By JEREMY BROWN
One Great Season
Finally, it happened. After days of waiting, of bloodshot eyes and bollixed sleep, of unmet expectations and rationalizations to nonbelievers, of enduring untold hours of something we might grudgingly call boredom, it finally came to pass. It took a whole week, but there was no rest on this seventh day. At long last, thanks to Thursday's scintillating Group B matches, the World Cup has begun.
The slow start has inspired and, as much as it pains me to admit, partially vindicated the usual batch of glib, anti-soccer myopia from the tired old guard of sportswriters concerned with little more than a quick swipe at something they've never bothered to familiarize themselves with. But we know better, and today was our reward. Argentina's 4-1 shellacking of a game South Korea and Greece's engrossing one-goal triumph over Murphy's Law victims Nigeria injected some life, some balls and some reverence for the art of attack into a tournament largely characterized by negative tactics, packed defenses, misfiring superstars, candy-assed you-call-yourself-a-fucking-man-? divers, limp-wristed goalkeepers, errant passing, hopeless shots destined for Row Z, and the mystifying starting berth of the biggest boondoggler in sports today, Sergio Busquets.
Oh sure, we've had our moments:
+ USA v England was fun for a chuckle but the haplessness of it all was a general affront to the game
+ Are North Korea lucky or plucky?
+ And couldn't one ask the same of Brazil?
+ It's always amusing watching someone get beat up, though enough becomes enough after awhile as we learned from Germany
+ Switzerland's bland win was less an upset than upsetting to sit through
+ And then there's the stuff I don't really remember, or perhaps repressed ...
Unless I was hallucinating, ESPN on Wednesday ran a "close calls" highlight ticker along the bottom of the screen following Spain's loss, with announcements going something like: "David Villa's 37th minute shot flies just over crossbar." If that's not a commentary for a dull tournament, I don't know what is.
But thanks to Thursday, the tide has changed, beginning with a Gonzalo Higuain hat trick and ending with a stout-hearted yet slipshod Nigerian effort in the face of dissolution.
Argentina v South Korea
Lionel Messi, the only superstar yet to exhibit anything resembling superstardom, had a hand in all four Argentina goals, leading a swarming crew of attackers that one could very well mistake as the cause for all that buzzing you hear, if we didn't already know the lame, lame truth. Higuain proved the main beneficiary, adroitly placing himself amid a tattered and exasperated South Korean defense to earn a trio of poacher's goals, including the easiest put-away in the history of soccer. Maxi Rodriguez started in place of the injured Juan Sebastian Veron, whose controlled, elegant passing game may, one can't help but wonder, actually handcuff Argentina's natural rampaging tendencies.
The Tigers of Asia should be applauded for their unwillingness to sit back, though a lack of precision in the final third proved their undoing, exemplified by a potentially game-tying second-half miss that I'm confident Yeom Ki-hun will be ruing on his deathbed. Indeed, the South Koreans’ man of the match was Martin Demichelis, who should seriously consider a career in shampoo commercials. Thankfully, Messi and company eventually disabused Bayern's bungling backliner, likely keeping him off suicide watch for the second time. Addressing the injury to center defender Walter Samuel will be top priority for Maradona.
Nigeria v Greece
Now this was a great match. A "monumentous day" for Greece as ESPN's Mike Tirico would have it. Nigeria took an early lead through a well-taken free kick from Kalu Uche. It was one of those dreaded damned if you do, damned if you don't shot/cross hybrids from the corner of the box, where the keeper is loathe to come off his line because it's a bit too far out, but can't really stay on his line because it'll just bounce into the far corner. Welp, in this case it was the latter, and the Nigerians were riding high until the 34th minute, when Sani Keita got himself sent off. After a pissy little sideline tussle, Keita aimed a half-hearted Rockette kick at fullback Vassilis Torosidis, who produced this year's Rivaldo moment, crumpling into a ball like he just got kicked in the nuts by Fedor Emelianenko. It was nothing, but as a player you have to know that these officious, card-carrying little guys with whistles will look for any excuse to make the game about them. And so it went.
Smelling blood, Greece coach Otto Rehhagel swapped defensive midfielder Socratis Papastathopoulos for Celtic forward and Jesus impersonator Georgios Samaras in search of a miracle: the first ever Greek goal in a World Cup. And Hallelujah, a few minutes later, Dimitris Salpingidis, who doesn’t look much at all like Jesus, put a deflected shot past a blameless Victor Enyeama.
This was not Nigeria’s day. Ten minutes into the second half, left back Taye Taiwo was forced off with an injury. Twenty minutes later, his replacement, Uwa Echiejile, also made the long slow limp to the sideline. And at some point in between, Enyeama ruins his burgeoning reputation by spilling a fairly routine 25-yard shot right into the path of Torosidis, who somehow recovered from that crushing blow he suffered earlier to put his country up 2-1. Despite playing a man down for most of the match, Nigeria, while naturally cautious, never passed up an opportunity to advance up the pitch in numbers. With Greece pushing hard, it made for damn entertaining stuff. But in the end, injuries, foolish ejections and goalkeeping blunders conspired to relegate the Africans to dead last in Group B, with no points, one goal and little hope.
Click here for Jeremy's bio and an archive of his previous stories.