Germany 4 x Argentina 0

The last time Argentina were so convincingly beaten in the World Cup was when they suffered a 6-1 thrashing at the feet of Czechoslovakia in 1958. Argentina had refused to participate in the World Cups of 1938, 1950, and 1954. Their rude re-introduction to international football was a national embarrassment, the defeat figuring heavily in the national consciousness for decades. The utter thrashing that Maradona's side suffered today will never be forgotten and has permanently altered the historical trajectory of El Pibe de Oro.

Argentina never came together as a whole team during the reign of Don Diego. The attack had nothing to do with the defense and vice versa. His team selections were based as much on personality as capability, and those who didn't fit in with Diego's worldview (Riquelme, Camibasso, Zanetti) were dropped or refused to play for him. Their absences were cruical to today's result. There was no one to distribute the ball through the center of midfield as Mascherano was busy trying to catch Schweinsteiger. The initial dependence on Veron for creative attacking gave way to...nothing. Riquelme!

Otamendi had performed better than Gutierrez on at right back, but today, all four goals came from Germany's left flank, where Zanetti (captain of Inter Milan) would have shut down the same Germans he faced in the Champions League final. Otamendi caused the first foul, then was beaten on the goal after TWO MINUTES! The injury to Samuel didn't solidify an already shaky defense, but Heinze? Come on. Two of the goals resulted from his reckless tackling. Zanetti must have been chewing his own liver in disgust.

Even as they were getting taught a lesson in tactical (spatial) awareness, Argentina had chances. Higuain ruined almost all of them. By my count, there were seven times when he had the ball at his feet, going forward and either gave it away easily on a dribble, made the wrong pass, or was too slow in making a decision. Diego Milito must have been beside himself with frustration. Higuain may be the worst player in the history of the World Cup to score four goals. A shocking performance.

From a tactical perspective, Argentina never had a chance. The only way to restore some of the balance in midfield was to have Messi or Tevez (or both) retreat into midfield to relieve the overwhelmed Mascherano. Messi played as well as possible when there is someone else in your shorts, another person in your shirt, and two others on your shins. When he received the ball (sometimes 55 yards from goal), there was nowhere to go but into two rows of Germans. Diego Maradona is the only person capable of ruining Messi's genius.

As I was watching the game in relative isolation with an Argentina jacket on, the room began to fill with Brazilians. By the end, they were celebrating as much as if Brazil had been winning. I hung my head, and left the restaurant as quickly as possible to the chants of "Auf Weider Zehen!"

It will take some time for the dust to settle in Argentina. The Diego Experiment is hopefully over. The confidence of the albiceleste, and the public confidence in the AFA, must be wearing thin as the team has not won a senior-level international tournament since the Copa America in 1993. Fortunately for the Argentines, the less one wins and the more one suffers, the more valuable your passion becomes.

USA x Ghana; Argentina x Mexico; Brasil x Chile

20 million people suffered because Bob Bradley didn't get his tactics right. The same sorry scene from 2006 repeated itself. USAmerican defensive central midfielder gets caught in possession with a crunching tackle from a bigger, faster, stronger player (Reyna, 2006; Clark 2010), goal for Ghana. From there, Bradley was forced to change Clark for Edu and the game turned in favor of the Yanks. The second change, Feilhaber for Findley, should have happened the day before, not at halftime. The third change, Gomes for Altidore, was completely absurd as the USA lost physical presence in the box. Oh well. The Yanks earned a lot of respect here in Brazil for their raça e garra. Look for the USA to be based in the north of Brazil for the 2014 WC, probably Manaus or Fortaleza, places that have direct flights from the East Coast. 

At the FFF, the Mexican fans outnumbered the Argentines.Geographically, that didn't make any dang sense at all. Following more general football logic, the vast majority of the 10,000 strong crowd were pulling for Mexico. Every time Maradona's face showed on the screen the guy next to me would scream "Pelé". He would also scream "Maricón" at every opporutnity, the equivalent of yelling "faggot". His probably learned the word from watching this commercial for Skol, one of Brazil's many interpretations of Bud Light. 

Everyone agrees that Tevez's first goal was offside. But what about that pass from Messi? As the ball was floating ever so gently on to Carlitos' offside head, Messi was indicating with his own head that Tevez should head it home. It was as if Messi was passing the ball to himself. Even playing poorly, Messi is a destabilizing factor. The same could be said for Higuain, who continues to destabilize me because he is so out of form. Yet he continues to score goals. Unfortunately for Argentina his continued inclusion (and the whirling dervish defending of Heinze, plus getting overwhelmed in a three man midfield) will not cut it against Germany. Pity that.

When Brazil plays in the World Cup, everyone in the country takes the afternoon or morning off. They should take the whole day because going to work dressed in yellow and getting back home with everyone else at the same time causes an incredible amount of traffic chaos. Heading north from the center yesterday on the Metro was not for the claustrophobic. Within three stops, a totally empty train filled to the point where I literally could not move my arms. The air conditioning had no effect. There was no point in holding on to anything because there was nowhere to move. Were there an accident, everyone would die. With so much extra weight, do the brakes still work? The train lurched around curves. In order to get out of the car,  I had to slither and push and squirm before being shot onto the platform like a watermelon seed out of a slippery mouth. Many tens of thousands listened to the first half in their cars, paralyzed. 

Kaká's first involvement in the game was positive, so I settled in for a Chilean loss. The pace of the game was extraordinary. Brazil did not leave any time on the ball for the Chilean midfield and the technical superiority of Alves, Ramirez, Kaká, and Robinho won the day. It's hard to take a football off a Brazilian, which in turn makes for very few opportunities to counterattack, which contributes to defensive stability. Forced to chase the game after a well-taken corner, Chile opened up, leaving a 3v3 situation with Robinho, Kaká, and Luis Fabiano running at speed. Game over. 

3-0 was a fair result. Unfair were the interviews with Kaká's mom and grandmother during halftime and after the game. A perpetual state of forced ignorance of what actually happened during the game is shoved down the collective throat by OGlobo. The presentation perpetuation of Kaká as some kind of capital-religious-footballing superhero that embodies the best virtues of Brazilian-ness continues to make me sick. There's some dirty, dirty stuff going on with that lad with very open fights between him and Juca Kfuri in the Brazilian media. 

My general sense of Brazilian fandom in relation to the national team is that people would much rather see their club teams win than the seleção. The CBF has done a wonderful job of distancing the team from the people. The vast majority of people I know have never seen the seleção play in person, nor are they likely to see them. 20 of the 23 Brazilian players in the World Cup ply their trade abroad, so there's no identification with them as local or even national figures. Of course, everyone is happy to see the team win, but it's kind of like cheering for the USA Basketball team in the Olympics. The win is expected, there's low emotional investment because of the general lack of tension, so why not use the opportunity of the game to party with friends and family? The social role of the seleção and the World Cup is much more profound than I had imagined, full of the contradictions and coherencies that make this such a fascinating place to live. 

Argentina x Korea

The irony of the name Soccer City is probably lost on FIFA. From the air, the stadium looks to be surrounded by nothing, a world apart, a huge bowl of money, a colorful tip jar sitting in isolation from the dichotomous reality of Johannesburg.  FIFA is an increasingly savage and rapacious beast, gnashing their teeth at the slightest provocation. During the Holland x Denmark match, twenty female Dutch fans were forcibly removed from the stadium because they were suspected of engaging in some kind of guerrilla marketing campaign, when in reality they were just trying to have some fun.  

Here in Brasil, the 2014 World Cup Local Organizing Committee, run by the mind-numbingly corrupt president of the Brasilian Football Federation (CBF) has decided that the Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo will not be used in the 2014 World Cup. The reasons were clear enough for anyone who has ever tried to go to a game there, but the final excuse was that São Paulo F.C. and the city couldn’t find a financing package for a project that had exploded from an initial estimate of R$136 million to R$630 million. The transportation and tourist infrastructures of São Paulo are in no condition to receive the Shiner Circus, much less the World Cup. The decision to exclude the Morubi could be a sign that logic is starting to enter the thinking of the 2014 LOC.

Argentina x Korea this morning had me up at 7am boiling water for mate and heating up some empanadas for the 8:30 kickoff.  Argentina were dominant but Korea were strangely slow and didn’t look to impose themselves on the game at all. This World Cup has been very strange in that regard. There are a few teams that it is impossible to try to play football against. If you try to play attacking football against Spain, Holland, Argentina, Germany, a loss is guaranteed. The best that Korea could hope for was a draw and they set out their stall to defend like the goal was the 38^th parallel, but Di Maria and Tevez used the space that Messi vacated and picked apart the Korean back line.

Messi was dropping into deep midfield positions to pick up the ball. In the absence of the injured J.S. Veron, Messi and Rodriguez provided the incisive passes to Di Maria and Tevez and Higuain. The latter was probably the worst player on the field for Argentina yet he ended up with a hat-trick. In the first fifteen minutes of the game, Higuain fell over when trying to control the ball and then blasted fifteen yards over inside the box.  His first goal (32^nd minute) was abetted by the Korean keeper, the second he was offside (and the easiest goal of his life), and the third was more due to the brilliant passing of Messi and Agüero. Higuain should have had six. The bad news (for Argentina) about the hat-trick is that it hides Higuain’s poor overall performance and means that Milito will not see the field.

The good news for Argentina was Di Maria’s first half performance, the loss of the Messidependencia of the Nigeria game, the improved organization of the midfield, Gutierrez’s improvement at right back (though he will miss the Greece game through card accumulation), and the massive improvement over the performance against Nigeria.

The bad news:  a very worrying injury to center-back Samuel, Di Maria’s disappearance in the second half, DeMichelis total lack of concentration as the first half was coming to a close, gifting the Koreans a goal. Also bad: Maradona’s inabilty to make tactical changes in response to changed tactics from the opposing manager. Korea were able to impose themselves much more in the second half and were very close to an equalizer on two occasions. Maradona was too slow to bring on Agüero, but when he did they scored two goals in ten minutes.

The Argentina commentators on DirecTv are brilliant, so much more pleasant than the burros at OGlobo. The final words of the game: Señores e Señoras, Argentina es candidato al título.

Dàle.