Football, the beautiful game ...

Rather than watch the Copa America between Brazil and Paraguay, I thought it was more exciting to watch the Women's World Cup in Frankfurt. True enough, as I believe that Japan was a better team than USA, for their style of play which was fast, accurate, skilful, I was glad to see that, at last, Japan beat USA, and won the World Cup. The commentator did not think highly of Japan and, now and then, made snide remarks of Japan's lack of inches, while his praise went to Abby Wambach, and Hope Solo. While, as a whole the Americans, played better in the first half but often were unfortunate not to score, it was the Japanese who showed extraordinary resilience in thwarting the raids from Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Morgan and O'Reilly.

The Japanese went to Germany as the underdogs, but their skill in passing, coupled with fitness and determination, they kicked out hosts and favorites Germany, lumbering Sweden, and finally fancied USA. USA should not complain that they were beaten by sheer luck, because on their way to the final, they just managed to draw against Brazil and finally won the game on penalty kicks. Japan outplayed them despite having to go through being twice behind. The first goal by Japan was won by intelligent play. There was a scramble in the USA penalty area, and when the ball landed in front of Aya Miyama's right, goalie Hope Solo dived to her left expecting the ball to be kicked by the striker's right foot, but no, in a flash of genius, Aya Miyama kicked the ball with the top of her left foot in the opposite direction, beating Solo completely. That, to me, clearly typified the difference in the skill levels of both teams.

As for the Brazil vs Paraguay game, which kicked off 15 minutes later, I didn't even bother to watch it knowing that it would be a scrappy game. I chanced to switch to C811 only to see Neymar being replaced by Fred and later when Brazil penalty kicks were saved by the Paraguayan goalie or went awry, that was enough for me to conclude that Brazilian football has gone down. The Brazilians were also out of the Women and the Under-17 World Cups. I doubt they will win the 2014 World Cup even though they are the hosts.

Earlier, one of the Brazilian women players, I think it was Marta, boasted that how nice it would be for Brazil to win the Under-17 World Cup in Mexico, the Women World Cup in Germany and the Copa America. In the end, Brazil was humiliated by Uruguay in the Under-17, by USA unfortunately in the Women World Cup, and by Paraguay in the Copa.

Only now I know why Brazilian great,Pele, called football the beautiful game.

Malaysian football can learn a lot from the Japanese women. For one, height and size disadvantage doesn't really matter. The Japanese girls are much shorter than the Americans, or the Swedes or the Germans. In fact, the tallest Japanese player was slightly less than 5'7" (a fact snidely pointed out by the commentator for the Japanese "lack of inches"). Compare, for example, in the line-up of the prizewinners, the size and height of Hamare Sawa with those of Abby Wambach and Hope Solo. The American girls are taller, bigger, and look more powerful than Hamare Sawa. On watching the final, the Americans were as fast and as skilful as the Japanese but their defense was not up to scratch with their strikers and midfielders. Notice the 2 goals scored by Morgan and Wambach. The first was from Megan "Beckham" Rapinoe to Morgan who was on a one to one situation with a Japanese defender. The taller and bigger striker took advantage of her power to score the first goal while Wambach fully made use of her height to head in the second goal. In contrast, the first Japanese goal scored by Aya Miyama was executed with sublime skill, in a flash of genius if you like, when, in a goalmouth scramble, she flicked a loose ball with her left foot instead of her right expected by Hope who dived the "wrong" way to block the shot. Again, the second goal by the Japanese was executed in the same manner from a low shot corner that landed some metres in front of Hamare Sawa who flicked the ball with her right foot leaving no chance for Hope Solo to catch. The American girls lost in the penalty kicks due to, I believe, tiredness and loss of morale, for they were very sure that, after the Wambach goal, the World Cup was theirs only to be disappointed by a last minute equaliser goal from the Japanese girls.

A second thing that a Malaysian team should look into is strategy/tactic used by the Japanese. The Japanese coach knew that his team were skilful but how were they to overcome the powerful European or American teams ? The Japanese coach set his team to keep the ball, with pin-point accuracy, in their own half only to let the ball lobbed over the opponent's midfield to a lone Japanese striker who is marked by 2 to 3 defenders. During the struggle over the ball between the lone striker and the 2-3 defenders, Japanese midfielders push forward to assist the lone striker. The defenders are bound to make mistakes like panicking into giving corners, or to lose the ball to the advancing Japanese midfielders. This was how Japan overcame Germany, Sweden and lastly USA. In contrast, USA tend to exploit their advantage in height, size and power to thwart Japan by giving the ball from defense or midfield for the strikers to overcome Japanese defenders or through long balls, e.g. corner kicks or free kicks, for their strikers to head in or overcome Japanese defenders. This was the contrast between Japan and USA or Sweden or Germany.

For me it's a great strategy for Malaysian footballers to emulate.

Update 25/07/21011 Monday: While still on the subject of football, I watched with anger at how useless were the Malaysian defenders in allowing a striker from Singapore in the World Cup qualifying round. As I was not at home when play started, thinking to be back home to watch the game from the start, I missed most of it since the game started much earlier. By the time, I got back I was told that the score had been 4-1 in Singapore's favour. I then just managed to catch glimpses of the goals scored in quick succession by Malaysia to make it 4-3. After the 2 quick goals, Singapore rightly slowed the game down and started playing good football, cautiously keeping the ball in their midfield, only lobbying to their strikers who, I noticed seemed slow, but fast enough for even the much slower Malaysian defenders. They missed 2 chances in front of the Malaysian goal mouth, but not the third chance when the ancient Singaporean striker (he's 40 years old, I hear) a Mat Salleh, in a one to one situation with a Malaysian defender, struck a tame ball into the Malaysian goal. 3 Malaysian defenders simply watched the execution without doing a damn thing. But my height of anger reached absolute tops when the Malaysian commentators were already talking about Malaysia could still win, despite the unfavourable 3-5 score, on the basis of the away rule, when the game was still ongoing. What they had in mind was that, on the return leg, the game would be played on a natural football field in Bt. Jalil stadium (unlike on a field with artificial grass in Jalan Besar stadium, Singapore, which was too fast for Malaysians as they were not used to it). The commentators thought that Malaysia could then outplay Singapore to overcome the 2 goal deficit and win on an away rule match. Malaysians should learn that when opposing strikers are near the goal, midfielders should rush in to help the defenders, and not to stay rooted in their midfield zone, just as they did when Singapore scored the last goal.

With Malaysia beaten to a 6-4 on aggregate by Singapore, she has to wait for another four long years before the next World Cup qualifying round. It's just that Malaysia is still not good enough. Don't blame Rajagopal for losing but blame the present crop of players that just don't have the skill nor the determination to win. I personally blame the defenders and the midfielders for not being quick enough to handle the elderly strikers from Singapore. As usual, they lack a sense of danger and stayed rooted to their starting zone when Singapore strikers were in front of the goal mouth.