Those of you who have read my missives over the years will know that I like history. People do not not pay enough attention to it which is a shame as you can learn from what has gone before even if it is not exactly the same circumstances.
Yesterday Spain showed they had not paid attention to European history of the past 200 years. Of course the playing field was different but the analogy holds.
1812 Napoleon and France, 1943 Germany and now 2018 Spain.
Russia defends deep, very deep, you start off with a quick victory giving one a false sense of security, in this case, Spain's twelfth minute goal courtesy of a Russian defender, this is going to be easy you think, you then advance deeper and deeper into the endless Russian territory but without really having any tangible success,
A lot of space opens up behind your front lines which leaves you open to localized counter attacks by partisans which can be very very painful, exemplified by the ridiculous penalty Spain gave away and which was buried by the man I told you to watch out for in my preview, Mr Russian Bear.
As time goes on you may push even further forward until at some point your attacks become like a war of attrition as you batter yourselves against a Russian brick wall. You become disillusioned, tired and bereft of ideas, until you reach a point where the Russian hordes launch, on the ground of their choosing, their massive counter attack and sweep forward to steam roll the opposition into the ground as they begin a long ignominious retreat from the Rodina. Yesterday that was evidenced in the penalty shoot out.
Uncle Joe would have been delighted and his successor Putin although not present ( according to the jokes on twitter he was organizing the hostage taking of the Spanish players families.) will surely be getting ready a Dacha for each of the heroes of the Republic.
It was clear from the first minute that the Russkies were playing for penalties and the Spaniards had no idea what to do. It was an awful game to watch, I fell asleep and woke up in time for the penalties.
So Spain, join Argentina and Germany as former winners who have already gone home and Russia move on to face Croatia who also only got through on Penalties. In the preview for that game I will explain how to beat the Russkies.
The first game today throws up an intriguing clash between Brazil and Mexico. The Mexicans have reached this stage for the sixth time in a row and have lost on all five previous occasions, so this stage is like the proverbial monkey on their back for them.
The Mexicans always tend to follow the same route, they win their opening game and then it is downhill from then on, this time they won their second game as well, but they looked poor in the three nothing defeat to IKEA.
Their opponents today are Brazil, another of the big teams who have not yet lived up to the hype surrounding them. Mexico need to avoid conceding an early goal, which may seem obvious, for two reasons. One they have a low breaking point mentally and two it will calm the Brazilians down and perhaps they will finally find their expansive game which will mean a long afternoon for Mexico but an enjoyable show for us.
Our two players to watch in this game
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| Coutinho Creative maestro |
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| Vela, not just a baby face |
Coutinho already has one great goal to his name in this tournament
top corner curler
The late game serves up the Brussels sprouts against the Ronin. I use the appellation Ronin rather than Samurai because Ronin were Samurai who had been disgraced and wandered the countryside basically as bandits.
We have to credit the Japanese that they have made it so far, but their behaviour in their last game against Poland was disgraceful and went in the face of any sporting ethic you could think of. Very dishonorable behaviour which was most non Japanese
Basically they were losing one nothing to Poland with fifteen minutes to go and because In the parallel game Senegal were also losing to Colombia, Japan knew that if the scores remained the same , they would go through at the expense of Senegal because they had received one yellow card less than the Africans.
So what did the Japanese do, they just stopped playing, They kept hold of the ball in their own half passing the ball between themselves with no attempt to get into the opposition half.
The Poles, who were already out did not mind, they had nothing to play for either and, as they were winning, were happy to let Japan play like that as at least they would go home with one victory.
For that reason, I can not support the Japanese despite that from a tournament point of view it would be wonderful if they could pull off a massive shock and disturb the chocolate munchers.
The sprouts have not been tested so far and have looked good going forward against weak opposition and against EnGerLand both teams fielded B sides so it is difficult to really know how good they are. They are calling this side the Golden generation back home, but that is a hard title to live up to.
All in all despite the fact that the Ronin will fight to the last second and even probably after that, the sprouts should have too much power for them to cope with.
The players to watch in this game
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| Kagawa |
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| Lukaku and Hazard too much power |
Lukaku has four goals to his name and here is one of them
Lukaku shows his abilities
Brazil and Belgium to advance and set up another very interesting quaster final in the harder side of the draw.
Tomorrow of course, it is EnGerLand so make sure you check back for that one.
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