After two horrendous days without the usual kick obtained from the daily dose of World Cup football, in which the very thought of the long days between 12 July to August or the start of the new season of the club season in most of Europe, we have the quarter finals of the World Cup 2010 in South Africa underway. The last 8 of the competition is usually where the competition starts to get really interesting with teams having moved to the higher gears as well as now finally able to unleash the much conserved energy from the Group Stage and this is where the big boys are finally colliding. Although the downside is that from here onwards, the World Cup looks more like an Intercontinental Cup, a hybrid of the European Championship and the Copa America. Back to the topic at hand, the first match of the last 8 was between Holland and Brazil. This match was intriguing as it was a game of two halves, belonging to the respective teams. In the first half, the justification and the real mechanism of Dunga's much criticism set up of the team was shown. In the second half, it was the moment when a certain masterstroke decision made by the Holland manager Bert van Marwijk finally showed in the half which was totally Oranje in color. Thus, keeping that in mind, I will just go about writing this by dividing it into two, about Brazil, and about Holland according to each half owned by each of them.
So the first half belonged to Brazil, thus I will start from here. Dunga's team have been heavily criticized by pundits around the world including Brazil itself (although it owed greatly to Dunga's frosty relationship with the Brazilian media but that's another story) for being veered of so far from the track of traditional flashy, ultra attacking, samba football. However, in this World Cup 2010 so far, we have seen Brazil taking care of opponents so ruthlessly and efficiently (the Portugal game excluded as it was pretty much a dead rubber) from the resolute DPRK in the first match, to the strong Ivory Coast, and the last victim before this match was the attractive Chile. For a team in the very image of Dunga, just like how those pundits would say it, the actual results and performance of the team so far only contradict their arguments! The first half showed that Dunga has cleverly set up this team in two images and literally sliced this team into two, and then implement two totally different mindsets and ways to play the game. 5 players, from Julio Cesar the goalkeeper, the two center backs Juan and Lucio, as well as the two defensive midfielders (and this is where the critics draw their fuel from) Felipe Melo and Gilberto Silva all have the defensive mindset.
Thus, for this part of the team, it is collectively a huge, rigid, and unforgiving block of ice in which the play is no frills, ultra defensive mentality (except for Lucio in his occasional forward gallops). Then we have the two wing backs Michel Bastos and Maicon, as well as Dani Alves for the right hand side as he played for the injured midfield Elano can all be considered as the flowing water. They take on the dual role of attacking and defending. While up front,players such as Kaka, Robinho, and Luis Fabiano (and Elano if fit) are all the raging fire in the team. All of them, especially Kaka and Robinho, are given a free role and also high creative freedom. They are also not required at all to track back and help to defend and also to regain possession so staunchingly when off the ball. That task I left to the first layer of the aforementioned rigid ice block of Felipe Melo and Gilberto Silva (the two defensive midfielders). The raging fire area of the team is simply where the traditional samba football of Brazil is being executed, and that's why they are able to stay strong and solid at the back, while exhibiting loose and delightful attacking moves up front, unlike the all flashy attacking team of 2006 with their famous (or infamous) 4-2-4 formation with virtually a 2 men defense as the wing back go up so far alongside the strikers most of the times.
However, this Brazil team has one great weakness which would send them back all the way to Brazil in this encounter with Holland. Any raging fire can be doused, and water can be parched, while any solid bloc of ice can be melt or even exploded. To be more precise and to the point, this Brazil team is very prone to provocations and anything of that sort. Just recall the dead rubber Group G encounter against Portugal in which both teams were already in the last 16 and that a draw was the best result for both teams, we all remember that in the first half of that match, it almost turned into a fracas as Brazilian players, especially Felipe Melo (remember this name for the subsequent paragraphs) who was substituted even before half time to prevent further card collection. Things calmed down only in the second half and we know it ended 0-0. Thus, despite Brazil's domination in this very match in which Robinho scored after such a beautiful move as Felipe Melo, of all people sent a delightful through ball to Robinho to score the first goal at the 9th minute. Everyone surely felt that it was the first of so many to come in that match, especially with Brazil's continuing to dominate proceedings as they created more chances to make it 2-0 at least and pretty much seal the game for themselves. This failure to go beyond 1-0, an always dangerous scoreline to keep throughout the match, as well as the success of the Dutch tactics as will be explained later, contributed to their downfall.
As for Holland, they were the masters of the second half. In the actual fact, their dominance did not start after the half time team talk in their dressing room. A closer look at how their players were lined up prior to the game suggested that Holland had already won half of the match even before any ball was kicked. One doesn't have to look so far but just look at their wings. Let's start with the Dutch left wing. Usually, it's Rafael van der Vaart who is there, but he was not there.. No, Eljero Elia was not there too. Dirk Kuyt was there! Why? We want Elia, not that burly slow guy! But it was the first of two masterstrokes by the Dutch coach. The Brazilian right flank (Dutch's left) was populated by two of the most dangerous right wing backs in the world, Maicon and Dani Alves. Someone has to defend them, and certainly the ageing Giovanni van Bronckhorst cannot do it alone and he has to have a reliable cover. Kuyt was the man. He proved he was able to keep up with Maicon and Dani Alves, especially the former and even in the first half, we saw how in a few instances Kuyt was able to block off and/or hold them up physically so they they were not able to weave their magical feet.
Now, the second and most significant masterstroke by the Dutch. Robben again started ton the right wing. This time, there was a real purpose. Brazil actually has a huge weak link and that's the left back position, left wing as a whole to be precise. With the formation and the aforementioned system that Dunga is employing, the defensive duties on the left flank would fall to the inexperienced and rather shaky Michel Bastos and also Felipe Melo (who happened to be the left side of the two DMCs). Both of them had the task to contain Robben. But Robben was not going to make life so easy for both of them, and for Brazil as a whole to be precise. In the first half, precisely at the 34th minute, the Dutch won a corner, and Robben was about to take it. However, he tried a strange and peculiar trick in which he tried to catch the whole Brazil squad off guard by running and slightly touching the ball, and thus the corner kick was deemed to be taken while pretending that the corner had not been taken and that he pretended to left the corner duty to Sneijder. However, before the real purpose of that unfolded, Dani Alves was alert enough to realize that and closed the ball down before further damage was caused from that.
That's not the end for Robben. Actually, this had started from as early as the 2nd minute when he fell down easily and the match almost turned into a fracas when Brazilian players especially Robinho were visibly furious and unhappy. The second half was even worse. It was so visible that the Dutch attacks were to be concentrated solely on their right flank, and thus Robben was the focal point of their attack. Michel Bastos was on a yellow card (also because of trying to contain Robben) and he was clearly overwhelmed by the antics of Robben, his skills as well as the fact that he went down far too easily most of the time in the match. One such incident at the 51st minute resulted in the Dutch equalizer when a Dutch free kick was passed to Sneijder, and Sneijder launched a long lob which Julio Cesar decided to go off his line to catch the lob when he collided with Felipe Melo and the defender simply deflected the ball into the net, thus he scored an own goal.
By this time, there was an observable phenomenon I would dub the “Robben Effect” in which prior incidents involving the literally flying Dutchman caused Brazilian players to not dare to close Robben down in fear that he would fall down so easily again, the ref buys it and more damage to Brazil. Robben was increasingly getting freer and freer on the Dutch right flank. Dunga finally decided to take off the beleaguered Michel Bastos for Gilberto Melo, but the sub was no better than the man he replaced and it was useless. In the 67th minute, things got even worse for Brazil as the Dutch got a corner, and from a Kuyt flick on, Sneijder was totally unmarked and he had a free header in which he scored the winning goal from. For a player of Sneijder's height to score from that kind of header, anyone can be sure that no marking existed. At the 72nd minute, worse became worst as Robben fell down for the umpteenth time, and very easily. This left Felipe Melo so frustrated that he perhaps stupidly stamped the Dutchman repeatedly on his hamstring, and the Japanese referee had no choice but to give Felipe Melo a straight red card in which his face told the whole story as if he knew what was coming and he left the field immediately without any protesting antics. Towards the end of the match, the dutch were so dominating, and the Robben Effect so prevalent that even Mark van Bommel and Dirk Kuyt were able to waltz around the Brazil penalty area just like how Cristiano Ronaldo did and do to BPL and La Liga defenses respectively week in week out. Nevertheless, they failed to score the third goal but it was enough to knock Brazil out.
The Dutch will now face either Ghana or Uruguay in the semi-finals and credit to their manager Bert van Marwijk for the absolute masterstrokes as mentioned which totally showed that in chess terms, he was thinking 3 or even 10 moves ahead prior to the match when he set the team up for this match up. As for Brazil, after all those wins, their ultimate flaws and weaknesses of the teams (read: easily provoked, left back position) were so ruthlessly and perhaps cruelly exposed literally to the world. Dunga, or whoever is in charge of Brazil next must really put a lid on those weaknesses and rebuild again for the future, starting from the Copa America next year, and Brazilian media, as well as so many pundits around the world will now have plenty of ammunition to attack Dunga with, but life goes on, and for Brazil, this is just like the overly used and almost cliched French phrase, “C'est la Vie...”
No comments:
Post a Comment