Saharean team. I said it before, I associate Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, or Ghana much more with African football's values and traditions rather than Morocco or Egypt, which represents the Middle East more than Africa. Besides, Morocco is this weird intersection of Africa, Europe, and the Arab World, with a finger in each of these but belonging fully to neither. But beyond my biased geo-political views, the Atlas Lions played an amazing tournament and deserve their bit of history.

I saw even less of France - England, little else than the memes about Harry Kane's penalty going above the bar. But that's ok. The English don't know how to enjoy football, or anything, really. They always go overboard. When the national team wins an important match, they'll be noisy and annoying, they'll create chaos on the streets, break windows, destroy bus stations, and make the city an unpleasant sight overall. When England loses, everyone goes home quietly, and the most unpleasant sight you can see is some tearful child who'll grow to know better. So well done, France! Ramenez la coupe a la maison...

The semifinals I did see, even though I had to suffer through the hour-long ITV build-up to the game, because the amazing new ITV player cannot fast forward, in exchange for bombarding the viewers with huge chunks of publicity and buffering worse than illegal streams. To have the World Cup broadcast in such awful conditions is actually outrageous and it's one of the stupid quirks of this country that the media regulator does not take any sort of position towards the public being basically abused by the whims of a private TV channel.

Anyway...

I will grant this: Argentina was the better team against Croatia, and deserving winners of the game. Even though the penalty from which Messi opened the scoring was very, very soft. Remember that thing about cards being stacked in his favor? On full display on that penalty. What was Livakovic supposed to do? Let the guy just pass him? There was no hit or intention of hitting. If anything, it was an attacking foul. But as we have seen, without a little help from his FIFA friends, Messi isn't even able to beat Saudi Arabia.

And we ordered Lebanese food to watch France - Morocco. Yeah, I know, other side of the Mediterranean, but we live in the West, ok? If they have weird curly hair, that's good enough. So yeah, I did support Morocco, and I felt for their very hearty fans, but unfortunately the players didn't as much. Yeah, of course, France is a great team and very hard to beat, but you know what makes it harder to beat them? Not shooting when you have a clear sight on goal! Not attacking the player in full force and holding back when he's through on goal! In some ways, the result of this game was not as important, Morocco will bask in the glory of this semifinal forever now, but how much more of a bigger story would it have been if they won the World Cup? Earth-shattering, dare I say, it would have shifted the geo-political situation of the Mediterranean basin. But they weren't ready, obviously.

Worrying that they were able to dominate France so thoroughly for some 20 minutes or so, but I still fancy Les Bleus to win it. Well, it would be horrible otherwise, wouldn't it?

Ramenez la coupe a la maison...