WC 2010 Semifinals Notes

I watched most of the Netherlands vs Uruguay and Spain vs Germany matches (the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup), and took some notes. I did not watch either match twice.

Overall I was mystified at how the media announcers failed to mention things regarding the events during the games which I felt were relatively speaking important.

The media announcers manifested a prejudice in the direction of praising the players as opposed to criticizing them. For example for a few minutes they were claiming that a Netherlands goal involving a Uruguay player deflecting the ball into his own goal, was actually skillfully deflected into the Uruguay goal by a Netherlands players. This kind of sycophantic prejudice may make sense from the business point of view (convincing the audience they are watching great athletes), but it is a potential pitfall for players and coaches.

Uruguay vs Netherlands:

Both teams were repeatedly offsides on plays involving a pass recipient running towards the goal.

Both teams scored on similar goals.

Forlan cut to his left, and fired a long distance shot with his left foot. Bronckhorst cut to his left, and fired a long distance shot with his left foot.

Both these goals took advantage of the long range with the Jabulani ball. Both shots were done with the same style, crouched hunchback multi-step approach to ball, body rising up as ball shot.

A few days ago I had commented regarding taking advantage of the Jabulani's longer range.

Also I mentioned earlier that England suffered from a fear of using the left foot. I was talking about right-footed persons not using their left-foot, whereas Bronckhorst is left-footed, but the point remains, that left-footed approaches had been neglected previously. The right footed Forlan scored his big shot with his left foot.

It was surprising how the goalies were getting only one hand on the shot balls. Perhaps this is because of players obscuring visibility and thus delaying reaction times. The computer program I wrote that I am using to estimate if a practice shot would have been a goal assumes that if the goalie gets to the ball the shot will not be a goal. Seeing how the goalies have been getting to the ball with only one hand, it appears that often when the goalie is able to reach the ball the shot will be a goal or a rebound leading to a goal anyway. I read somewhere that most of the goals in soccer are off rebounds.

Seemed to me that shots that the laws of physics would declare to be failed shots blocked by the goalie, were going in anyway.

Spain vs Germany

At least throughout the first half, Spain kept the ball in the German half the clear majority of the time.

Spain was aggressive on defense, rushing up to the German player who had the ball and challenging him, Germany was different, laying back and giving the Spanish players time. This was an indirect effect of the Spanish dribbling skills, which Germany had to respect.

The Spanish players when they had the ball, would initially face the defender and move at the defender, in this they very closely resembled the individual style of dribbling I have developed for myself, a style that is not consciously based on imitation of Spaniards. Moving directly at the defender freezes the defender, and opens up both the cut to the defender's left possibility and also the cut to the defender's right possibility.

Germany more resembled the style in which if one has the ball and the defender is to one's left, one scurries to one's right; and if one has the ball and the defender is to one's right, one scampers off to one's left. The disadvantage with this latter style is that one is left with only one directional alternative, which leaves one usually attempting to rectify the situation with last minute feints this way or that which are off balance and ignored by the defenders, movement in one direction being obviously more amenable to circumstance than movement in another direction.

My style of dribbling and apparently that of the Spaniards also, is to naturally open up more than one directional alternative by moving at the defender, and then at the last minute choosing which direction to cut, all the while ignoring feints (recently I've been developing individual set plays involving pre-decided feints, but such is a new thing with me, without this new thing I've already developed the ability to dribble by defenders).

The Spanish showed tricky dribbling involving kicking the ball to the left with the right foot when the right foot is behind the left foot, and the reverse of this. There was a great example of this 18 minutes into the game, when an aerial line drive pass sailed at a Spanish player and the Spaniard with his trailing right foot (best I could tell), deflected it to his left right to a team-mate.

@2010 David Virgil Hobbs