Graham's Blog

One of the things Tuesday night’s massacre denied us was a rematch of November 28, 1995. That was when, in Tokyo, the Ajax of Louis Van Gaal, Danny Blind and Patrick Kluivert beat Felipe Scolari’s Gremio on penalties to win the Intercontinental Cup.

It was – who’d have guessed it? – a grim affair during which Scolari’s mob sustained five bookings and a red card. Blind, currently Van Gaal’s assistant, scored the winning penalty for the Dutch. This was a rare highlight for Van Gaal, who has a choppy record, both playing and managing, against Brazilian and Argentinian opposition. And I believe that in football the present owes much more to the past than most people care to consider.

Between August 1999 and May 2000 Valencia’s Argentinian striker Claudio ‘Piojo’ Lopéz scored the goals which cost Van Gaal’s Barcelona first a Spanish Supercup then a place in the Champions League final against Real Madrid in Paris. ‘Piojo’ means ‘louse’, singular of lice. Reports that Van Gaal made up his nickname are not confirmed.

In May 2000, the Dutchman was sacked after Deportivo pipped his Barcelona to the Spanish title – a Depo in which their Brazilian/Argentinian contingent of Djalminha, Flavio Conceição, Donato, Mauro Silva, Gabi Schürrer, Lionel Scaloni and Oscar Flores played 187 games, scoring 25 goals.

All that season I’d watched him struggle ferociously with Rivaldo, then World Player of the Year. Van Gaal demanded he play on the wing. Rivaldo occupied that space and persistently passed the ball backwards to Winston Bogarde. The Brazilian was there in body, but not spirit. On quitting, Van Gaal complained: “I had to struggle every day to convince everyone at Barcelona, and especially the players.”

When he was again sacked by Barça in January 2003, it was after a 4-2 home defeat to the Valencia of Roberto Ayala, Mauricio Pellegrino, Pablo Aimar and Fabio Aurelio, and then a 2-0 loss at Celta. The last goal ever scored against Van Gaal as Barça manager was by Sylvinho. A Brazilian left-back.

His third Champions League final, against the Inter Milan of his former protege José Mourinho, in 2010, ended with defeat for Van Gaal’s Bayern Munich thanks to goals from the Argentinian Diego Milito.

A central factor in his sacking, and ascension to his current job, was March 2011’s Champions League 3-2 home defeat – and elimination – by an Inter fuelled by Maicon, Esteban Cambiasso, Julio César, Coutinho, Lucio and Thiago Motta, managed by Leonardo. A smorgasbord of South Americans.

Now it’s Messi and his merry band. Perhaps I’m wrong but I think Van Gaal is one of the few men on the planet who wouldn’t buy Leo Messi if he were available. He wants 11 well-oiled cogs in a Van-Gaal-designed machine. Sorry United fans.

You can read in this piece I wrote for Paddy Power in May before he was appointed what that might mean for Wayne Rooney and United’s emerging academy graduates.  You can find out tonight if he can improve his record against the giants of South American football.

All together now…

Louis Louis, oh no

Sayin’ we gotta go, yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah

Said Louis, Louis, oh baby

Said we gotta go

Okay, let’s give it to ’em, right now!

*The author would like to note that while one name has been changed to protect the innocent, no Kingsmen were hurt in the making of this blog

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.

These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

—

Three Days Until the World Cup final

The press conference is packed, there are about 20 languages being spoken and Carles Puyol is holding court. No, he will not confirm whether he is going to retire after the competition. Yes, it was his idea to come up with that rehearsed move at the corner, when his header from Xavi’s delivery put Spain into the final.

He is not enjoying the focus being solely on him, at least until his semi-naked post-match appearance in front of the Queen is mentioned. “It’s the first time she’s been in our dressing room and if I wasn’t only wearing a towel, I’d have gone down on one knee.”

Xavi is as confident with words as he is with the ball. “I swear, I knew it was a goal from the moment my boot made connection with the ball from the corner. Somehow I just knew. I looked up, saw Puyi and thought, ‘don’t miss this one, this one’s a goal’.”

Night time is a hoot. Now, instead of 100 people there are 2000 at training. The locals, wrapped up in blankets, mufflers, gloves, ski jackets and balaclavas, are joined by media crews from Japan, China, USA, Australia, France, England, Mexico, Argentina, Germany and South Africa.

Some of the players have a little game of crossbar challenge from the halfway line and Víctor Valdés wins out of sight, hitting four times.
 

 

Because Brazil will wake up and remember it ‘didn’t want this World Cup’, not ahead of schools, hospitals, roads and anti-corruption purges; because there will be riots again, I’m anticipating a sudden wave of sympathy for those involved in the 7-1 humiliation against Germany.

Not me. Brazil treated me well enough when I was still at the World Cup, I respect their contribution to the gradual development of the Champions League (which is huge in terms of skill and attacking philosophy) – I respect the passion of their fans. I’d love to see an exciting, intelligent, adept Pentacampeon again.

But this group of players has been led by what I’d consider to be a footballing bruiser – a win at all costs Visigoth or Vandal.

Felipe Scolari won last summer’s Confederations Cup with a policy of fire and brimstone. Sleight of hand wasn’t sufficient for him to disguise either his team’s or, more importantly his own, deficiencies.

In that Confederations Cup final, his side sought out Andrés Iniesta and bundled him over, kicked him, tripped him. The libertarian approach of the Dutch referee that day was disgraceful. Nearly 30 Brazilian fouls and not a yellow card.

‘Speechless’ reads the headline in German newspaper ‘Bild’

Brazil won via power, pace, conviction and athleticism. Nothing wrong with those elements. Nor could anyone deny that they deserved to win. But their deficiencies were there to see – just as they had been against Japan and Uruguay.

Scolari had time to re-think, time to watch the development of Miranda and Filipe Luis at Atletico or Coutinho at Liverpool. Time to develop his philosophy. He chose not to.

Instead, he opted for hurricane-speed, knuckle-duster football – very little adoration of the ball or possession and fouling as an integrated tactic.

The BBC’s Brazilian correspondent Tim Vickery reports Scolari’s view that:  “Well played, normal football in certain situations obliges a player to commit a foul – a push, some shirt pulling, use of the shoulder, fouls that don’t give the opponents the chance to organise an attack.”

That couldn’t have been more obvious over the last two tournaments. In fact, in Tolkien terms it became ‘his precious’. It devoured him.

Brazil, across the Confeds and the World Cup, have had 20 players booked in 11 games. During their matches against Chile and Columbia there were well over 100 fouls, the bulk committed by Brazil who, in particular, tried to muscle James Rodríguez out of the match.

Don’t mention Zuniga and Neymar. That was outright thuggery. The World Cup lost a star but while the Colombian did wrong it in no way justifies the Brazilian thuggery. The LA Times called it ‘Brazil’s goonish tactics…’

If you don’t see a correlation that against Germany, Brazil committed only 11 fouls and suddenly weren’t competitive, didn’t know what to do, then I do.

While the majority of other nations showed a clear-cut philosophy, based on quick, intelligent, athletic passing movements – the beauty of terrific technique at high speed – Scolari was exposed as a man who didn’t know any other way to utilise a relatively talented squad but to rely on height, power, muscularity and tactical fouling.

His blessing, just as he was utterly blessed with some world-class talents in 2002, was that Neymar is a self-created genius on the ball. Not Scolari’s work – just a footballing gem.

The beauty of what happened in the semi-final was that a long term, aesthetically pleasing, highly developed, intelligent and technical style utterly exposed the bluff and bluster of the Brazilian idea.

What we saw was the product of years of work by Joachim Löw and, initially, Jurgen Klinsmann plus the youth developers of the Bundesliga promoting the best of the Spanish school blended with the best of the German footballing DNA.

Scolari’s blue-collar belligerence was made to look slow, antiquated and dull by German wit, intelligence and speed of reaction.

Scolari’s press officer has been suspended for three games for striking Chile’s Mauricio Pinilla at half-time in the quarter-final and, despite all the favourable refereeing his team received, Scolari has been briefing ‘elite’ (ie sycophantic) Brazilian press about how FIFA’s ‘against’ Brazil and wanted them not to win.

Football thuggishness, managerial lowest common denominator. Grubby, denigratory to Brazil’s mighty history – detrimental to the game in general.

Perhaps this humiliation will nudge Brazil back to what they are capable of – leading the football way instead of dragging it back to a medieval past.

“We aren’t lagging behind tactically,” Scolari claimed post match – saying that Germany had only five chances and scored all five in the first half, that Brazil had been better up until the first goal.

I beg to differ. Football won just as much as Germany did on Tuesday night.

Playground bullies, whenever they get punched back, are usually shown up for what they are. Deutschland Deutschland über Scolari, I say.

Graham. 09.07.14

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.

These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

—

Before the pre-match team talks, and the studying of the tactical charts on the dressing-room wall, Pepe Reina questioned Puyol about a move via which, just over a year previously, he scored for Barcelona in a 6-2 win at Real Madrid. Using the magnetic pieces on the white board, Puyol shows Reina the concept and the practice.

By half-time in Durban the Catalan, who thought injury was going to ensure he watched this match from the stands, has noticed that Germany appear to be marking zonally and his path into the penalty box at set plays is almost unencumbered. Spain have so far played a couple of corners short, put one in looking for Capdevila, but nothing for Puyol. The Barça captain has,however, missed an easy scoring chance with a diving header which Iniesta puts on a plate for him.

Before they are even off the pitch at half-time, the centre-half has Xavi, who delivered the corner at the Santiago Bernabéu from which Puyol scored, by the arm and is instructing him.

“Let’s use that move from the 6-2 win again. I’ll speak to Ramos, Capdevila and Villa, you just put the ball on the penalty spot for me and we will see how they cope.”

Then, with 17 minutes left, Iniesta wins a corner on the Spanish left. I am at the mouth of the transport tunnel, right in line with the corner flag. As Xavi walks over to take the corner and settles the ball, I am aware of a little old lady, not in official uniform, who has materialised at my elbow without me noticing. She is diminutive, so I have to lean down a bit to hear her.

“How is the game going?”

“Well, it’s pretty tense and pretty interesting,” I reply. “We just need…”

I look up as I speak and Xavi appears to have used those four or five seconds to erect some sort of rigging so that he can dangle the football precisely where Puyol wants it.

Puyol, this battered, brilliant Catalan warrior filmed a television promotion with me back in Potch. He sits and stares stone-faced down the lens of the camera, holding up a rugby ball.

“They tell me this is rugby country. Well, I don’t know anything about rugby.”

He throws the oval ball out of shot to his right as a football is thrown to him from his left and he catches it.

“But I do know about football.”

This is where he proves it. Villa has been occupying Neuer on the line. For a split second, the keeper puts all his attention into shoving him violently with both hands and there is now no question of Neuer getting out to punch the corner. There is a little triangle of players occupying German markers: Ramos to the left, tying up Klose, Piqué more or less static on the penalty spot and Capdevila to the right. The arc of the ball’s movement is taking it towards Piqué, but as Sami Khedira bunches up every muscle to make the jump of his life, a dark shadow falls over the land. Puyol soars over them all, Michael Jordan-style, and crashes the best, most powerful header I have ever seen past Neuer.

Back by the tunnel I am finishing my conversation with the little old lady: “… we just need a goal.” But my fairy godmother has vanished by the time Spain celebrate wildly and Puyol, carrying four of his team-mates on his shoulders, clenches a fist and wears an expression which says: Let’s not make too much of a fuss of this … back to work now.

There is bedlam on the pitch after the final whistle and it continues into the dressing room, where Puyol immediately continues physio with Raúl Martínez on one of the massage tables. There remains quite an important game to be played.

The great tenor, Placido Domingo, bursts in and adapts Y Viva Espana! to end not with Espana por favor! but Espana campeon!

Dona Sofía, the wife of King Juan Carlos, who is absent through illness, enters the dressing room. It’s immediately evident that it’s a while since she’s played football for the royal household; a while since she’s been in a dressing room.

Unchaperoned, she makes for the showers, is pointed down the corridor, and then propelled around the corner, where she comes face-to-face with her all-conquering football team and does a comic double-take.

Lacking a master of ceremonies, she starts clapping them … and they all start clapping right back. Amidst the furore of applause, Joan Capdevila starts a manic little Riverdance of his own, in the corner. Sofía takes herself around the players, one by one, shaking hands as various players turn into royal couriers, desperately kicking or swiping boots, bottles, jockstraps out from under her before she trips over them and this becomes a diplomatic incident. This is a likelihood which increases when Carles Puyol, aware that he has been missing something, bursts into the room just as the Queen of Spain is about to make her speech. Sporting only a towel, he is a sitting duck for his team-mates, who roar: Puyi! Puyi! Puyi!

Capdevila dances again.

After the Queen’s speech (“nice job lads, tighten up on the finishing”) Dona Sofía mistakes one of the federation officials, the former Real Sociedad president Luis Uranga, for Del Bosque, only for the coach to arrive in the nick of time, to bow and to invite her back on Sunday. Soccer City. The World Cup final.

Germany 0 Spain 1

Germany: Neuer, Lahm, Friedrich, Mertesacker, Boateng (Jansen 52), Khedira (Gomez 81), Schweinsteiger, Trochowski (Kroos 62), Özil, Podolski, Klose

Spain: Casillas; Ramos, Piqué, Puyol, Capdevila; Busquets, Alonso (Marchena 90+3); Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro (Silva 86); Villa (Torres 81)

Goal: Puyol 73

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.

These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

—

Ask any Spanish journalist in Durban and they will tell you there is only one selection dilemma for the semi-final against Germany tomorrow: to Torres or not to Torres. That is the question. Everyone trains, including Fàbregas, who has been to hospital for a scan on his right leg after a bad impact in training last night, revealing heavy bruising and no bone damage.

Nobody in the media notices Carles Puyol finishing training and then wandering up to Raúl Martínez: “I’m in so much pain, I’m not going to make it for this game tomorrow. We’re going to have to tell the Mister.”

When he talks about it Puyol calls the problem his gluteus muscle, which is between the hip and the top of the thigh. But he is feeling a tight, pinching pain from there down the side of his thigh to just above the side of his right knee. If Puyi tells you he is not going to be able to play it takes a very brave man to say, ‘I can fix that’, but that is what Martínez does: “Why tell the boss before you’ve let me have a look at this problem?”

Then he goes to work.

Before morning comes they pack in hours of agonising treatment. Puyol can suddenly move more freely and the Barcelona captain is nothing if not used to playing through pain.