Football: Pragmatism and intrigue

I don’t know about you, but for me the European Football Championship, that has passed its halfway point and is full of contrast.

To tell the truth, despite my great affection for this sport, I felt drowsy watching most of the matches. The extremely pragmatic football playing, including that by the tournament favorites, made one think that they all went out on the field for everything except for football and its true enthusiasts.  They did it for the coaching staff, to improve their technical and tactical statistics, to put money into their personal banking accounts and yelling fans, for whom football is just a reason to get drunk and fight.

The football players butted heads, sweated, panted, suffered, but did not play, in the true sense of the word. It was only near the end of the matches, when one of the teams ‘suddenly’ discovered that the score on the scoreboard was not to their liking that they finally decided to step things up. That made me wake up, but again, it was only fragments of the game.

Well, what one could say about the Swedish team’s play, given the fact that they did not send one ball through the opponents’ goalposts, even though a superstar such as Zlatan Ibrahimović was playing in the team. Germany modestly won a match against Northern Ireland; France had a draw with Switzerland, England, with a full pack of young stars blew Russia away. Italians are play a defensive game with any rival.

For quite a long time the feeling never left me that “real” football with all its ‘magicians’ had moved from Europe to another continent, where the Copa America tournament was underway, and the Russian championship also took the limelight. There was definitely passion, beauty and grace on display. It’s clear that I mean the Copa America tournament. What did you think I meant?

It was a pleasure to watch Messi, Chili and Colombia. Even the defeated Mexicans look good. However here, Ignashevich sluggishly passed the ball to Berezutski who, in turn, passed it back to Ignashevich. This was done about forty-five times per match.

It is noteworthy that Russian defenders from every squad had great sequences. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the statistics of the tournament’s best passers, where most of the time central defenders were passing the ball back and forth to each other, and you will understand the nature of my half-daze.

We can say that the European Championship had some fortune in that there was a large time difference and matches in the USA took place late at night. Otherwise, the TV companies that spent large sums of money on live coverage of the football matches to keep the watchers up, would have to sponsor “football hooligans for battle.” Of course, that’s a joke.

However, the group stage compensates for its lack of excitement by its intrigue. Thanks should be given to Michel Platini, who changed the championship format to 24 teams, otherwise we would not have seen, for example, Hungary in such a tournament.

The Hungarian team was sent to football’s no man land after its lopsided defeat 0-6 way back in 1986. Many people thought that even a single goal during the group stage would bring happiness to the team. They suprised everyone by taking first place in their group and demonstrated an exciting game.

Let’s take Iceland.  They had an unexpected rise from nowhere. While the Hungarians have a glorious history, despite being covered with a thick layer of dust, Iceland doesn’t have any at all. To be more precise, they are creating it now. If you think that these descendants of Vikings have already tripped over themselves and have no prospects in the play offs with the English team, don’t count them out too early.

I liked Croatia most of all. It’s probably the only squad that at the group stage displayed any estheticism, akin to what can be witnessed in Copa America. When Croatia had a twenty minutes left in the game against the Czechs, leading 2-0, they suddenly relaxed and decided to play just to maintain the score. They paid for it.

As a result, the match ended in a draw. Whereas, the Croatians, who were surely ashamed of what had happened, dealt with the Spaniards in the next match. It must be noted, they played without their key star, Luka Modrić.

In view of the teams’ positions during the play-off schedule, the Croatian team is regarded as the main contender for being shortlisted for the final, unless the Belgians can recollect themselves.

There will be a fierce fight for another pass to the final, featuring the Germans, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians and the Englishmen. In this case, only pragmatism, similar to what was displayed in the group stage, will hardly be enough for a victory. For what reason do we really love football?

Р.S. I’d better not mention how the Russian and Ukrainian squads performed, though I rooted for them like for my own team, in accordance with the age-old Soviet tradition. Anyway, they are already home.

Photo: http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/draws/

Published: 25.07.2016