Quarterfinals 1 and 2 – the best day of the World Cup; December’s poems

I am in awe of the Croatians. They are BALLERS. I doubt I could think more highly of a soccer team.

Brazil, not so much.

The key contest was between Casemiro and Luka Modrić. (Casemiro is Brazil’s grownup.) Modrić outduelled Casemiro all game long, including during the building up of Croatia’s goal.

Other pundits have highlighted Marcelo Brozović, whose job it was to subtly close off Neymar.

The Brazilian fans sang and danced, and I was like, don’t you understand that your team is getting schooled? That the Croatians are better than the Brazilians with the ball (and, certainly, better without it)? That they are doing what they like to do, which is strenuous and sophisticated: doing it with steel and style: and the Brazilians aren’t?

Great soccer nation or not, these colorful fans are just that: fanatics.

The second quarterfinal, between Argentina and the Netherlands, was made wild by some erratic refereeing, as well as by the Netherlands’s launching long, high passes into the box in a desperate attempt to even the score. It worked; but the Argentinians, who were briefly unsettled, gathered themselves, seized control again, and won the penalty shootout.

Messi is right to complain. The ref hurt Argentina. Even so, the Argentinians used the ref to mess with the Dutch. Their breaches of etiquette – deliberately handling the ball, kicking it into the Dutch bench – were so brazen, the ref didn’t know what to do about them, and the Dutch were put out of sorts. It behooved the Dutch, who were down by two goals, to put the Argentinians out of sorts, and they did, but then the Argentinians made sure the Dutch were put out, too, and the Dutch came out worse.

Two of the day’s goals – one scored by Neymar, the other assisted by Messi – were exquisite. The Dutch worked a stunning free-kick goal.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This month, the poem is by me.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Sometimes, it’s hard to be a daddy

He changes diapers all day long

He changes Danny’s

He changes Sammy’s

And, as he does, he sings this song

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Apologies to Tammy Wynette.

I had to change a diaper while Morocco and Spain contested their penalty shootout in the octavos de final. I did a wipe, watched a penalty kick, did a wipe, watched a penalty kick …

All right, that wasn’t much of a poem, so here is one from The Atlantic: “Ode to Not Watching the World Cup.”

I am not convinced …

No more South Americans

The Uruguayans are out. The Brazilians are out. They were KO’d by France and Belgium.

The Uruguayans badly missed Edinson Cavani, who was injured.

The Brazilians badly missed Casemiro, the world’s most valuable player, who was suspended for having accumulated too many yellow cards.

The Brazilians scored a decisive goal against themselves, and the Uruguayans missed a few golden chances to even the score against the French. That’s the problem with the World Cup, I think. It doesn’t matter how good a team is in the qualifying phase, or in the World Cup’s group stage, or in an early knockout round. A country only needs to be unlucky in the wrong match.

Four more years down the drain.

Trash-talking

The Champions League final will be played in two days.

Vicente del Bosque, who has won the Champions League as the coach of Real Madrid, as well as the World Cup and the Euros as the coach of Spain, believes that Real Madrid will handily defeat Liverpool. He doesn’t think there’s “even one Liverpool player who would improve Madrid, not even [Mohamed] Salah” (the quotation is from this article).

Actually, right now, Salah is better than any of Madrid’s forwards, but del Bosque has an excellent point. Player for player, Real Madrid is overwhelmingly the better team.

Then again, that is why Liverpool employs the “storming” tactic (see two entries ago). It allows a team to have a good chance, head-to-head, against an opponent whose players are more skillful. Already this year, it has allowed Liverpool to thrash Manchester City.

In other news, the legendary Xavi, formerly of Barcelona, offers this amusing analysis of Real Madrid’s defensive midfielder, Casemiro:

“Madrid break apart, seven players attack and Casemiro stays back on his own to cover the centre.”

Pretty impressive, right? Covering the center all alone? Not impressive enough for Xavi:

“He does not dominate space-time.”

Whoa. That’s a tall order. I’m not even sure if I dominate space-time.

I predict that the score will be Real Madrid 3, Liverpool 1. But I want Liverpool to win, and I think that that could very well happen.

Jury duty; a rainstorm; Messi vs. Kanté; a trip

Today I performed my jury service, or I would have done, except that the trial was canceled. I was absent from work and lost a day’s wages. But it was just as well that I didn’t go to IUSB. The walk would have been miserable: out of my living room window, I saw rain pouring down, hour after hour.

In the afternoon, I watched Chelsea and Barcelona play the first leg of their UEFA Champions League home-and-away series. I was especially interested in the duel between Lionel Messi and N’Golo Kanté. Kanté defended against Messi as well as anybody I’ve seen has done. He didn’t allow Messi to dribble past him or to make penetrating passes. Once, I saw him guard Messi for a few feet, then switch off from him, and then cunningly intercept the pass that Messi gave.

I decided that Kanté is a better defender than Real Madrid’s Casemiro, who resorts to fouling Messi. Messi likes to bully Casemiro by dribbling directly at him; however, when Messi was guarded by Kanté today, he respectfully dribbled from side to side.

One other bit of news: Karin & I have bought plane tickets to Austin, Texas, to visit Ana & David during my spring break.

Little Man Tate

Casemiro is the world’s MVP of soccer. Let me explain.

When I was in high school, our team gave out two awards: Best-All-Around Player and Most Valuable Player. Following that model, Lionel Messi is the world’s Best-All-Around Player. Casemiro, the workhorse midfielder at Real Madrid, is the world’s Most Valuable Player – the one who contributes the most to his teams’ successes. (Cristiano Ronaldo, who recently won UEFA’s Best Player in Europe award, is Real Madrid’s seventh-most valuable player, after Casemiro, Toni Kroos, Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, Keylor Navas, and Marcelo.)

But back to Casemiro. On Thursday, along with arch-twerp Neymar, he’ll lead the already-qualified Brazilians against Ecuador. I expect the Ecuadorians to continue their sad tailspin. But I hope and pray for their resurgence.

This article details the Ecuador/Brazil rivalry.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch this game. Sheer dread.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

For the first time in well over a decade, I watched one of my favorite movies: Jodie Foster’s Little Man Tate. I remembered every line. This time, I especially noticed its echoes of Woody Allen – its jazz soundtrack and its casting of Dianne Wiest.

Of course, the movie is winsome because of little Fred (Adam Hann-Byrd). To win viewers over to his side, and to show his genius, the movie employs something like a reverse caricature. It allows Fred to speak with disarming naturalness. Usually, he speaks just one simple sentence at a time; and when he gives longer speeches, his sentences, to borrow a line from Malcolm Gladwell, “come marching out one after another, polished and crisp like soldiers on a parade ground.” Meanwhile, the movie has its other “geniuses” strain their language ever so slightly.

The result is that Fred, by comparison, seems utterly pure – Fred and his good mother, who also uses artless language.