Thoughts from the First Week

It comes once every four years, and when it does, the world watches in rapt attention. Unlike cricket though, the interim period does not ensure heavyweight international fights equivalent to the Ashes, India-Pak, Aus-SA etc. For instance, when was the last time Argentina played Germany? I don't know the answer to that one. But I do know that the last time Argentina played Holland was back in 1998. As you might know, 9 months of every year is taken up by the club fixtures, thus depriving the internationals of any time. Don't get me wrong, club football enthralls and holds my undivided attention. But how about working out a balance between club matches and Internationals? Anyway, this is not the time to moan, considering that there has been enough happening to spark a full-fledged celebration. So, let's talk about that...

Memory can be tricky. There are those that swear that anything past was best, while current trend is to call the latest the greatest. Not sure about my judgment either. But to my mind, the fare dished out at this WC has been nothing short of exhilarating. And I do not remember this sensation during the '94, '98 or '02 WCs.

Being a sucker for the traditional giants, I did not appreciate the sensational runs of South Korea and Senegal last time around. As I write, we are mid-way through the second round of group matches and but for France, all the heavyweights have won their matches and look poised to take their place in the second round. Ivory Coast, Ghana have shown a lot of skill and fight and can consider themselves unlucky to be going out at the group stage. But the way I see it, their duty is to come to the party, make it interesting and fly back at the end of the second week. 270 minutes of glory should be good enough for teams with 1 or 2 stars.

Check this out. If things go according to plan (my plan, that is), a possible list of second round matches look like this..

England vs Germany
Argentina/Nederlands vs Portugal
Italy/Czech Republic vs Brazil
France vs Spain

And before that happens, we have Argentina vs Nederlands and Czech Republic vs Italy coming up from the final round of the group stage. Enough matchups there to make me seriously consider giving up my carefully saved up India vacation time for a visit to an English pub to watch the games. And I might as well have done so if my colleagues/managers weren't exactly watching all the games at work.

Exhilarating is good. Big names are great. Open football is even better. But without quality goals, football would not be the five course meal at Caesar's Palace that it is meant to be. Happily, ever since Lahm started the deluge 6 minutes after the World Cup started, by cutting in from the left flank, and placing the ball at the top right corner of the goal, the wonder strikes have rained incessantly. What about Frings' thunderbolt in the same match....or, the Riquelme conducted orchestra aided and abetted by Saviola...or, Tevez wrongfooting one defender and then nutmegging the next before slotting one home against Serbia....or, Rosicky's couple of blinders against the USA. We are only 1 week into the tournament and I can vouch that atleast a couple of these will rank above the best from '02. And I am not even talking about the one that Argentina scored, or should I say composed today against Serbia. To compare it to a goal from recent memory is travesty. As a BEAUTIFUL goal, to my amateur and prejudiced mind, it ranks above the 1970 classic scored by the Brazilians. 25 passes!!! That's right. 25 passes in the Serb half, slowly working the ball around, treading it through non-existent spaces, building up momentum, a delightful breakthrough pass by Saviola, a magnificient one-two between Cambiasso and Crespo and then an elegantly simple finish!!! 'Beautiful goal' does not do justice and neither does my football parlance.

Which leads me nicely to the form of the Argentines. Thanks to the aforementioned reason about a lack of Internationals between World Cups, I am watching them in action for the first time since 2002, and if you know what happened there, you can be sure that there are no pleasant memories from then. So, to go from that to what the world is witnessing now, is a quantum shift in ability, elegance and more importantly, results (thus far). Two rounds into the group of death, the qualifiers are set and their order to be determined coming Wednesday (Argentina vs Nederlands - the final before the final). Can't wait!!!