The A2K World Cup 2010 Striker Fantasy Game

So good, Pants! (sending you some gelato)


all hail to Baez the magnifico, the thread man for the ages..

It is what it is Bob. It is men at work for big prizes in the conditions they find.

Dribbling is a useful ploy in that work when defensive players are not very fit or skilled as once was the case. You will find dribblers in park teams spotted by talent scouts and bought up. Once at the stadium they find dribbling ineffective. There, the defensive players are not coming off a heavy night on the piss. And they mean business. It is business. It's about winning. The city crowd demands it. Flopping, kicking, bullying, shirt tugging, arguing, cheating are business methods. It isn't rounders. It's a form of warfare. It is not easy scoring a goal against such men.

It may be deplorable but tickets for the matches with the best teams trade at above face value.

These men give up the best years of their lives and endure training methods which the ordinary person can hardly imagine.

And there is Media to consider. Nobody wants to read about pretty-pretty and skill displays and domesticated men. What happened to jugglers?

Watch where the groupies gather. The Darwinian principle.

Good answer, Spendius.
I am not a fan of dribblers, myself. They're overrated in Latin American countries and some very ineffective players (thinking of Mexico's "Venado" Medina, who thankfully did not play in South Africa, and half the Chilean offense) are considered stars. The guys who do everything right "but take a bad last decision" (often a personalist decision).
But I'm fond of players with high levels of technique; the defender who sweeps, stands up and sends a pass, the midfielder who recovers cleanly, passes and moves to a clear space (or pulls the mark, leaving space for his teammates), the killer striker. And I don't mind jogo bonito at all... if it ends with a good play in the opponent's area.
I like defensive style football -and have to discuss a lot here in Mexico, since I'm member of a tiny minority-, but only when it leads to nasty well prepared counterattacks, such as the Italians showed in Germany 2006, not the usual British style long defensive kick. In that sense, a team who captured my imagination this year was Uruguay -not casually, they lost the semifinal when their two defensive rocks, Fucile and Lugano, were out of the game, Fucile for yellow cards, Lugano for an injury-.
But most of all, I like team play. Association football. Germany foremost, Uruguay (with their great man Forlán playing for the team, unlike the other national starlettes, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi or Kaká) and Spain.
What I find distasteful -even if I know it's effective some times- is the game breaking tactics, such as the ones showed by the Netherlands in the final (and in other games), the let's-not-let-them-play-brake-their-backbone attitude.
I find it telling that Johan Cruyff, the man who is a symbol of total football declared that, even if his heart was torn in the final, he'd rather have Spain as the winners, for Spain, with a football style set in Barcelona by Cruyff himself, is the true heir to the original Clockwork Orange.
So I'm glad the best team won the final.

Nothing dirty about fielding "my" players upside down. It was, simply put, a good strategy. Congratulations.



My very same thought.
But lemme tell you, I won 3 times in a row our private group in the Reforma virtual football game for the Mexican league -this year a girl from our sports section was the winner-. Guess who often comes among the last three? The guy from Televisa Deportes.
As long as Televisa is behind El Tri, we have no hope.

Sometimes I stop and wonder why I keep watching and rooting for a team on a nation that has the "Pacto de Caballeros" going on full effect, a sports nation that doesn't release the details about a player's salary or who their agents are, but then a beautiful goal happens and the heart takes over.

I have only a vague idea what the "Pacto de Caballeros" is.
Could you elaborate?

They are all beautiful goals Pants. Money is the only beautiful thing left. And that save of Casillas was as beautiful as any goal. At 0--0 I mean.

Gentlemen's Agreement

Pantos is referring to the "gentlemen's agreement" of football owners not to sue the Mexican television networks who own more than one 1st Division team (Televisa owns América, Necaxa and San Luis; TV Azteca owns Morelia and Jaguares), against FIFA's rules.

The "gentlemen's agreement" includes insider "rules" about player trading, that would preclude "difficult" footballers for finding a team (and always have team owners making a profit out of a footballer's sale).

This cronysm (sp?) stemmed from a strike of the footballer's union in the 70s, which ended up with the dissappearence of a team (the original Necaxa) and the veto of the leaders (amongst them the now well-known commentator Carlos Albert).

Footballers who have tried to resucitate the union (Hugo Sánchez, Cuauhtémoc Blanco) have had their tough time with the networks and have had to back down.

On the other hand, wages in Mexican football are by far the highest in Latin America. This, in turn, incites players to stay at home turf, instead of going to more competitive leagues (France, The Netherlands) where they'd earn less. The ones who have dared, though, are now better players, and handsomely paid, also.

I agree spendius, they're all beautiful, goals, saves, jukes, dribbles and many times they're even better on slow motion. But the goals that give your team the lead are the most beautiful and that's the point I was trying to make. No matter how sad Mexico's current affairs are in sports or any other topic I always root them and Chivas when they play.

That's the problem with you, Pantos.
Rooting for Chivas, Vergara's boys ! (You know what Molotov says about them )

It's not all attributable to hard-nosed play, desire to win and quality of defender, there's a clear difference in school of thought and in officiating.

The British school of football is such that dribbling is almost seen as ungentlemanly showboating, and there's lot greater tolerance for physical contact to stop it. Latin players don't do as well there for a reason, even if they shine in leagues with superior defenders (the folks in Spain are facing much stiffer competition).

The difference is largely cultural, you stiffs just can't stand that free-dribbling individualism and think that a gentlemanly game is a game with an unwritten 3-touch rule, tea at halftime and a lot of jolly good teamwork and all. I can't say the case is without merit but it's still boring, and it's not like you guys are winning anything with this school of football thought (especially since "attacking" means booting the ball up the field real hard). The beautiful game is still better represented on the podium stand than the raised-pinkie version you guys want to play. ;-)

Well said.
Plus see what happened to Brazil with Dunga (he wanted every player to be like himself, or Felipe Melo, for that matter), and to Portugal, with Queiroz (played horribly, and failed, too).
But I'd never root either for a "team" like Argentina. "Lio likes the ball, give the ball to Lio", with no midfield, no team work and a coach that confuses tactics with kissing his beloved players.

Can't agree more. With 23 spots available Dunga picked only 3 players with creativity and technical skill, and then had no options when his team of clones needed a plan B that he had no material for.

It was such a deep insult to football that I couldn't be bothered to watch, Dunga made everything about him against the world, just repeating mantras about how it's important to win and not play beautiful. True, but that ignores that he was stubbornly wrong about how to win and that a little more creativity and technical skill were obviously missing and watching from home.

A tactical idiot of breathtaking proportions, what the hell are you doing with a bunch of defensive midfielders in the second half against North Korea when they are playing with everyone behind the ball and only two mediocre attacking players? What on earth is the point of locking up a defense against a team that is not attacking, in a round where goal difference matters?

And Maradona was even worse, at least Dunga looked like a coach that was stubborn and incompetent, Maradona never even looked like a coach. The one thing I do have to cede to the Europeans is that they usually don't produce tactical brainfarts like this where the coach thinks that coaching is about picking your favorite attackers, reveling in the media spotlight, and trying to make your players develop a man-crush on you.

It was a crying shame, I was rooting for them anyway because I think Messi is the most gifted player in the history of the game, and their skill is something I wanted to see shine. I just wish they had had a real coach, just look what the Dutch and Germans were able to do with tactics, imagine if Argentina and Brazil's talent actually had talented tacticians employing them!

But either way, Spain deserves it, they didn't play like it at all the whole cup but on paper this is one of the most talented squads in history. This is a golden generation that is actually underrated. In almost every position they field someone who is clearly the world's best player at that position or someone who is arguable.

But I don't agree with the defensive schools (not a huge dribbling fan but I am a ball-on-the-ground, technical fan) I'm glad the defensive schools didn't win this cup, I hate the spirit of their game. It's the concrete blocks that they'd have the skilled wear.

See what Argentinian Bielsa did to Chile and Brazilian Parreira to South Africa! Both teams played over their perceived limits.

I concede that Bielsa had failed with Argentina in 2002 (but then won the Olympic gold in 2004 with the youngsters) and Parreira with Brazil in 2006, but they were miles above Dunga and Maradona.

Bielsa is offensive without being an asshole, and Parreira is defensive without being inept.

Thanks! Gelato would be great anytime, but it would be specially great on these summer months.



I know the Molotov's song, it's been a bittersweet ride with Vergara (I graduated from a fan to a follower after he took over the team).

Right now it's good, looking forward to the Libertadores' game in two weeks. I don't think any other mexican team's fan could say that they didn't wish their team were the one on the semifinals.

As for Medina's penalty, it's in my memory as is Osorio's from the confederations cup but they don't cause as much emotion as the latter's mistake on this world cup.