Here are some highlights from the eyes of Stampede’s two biggest football fans, Iwan and Shaiful.

Iwan

Most High Tech World Cup

Referees will have GoalControl watches in Brazil. Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

This is the first World Cup featuring goalline technology that helps deciding the goal. FIFA approved 4 kind of goalline technology to be use in World Cup 2014. They involve camera and chips embedded in the ball itself which uses the magnetic field sensor for detecting goals. While using camera is just as simple as watching replay, embedded chips come quite handy as well. FIFA also equipped referees with smartwatches that not only tell time, but will buzz when the ball crosses the line.

Another high tech gadgets is the ball itself. “Brazuca” is designed from scratch, thanks to 2010’s “Jabulani” failure.

Luis Suarez’s Choppers Strike Again

Looks like he didn’t learn from the past because Luiz Suarez bit again. Doing the offence for the third time this time, Suarez decided to bite on Italian defender, Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder. While no actions were taken on the field, he was found guilty by FIFA and currently serving a ban for nine Uruguay matches and from all football activities for four months. He also apologised for the bite. Despite this biting saga Barcelona still signed him from Liverpool with a fee believed to be staggering 80 million euros. That’s 14 million less than Real Madrid paid for Christiano Ronaldo’s signature on June 2009. Crazy!

Neymar Jr’s injury

There is no doubt Neymar was Brazil’s best player throughout the World Cup 2014. Unfortunately, during the game where Brazil played against Colombia on quarter final, Colombian defender Juan Zuniga kneed Neymar’s back within the last 2 minutes. Nobody expected the worst. He was seen sobbing soon after, complaining to fellow teammate and defender Marcelo that he could not feel his leg. Nursing a broken vertebra, that was the end of his journey for World Cup 2014.

New Scoring Record

There are several records broken during World Cup 2014. On top of the order is World Cup’s all-time leading scorer. Owned by Brazil’s Ronaldo previously with 15 goals, the Germany veteran, 36 years old Miroslav Klose surpassed him by scoring his 16th goal when Germany defeated Brazil by 7-1 on the semifinal. His own teammate, 24 years old Thomas Müller also make the top ten by 10 goals.

Both have one more game to play on this World Cup – the grand finale – the one we all look forward to.

Shaiful

Spain’s Early Exit

They say the bigger you are, the harder you fall. The demise of defending champion and two consecutive European cup holder Spain marked the end of an era for Spanish football. No doubt they still have the same ‘dream team’ lineup on paper but it’s just not working on the pitch anymore this time. The rise and fall of a golden era is not uncommon in the football world with France as another good example. Anyhow, credit where it’s due, they held it for 5 years and boy, were they invincible!

Brazil & Germany Making It To The Final Leg

This is a trend that we don’t expect to end anytime soon. For every generation of players, these two teams would consistently make it to the playoffs. The squads ‘star power’ may not be as intimidating as Spain or England but they certainly have proven over and over again that they can score goals. The Germans fielded mostly similar faces from the last world cup except now they have matured and really mean business. And despite Brazil’s scorching unearthly defeat by Germany in the semi, we know that it will always be the greatest football nation in the world.

(Update: Brazil, the host team was convincingly beaten by the Dutch in the third-place playoff yesterday.)

It’s GER vs ARG tonight. Who are you rooting for?

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Since the very first game till last night’s semi-final (at time of writing), the event is marred by surprises and controversies. Big talents in football didn’t play half as good as they did in club level. Names such as Christiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messy, Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard and Kaka are well known across the globe. But their appearance on the field is simply disappointing compared to their colourful club track record.

What Happened to the Superstars?

Christiano Ronaldo, the most valuable footballer on Earth – he’s worth €94 million euros – only scored one goal in 2010 World Cup. And it only happened during the Portuguese 7-nil rampage against Korea DPR. It’s almost like wearing the captain armband wasn’t motivation enough to play well for one’s own country. It was a totally different Ronaldo, a far-flung from the Real Madrid star with plenty of skills, trick and astoundingly fast acceleration. For the most expensive player in the world, South Africa didn’t see much from him.

Same goes to Lionel Messi, winner of the Best Player of The Year award. Nobody expected a footballer like him, with 34 goals for Barcelona under his belt, to not even score one goal for Argentina in this World Cup. As predicted, the opposing team’s defense marked Messi so tight that he couldn’t formulate a goal. But that’s a given – if you don’t keep Messi on a leash, he will demolish your team.

The Favourites’ Early Flight Home

Favourite teams such as England, France, Brazil, and Argentina, coming to South Africa expecting to be crowned as the World Cup Champion are just too weak. I can say that France is the worst team in 2010 World Cup. Contrary to the glorious era of Zidane, The French started with such poor performance. They only managed to get a 0-0 draw against Uruguay, then lost 0-2 to Mexico before ending their World Cup campaign by losing 1-2 to South Africa. They also sent home Nicholas Anelka just after tournament day 9 because of some spats between him and the head coach, Raymond Domenech. It gets worse after that. The remaining French squad protested by not attending their training. As the result of the protest, their skipper, Patrice Evra was ultimately dropped from the last game against South Africa and his armband was stripped.

Another favourite team everyone thought has the goods was England. Unfortunately, the star-studded English team was just lucky to survive in Group Stage. Poor performance by Capello’s lads nearly cost them an early exit, but with draw against USA and Algeria and a lucky goal by Jermain Defoe against Slovenia, they earned a sad place into the next round. Tragically, in the knockout stage, they were hammered 4-1 by Germany. It was painful to watch.

Germany once again displayed their real capabilities by showing the way out to Argentina in the most humiliating way, beating the Argentine 4-nil. Excellent performance by Thomas Müller and Mesut Ozil made it terribly difficult for Argentina defense system the entire match. Losing only once to Serbia during group stage,the Germans are now the favourite team to win this World Cup. Up to this moment, they have already scored 13 goals. That’s enough to show how deadly their attack form can get.

The Ghanaian

One team that caught my attention was Ghana. No one expected them to advance from group stage, let alone quarter-final. They nearly made it to semi-final, but Uruguay striker, Luis Suarez denied their chance with a game-saving handball few minutes before the game expired. Suarez was red-carded and penalty given to Ghana. It was an extremely bad luck for their penalty taker, Asamoah Gyan, who only managed to hit the crossbar despite scoring twice from the same spot. The game ended with 1-1 and extended to penalty shootout. Uruguay won 4-2.

Referees

Like any other football tournaments around the world, the World Cup is not free from judging controversies. The most famous controversy involving referees happened in England’s game against Germany. Referee Jorge Larrionda denied Frank Lampard’s 38-minute shot eventhough the video replay had clearly shown that the ball crossed the goal line for approximately 1 yard. Some people claimed that the disallowed goal changed the entire element of that game. If England were not denied of the goal, they probably would have fared better, in spirit and form, during the second half. This incident will ultimately ignite debates over goal-line technology since FIFA president Sepp Blatter has steadfastly refused to consider the possibility of goal-line technology.

Another refereeing controversy surrounded Luis Fabiano’s goal for Brazil against Ivory Coast. After the match, Luis Fabiano himself admitted that he handled the ball in the build-up to his second goal. Mexico also suffered a partial referee decision during their match against Argentina. Referee, Roberto Rosetti awarded Argentina a goal despite Carlos Tevez clearly being offside. Consequentially, both referees Jorge Larrionda and Roberto Rosetti were sent home.

The Final Two

Now, at this very moment, all eyes are set on Germany, Spain, Uruguay and the Netherlands. The Dutch already booked their ticket into the final match after they beat Uruguay 3-2. They will face either Spain or Germany this July 11th at Soccer City Stadium, Johannesburg.

(photo by gitfo)

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FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa fans

Quick background check, I’m not an all-time neutral though. I was a France supporter back in ’98 and Zizou was and is my favourite player. After he retired however, I tried but wasn’t able to really feel the excitement supporting the Blues anymore. Yes I’m talking about the excitement of WC ’98, Euro 2000, his injury in WC ’02 that saw the French team failed to go through and how he came out of retirement to bring them all the way to the finale of WC ’06 (and not to forget the iconic headbutt).

Back to 2010, I have to admit the team that caught my attention the most is Germany and the instrumental match they played against the English is my favourite match of the tournament so far. Not mainly because it’s a high-profile encounter, what impressed me a lot was the brilliant display of fluid playing by the German team of fresh faces with little international experience. Such a contrast than the line-up back then when the rest of the team were veterans in the likes of Kahn, Klinsmann and company.

Undeniably the match of the QF is Argentina vs. Germany. It is a historical clash, took place once in 1990 and recently four years ago and got very physical. Well this is the match I will look forward to in the QF. Somehow it felt like the finale came early with this one. I reckon it’s going to be good end-to-end football.

(photo by Grant Johnson)

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