The Drama and the Pantomime Villain.

World Cup Finals

Brazil vs Chile

I am sitting here, exhausted, less by a yesterday spent  helping to decorate our  daughter’s new house  than by the couple of breath taking hours I have spent watching exciting drama unfold in Belo Horizonte. A match full of thrills, spills, endless endeavour and end to end football. A game that showed skilful players can also go toe-to-toe, taking and dishing out hard – but generally fair – physical punishment. Long-range and accurate shooting, long mazy dribbles, one-two passes, headers, agility from both keepers, and a stadium filled with supporters out to enjoy the spectacle and give their teams total support. A game that had me on the edge of my seat. A game that would have made a marvellous final.

The stadium filled with fans wearing either the bright yellow of Brazil or the proud red of Chile. Fans grouped and mixed together. Another level of atmosphere altogether.

Effort, pride, skill and emotion as the game see-sawed from end to end. Brazil taking the lead. The Chilean manager Jorge Sampaoli striding like a Ted Hughes caged tiger in the technical area, tense like a fist. Prowling. The tactics he had given his team worked. A loose throw in, possession seized and the ball beautifully turned into the Brazilian penalty box for Alexis Sanchez to rifle the ball into the net.

Some refereeing I was, at first annoyed by, big tackles going without remark or warning. But credit to Howard Webb and his two assistants (retrospectively) for letting the tow teams rip into each other with full-blooded challenges and muscle. Braver still in the early part of the second half he disallowed a Hulk goal for handball … when t=it would have been far, far easier to let it stand and give the well-supported home team the edge.

Instead the decision seemed to rock the Brazilian team a lot. Chile pressed them back and back and back and were on top for long spells – just could not score.

Inevitably extra time came and went. Penalties!

Great saves by Julio Cesar kept the first Chile penalties out, but the team rallied. Drew level. A fine display of nerves from all involved, but especially Neymar, tempting Claudio Brava (Chile’s captain) into diving (he didn’t) before the ball was struck. Brazil went through when their last penalty taker hit the post.

But what a brave effort and what an inspiring spectacle for the world audience.

It could have been the final, so intense was the competition. It could have been none of the better English derby game, with the strength of tackles and challenges going in; the exhausting amount of commitment shown by all.

Contrast this to the despicable, truly irrational behaviour of a most talented but seriously misguided Luis Suarez, biting Italian defender Chiellini during a game. Not the first time he has done this, having previously done so while wearing an Ajax and a Liverpool shirt. Both punished.

This third offence, seen by a world wide audience is exactly the wrong kind of example, taking the glory from what is still a simple, beautiful and beautifully simple game. He has been given a four month football ban. Long enough?

I am truly not sure.

 

On a more mundane, but Saddlers-style note, we have failed to get Febian Brandy back. After he was released by Sheffield United he decided to go to Championship club Rotherham. Understandable: a higher level of football, more money. But disappointing at the same tie. Wish him well – unless we play them of course!

Bristol City (home)

I am just setting this down (or a first draft* of it anyway) after watching an absorbing second half of extra time in this year’s F.A. Cup semi-final between Arsenal and Wigan Athletic. Wigan, last year’s winners are in the Championship this year and lost in the penalty shoot-out.

I arrived at the banks’ Stadium with plenty of time to spare. Time to collect a ticket ordered and efficiently saved by the friendly box office team (thanks to each and all), time to get in and find a seat, take of my coat and ponder the Hillsborough disaster (25 years ago on Tuesday to be date-specific).

How would you cope with going to another football match if you had lost friends or relatives at that game? If you had been in the stadium, in that fateful Leppings Lane End yourself? I thought about this for a good twenty minutes (an, truth to tell, I am still considering it as I type). The terrible, terrible pressure and events inside the ground while it was going on. The attempts to save people, lifting them up to the higher terraces, passing children up the fence, straddling the fence to reach down …

All bad enough.

But the facts which have since emerged are, if it is possible, shades worse.

The attempts to blame (no other word will fit the facts now coming to light for me) innocent people who had gone to watch a game. To, at best, suggest they were bent on trouble, had done something wrong, tried to get in without tickets, were drunk, were badly behaved hooligans.

The changing of evidences given, the manipulation of times and timelines …

Said simply at the beginning of a minute’s silence (a mark of deep respect) at today’s game in the following words:

“Twenty five years ago, ninety six Liverpool fans went to a game and didn’t make it home afterwards …”

Poignant words, saying it like it was. I am not sure whether this was a scripted piece and the same words read out at every ground … but it was completely silent inside the stadium. I could hear the lorries growling their ways up and down the nearby M6. It seems these days I am more affected by these memorial silences. Perhaps it is a sign of maturity/old age, but in joining in with the “respectful silence” I was engaged with it. Those poor people, those poor families and friends – then and now. So may lives ended (shocking thing that: ended!) so many lives changed: immediately then and still now.

Ended by the referee’s whistle and the game began. Bristol City, in some danger of relegation had bought a big host of fans. Crowded in and noisy behind the goals. Some good banter across the length of the pitch.

Bristol City song: “More fans than you’ve got,

                                We’ve got more fans than you’ve got.”

Walsall reply; “More points than you’ve got …”

Sharp start from both teams in the bright sunshine. We’re a passing team playing shapes and passes like the Premiership clubs do and I love to watch the skill; the way Walsall players know where another one is going to be. It hasn’t always been that way. I am pleased that it is now. We’re even having some decent shots at goal.

Bristol City are struggling to stay in League One. But they struggle purposefully. They close down, harry and while we look confident they slowly but surely peg us back. Still fine passing but a long way from their goals. And, once or twice the defence looks under pressure and I’m thinking those “if only” thoughts.

“If only we had a way of scoring from our possession … if only we had a striker (be damned to the who-to-leave-out quandary) … if only we could give the defence some breathing space by netting early on …”

There’s some kind of nonsense across on the left wing. Ngoo, on loan from Liverpool, is fouled (apparently) and the big centre half who did it ends up on the floor. hold your breath. Is it a red card? Ngoo looks furious. but the referee is lenient and simply gives him a yellow card. the referee lets quite a few things go actually (dives (and there are a lot of those from Bristol City) and fouls) but it adds a bit of old-fashioned needle to the game.

And while I’m thinking Andy Taylor, befuddled by a stray ball in the box, tries to turn and clear (at least that’s what I think he was doing) and trips up a Bristol City striker. Did I mention it was in the penalty area. Sam Baldock stepped up and scored and their fans were delighted – and noisy. Who can blame ‘em. Getting themselves out of trouble, setting themselves up for another crack at us next season to, I shouldn’t wonder.

It’s a woeful traipse into the lounge. Nobody’s asking for season tickets any more.

Second half? How many times have we seen this? We’ve gone behind so we step up the pace, the aggression, the momentum.  Ngoo goes down in the box … penalty. Who is going to take it? Our usual Mr Football penalty taker is suspended, remember?

Ngoo had a crack at one way back and missed. Sam Mantom, like a twenty first century Alf Tupper places the ball on the spot. We’re happy with that. He’s got a powerful shot, scored some useful ones from outside the box. Steps up, places the ball (not power-blasting it) and the goalkeeper has time to make the save look effortless.

Heads go down.

Brandy is everywhere, Baxendale looks sharp, but cannot get forwards, Sawyers is his usual irritatingly talented but casual self.

McQuilkin comes on, plays with ferocity and determination and it’s furious, furious, furious. Another long last minute.

Nothing will of nothing come and Cully’s been saying “pointless” all game. A good prediction. We are! And, almost certainly out of the play-off stakes now.

BBC radio WM informs me on the way back in the car that we have now won fourteen games, drawn fourteen and – you’ve guessed it – lost fourteen. Consistent or what.

Elsewhere, Wolves have beaten Crewe (away) to clinch promotion. Good luck the them, Kenny Jackett has turned the club around (no easy task).

*Actually I let most of it stand as I typed it: a few typos to tweak and punctuation errors. Oh and I did just say something good about Wolverhampton Wanderers and let it stay in.

Photos courtesy of Bristol Post.