Rampant Russia : Now we can breath after that scintillating World Cup start

Well, that was fun, exhilarating and somewhat falsifying. But who cares.

If international football has dropped light years behind club football, the World Cup still  retains the ability to evoke indescribable emotions. As Miguel Delaney has written, nothing in sport is at this level in terms of feeling. World Cup memories tend to insist that you remember where you were. Often, football fans do.

This will be similar — that romping start by Russia at their home World Cup will linger. The sight of pure childlike joy when Yury Gazinsky opened the scoring. The delight in Artem Dzuyba who lumbered on like an ungraceful giant. That last minute free-kick. Those five goals.

The Real Madrid youth product

It seems there’s nowhere to hide from Real Madrid in the football world. After their dealings have already affected (or not) the Spain national team, here was one of their youth products threatening to become a star of the World Cup.

Before now, Denis Cheryshev was known for being the man who caused Real Madrid to be kicked out of the Copa del Rey in 2015. He played when he was meant to be suspended, leading to the Spanish Giants’s ejection from the competition on grounds of player elligibility.

He fit in somewhat nicely after coming on for the hamstrung Alan Dzagoev. I say somewhat because bar those two excellently taken goals, Cheryshev was largely invisible. You can see why Real Madrid did not retain him, and why he doesn’t regularly start for Villarreal.

However, his goals made a huge impact. But apart from that, he didn;t do much to suggest he will adequately replace Dzagoev who must be cursing his luck once more. (Injury ruled Dzagoev out of Euro 2016 and last year’s Confederations Cup).

Tactics Corner

It was interesting to see just how high Saudi Arabia’s defensive line was. It made it so easy for Russia to catch them on the break. Although, with Juan Antonio Pizzi as their manager — he who managed Chile to the Copa America Centenario title in 2016 — it probably wasn’t all that surprising.

However, the deep line by Russia is probably going to be a mainstay at this World Cup. Although pressing is now a staple in football, it is unlikely that most teams will play a high line — or certainly at least not as high as the one at club football.

Then again, Russia did have a 38-year old Sergei Ignashevich and Yuri Zhirkov, 34, in their backline — so playing a high line was obviously out of the question.

Powerful nations

Of the teams at the World Cup, Russia and Saudi Arabia are the lowest ranked by FIFA. One can therefore tend to forget that on the international community, they are actually very powerful.

Nothing said this more than the images of FIFA President Gianni Infantino in the director’s box, with Russia power man Vladimir Putin and Saudi monarch Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on either side of him. In many countries, Infantino would have looked most powerful especially since FIFA organises this football tournament. Not here though.

Expanded World Cup

Looking at how Saudi Arabia was battered despite having more of the ball, one wonders what expansion at the North American 2026 World Cup will do. Potentially, more teams that will be battered???

Exciting show, maybe — but what could that mean for the quality of football on show.

The Neymar Effect : A fantasy future based on the world’s record transfer fee

Neymar posing with in his new PSG kit at the Parc de Princes. Photo: Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images Europe

Neymar’s world record transfer is sure to have a ripple effect on football for years to come.

However, if one were to speculate and build a fantasy world, what domino effect would this transfer really have on Europe’s top leagues?

For a select number of clubs, we can only imagine….

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The Transfer Window

Real Madrid have noticed that Barcelona has just been weakened and push to sign

Brazil’s nightmare semi-final

It was not as heart-breaking as 1950, neither as regrettable as 1982. Brazil’s 7-1 semi-final loss to Germany was downright embarrassing.

Indeed, a stadium and a nation endured a harrowing experience. The rollercoaster of emotions flowed one way — downwards. Shock turned into despair, gasp, and finally a delusional reality. Was Brazil really that bad? Was the weight of a nation too much of a burden to carry? In the end, it was a little of both.

Not only was it the weight of a nation; it was also the scales of history. The most successful nation in World Cup history had not won the World Cup on

Spain exit football’s throne

Their dominance is now but just a memory as World Cup exit heralds the end of an era

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Tick, tock, went the clock as Spain’s time came to a stop. Dominance lasts long, but never longer than the natural order of things. At some point, everything — whether good or bad, special or mediocre, extraordinary or not, revolutionary or evolutionary — comes to an end. For Spain, this is it!

And what a ride it was. Since mid-2008, no national team has so dominated international football. It could be that in terms of success, this generation of players is the greatest group ever in football history. Three major international tournaments were conquered with style, identity and philosophy.

The whole world watched in awe. For six years, there was no answer to that passing game — those fluid motions, those probing punches that asphyxiated opponents into submission. Football technique rose to a whole new level and

The Myth : African football is progressing

Children playing football on a dusty field in South Africa *** image courtesy of zimbio ***

Nothing sums up the perception of progress in African football more than the opening scene of The Newsroom, when Will McAvoy is forced to respond to the question “What makes America the greatest country in the World”. In that captivating opening episode, McAvoy turns, looks around, tries to evade the question, sees the answer in the crowd, ignores it as a hallucination, turns again, fails to evade the question, sees the answer again in the crowd, ignores it but ultimately answers, “It’s not the greatest country in the world, … but it can be” 

Certainly, the speech he then goes on to give in between the words ‘world,’ and ‘but it can be’ sets the tone for the illusionary belief that exists in the question he had just been asked. In the same light, a Jonathan Wilson article in The Guardian almost a year ago titled “The Question; Is African Football Progressing?” borders on the same levels of intellectual frustration in belief of the constant myth of African football’s ever progressing nature.