Goal glut welcome as defensive stalemates get the boot
PUBLISHED ONJune 16, 2014 6:00 PMByRob Hughes
Brazil waited 64 years to stage a World Cup, and right from the kick-off it feels that the pulse is moving at an exceptional pace.
The first image that stunned me was the statue of Christ the Redeemer, back-lit in yellow, green and blue Brazilian colours, overlooking Rio de Janeiro.
Down in the stadiums, where mere mortals play (at least until Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo get going), something also stirs the emotions.
Brazil's national team are up and winning, without jogo bonito but with goals from their talisman Neymar and gifts from the referee.
Mexico winning despite another ref who made them score three goals to count a single one. Chile putting the Aussies to the sword.
Goals everywhere. But nowhere like Salvador on the second night of the competition, where the Dutch deflowering of world champions Spain was the biggest first-round shock most of us can remember in our lifetime.
Forty-eight hours is no time at all to gauge a month-long event. Yet this World Cup does already feel different, with 15 goals scored in four games far, far more than we anticipated.
Where did caution go?
This World Cup, I think and I hope, has the sensations that we have not felt since Mexico 1986. There are similarities in the temperatures, the Latin excitability that surrounds the games, the sudden tropical downpours, the sheer love of football by the host population.
Come play for us is, or ought to be, a compelling message to any sportsman.
Maybe I'm being romantic here, and judging a tournament way too early in its evolution.
There were, certainly, extenuating circumstances to the Dutch rout of Spain. The Spaniards arrived handicapped by the fact that three of their clubs went all the way to the finals of the Champions League and the Europa League in late May.
Barcelona, the core of this Spanish national XI, became embroiled to the final weekend in a head-to-head contest which they ultimately lost to Atletico Madrid.
We already questioned how many times the players like Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta and Co could sustain the hunger to keep on winning when their fortunes, their reputations, their ambitions were already secure and probably sated.
We knew, too, that defensively Carles Puyol, who was forced to retire through persistent injuries, had been a leader and a rock to both Barcelona and Spain. He was no great player in the technical sense, but he knew how to goad, to organise, and to invigorate those in his team who could be.
Take out the spiritual leader, the warrior if you like, and it is a hard, hard role to replace.
But beyond that, beyond Barca, was the four-year hurt that gnawed away at the Dutch soul. That team knew they had let themselves down four years ago, and had thrown away the chance of winning the final by betraying their skills for an attempt at physical brutality against Spain.
The Netherlands lost a leader as well since that unhappy day. Mark van Bommel, the leader of destruction in the Oranje team, a bigger villain even than Nigel de Jong, has gone now. Retired, and not at all missed.
So the Dutch dug deep, and Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben were liberated to show their scoring brilliance.
It is too early to say whether that means the Netherlands are a good bet to win the 2014 tournament, and Spain are a spent force. One game, even with all the psychological effect it might have, does not tell us much.
The Spanish have spent the last two weeks trying to rest and recuperate from a long, extended season; the Dutch have been able to lie in wait, to prepare physically and tactically for this rematch of the final in Johannesburg four years ago.
After 44 minutes in Salvador, would you have suspected that Spain were about to implode and the Dutch were about to impose such a mighty retribution upon them?
Me neither.
But isn't this why we just love football? The sheer unpredictability of it all is part of the compulsion.
With luck, the 48-hour goal rush will become a permanent pattern. Goals in the World Cup had been on a downward curve for decades.
The first era of the tournament, from Uruguay in 1930 to Sweden in 1958, provided 4.3 goals per game on average. The last period, from Italy in 1990 to South Africa in 2010, had squeezed that down to 2.4 goals per game.
The sport was becoming like a dried up prune. Defensive caution, encouraged by the changed format that split up the teams into group phases before the knock-out rounds, prevailed.
Score a goal and shut up shop was the catch phrase. Save energy for the next round and the next.
But something else is afoot this time. In the conditions here, it is harder to maintain concentration, harder to keep the defensive shape. When the body tires, the mind wanders; and in heat and humidity, as you know better than me, concentration is lost.
It takes only a matter of seconds for van Persie or Robben to punish any lapse.
But the climate might actually be just the excuse for failing defenders. In the top European leagues, which is where most of the World Cup players are employed nearly 10 months of the year, the grip of defences has weakened appreciably.
In La Liga, in the Bundesliga, even in the English Premier League, goal records have been smashed with each succeeding season. Barcelona and the two Madrids, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, the Manchester clubs and this season Liverpool, have rung up 100 goals in a season as if it were routine.
In part, that's because with so much wealth held by so few clubs, they can stockpile strikers. But it is also the case (happily) that few clubs are defending as well or as systematically as they used to do - with the exception of teams coached by Jose "Park the Bus" Mourinho.
And he isn't at this World Cup.
This article was first published on June 15, 2014.
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