Round 11, 2006

 

 

Given that footballinvective.com spent this week in Kaiserslautern watching the Socceroos and missed every game, there is little more we can say about this week's results than: Football was the Real Winner. 

 

If football is a religion in Germany, then Kaiserslautern is its monastery, and footballinvective.com was there to see Australian football history:

 

Footballinvective.com in the streets of Kaiserslautern

 

In a stunning triumph for ALL Australians, a victory for the ANZAC spirit, the meat pie, the kangaroo, the Holden car, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Ayres Rock, vegemite, koalas, and every other Australian icon you could care to name, our boys came back from 1-0 down against Japan after 32 years in the wilderness and looking down the barrel of another shafting with 10 minutes to go. For those bleary-eyed, patriotic fans who stayed up to watch the match, and the 20,000 other Aussies who joined footballinvective.com at the Fritz Walter Stadion, it was worth the wait, with 3 goals scored in quick succession in the dying minutes of the game.

 

Fritz Walter Stadion, Kaiserslautern - The Home of Football

 

The first half was a generally uninspiring, less than impressive stanza of football, with the Socceroos feeling their way through the first period like Ray Charles at a brothel and the Japanese conveniently settling in to that oh-so-annoying brand of Asian football, with about as much penetration as George Best in his final days without his Viagra. Much has been made of the madness which constituted the refereeing decision which led to the awarding of Japan's totally piss-weak goal, but the flawed Schwarzer showed as much authority in coming for the innocuous ball from Nakamura as Billy McMahon circa 1972, and was 95% at fault for the first goal, Aussie protests completely notwithstanding. Footballinvective.com has waxed lyrical in the past of the achilles heel of the Middlesbrough man with the Kraut (indeed Kaiserslautern) heritage who, with 10 minutes to go, looked to have put the kybosh on the entire Aussie World Cup experience.

 

The second half, for the most part, was marred by some flagrant Japanese expediency, with enough diving to bring a tear to the eye of Greg Louganis (who would also have appreciated the sight of so many athletic young men to keen to go down), and if an Asian team ever knew what to do within twenty yards from goal, then the Aussies' World Cup hopes could have been liquidated faster than a kamikaze pilot's life insurance policy. But when the Japanese 'star' midfielders and strikers are completely stuffing up two-on-one counterattacks (Lucas Neill defensive excellence notwithstanding) on the world's biggest stage (sort of like Greg Tivendale stuffs up those 15m short passes to various hapless Tiger teammates) then violent Nagasaki-style retribution will always be imminent.

 

The tactical masterstroke was introducing Cahill as a SUBSTITUTE, and not as a member of the starting XI. Guus neglected this fact in the following three matches, to the detriment of the national team, as good teams and the best players will find him out over a full 90 minutes because of his less accountable style of play. However, footballinvective.com has never doubted his capacity to flick the switch to brilliance at short notice, and in ten completely psychotic and fantabulous minutes at the Fritz Walter, Super Tim blew away the Japanese defence more effectively than "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" on V-J Day, after the Japanese had begun to tire at the barrage of Australian long balls launched into the box towards the likes of Jesus Kennedy and John 'Penalty Hero' Cahill. 

 

More damning for the North Korean Missile Targets however, was the inevitable fuck-up-ability of goalkeeper Kawaguchi, who is about as reliable as a Lada Samara that's been sitting at Car City for the last 6 months. To his credit, Kawaguchi had fluked his way through 80 minutes producing a string of fine saves from the likes of Viduka and Bresciano, but the intra-cranial time bomb that is Kawaguchi's box of neurons was ticking, and when Lucas Neill hurled that long throw desperately into the box towards the great big boxing kangaroo Josh Kennedy, the cerebral device reached critical mass.

 

How numbskull Kawaguchi ever thought he was going to get that ball off of the head of 194cm Kennedy is beyond all rational explanation (sort of like Tony Liberatore trying to out-mark Plugger in a one-on-one duel) but flailing away at the ball more desperately than a Big Brother contestant tries to regain his dignity after a turkey slap, Kawaguchi's brain implosion, in just one fateful second, destroyed Japan's chances of progression to the second round. After Kewell was miracoulously blocked by a heroic Japanese defender in the aftermath, Cahill swept in the equaliser, greeted by the delirium of 20 million Aussie soccer fans more starved of success than an Ethiopian is of Big Macs.

 

However, REAL fans of the Socceroos would have appreciated Aloisi's goal most of all - for the first time in Australia's small history, the national team had found an opponent at its mercy and completely put them to the sword. As Darren Jarman had done to Jaime Shanahan in the '97 Grand Final, Aloisi (yet another great South Australian - where would this country be without them) took the switchblade to the throat of the Japanese lamb and did not even blink. Euphoria for ALL Australians was the only possible outcome.

 

V-J at K-Town. 1945 all over again at the Fritz Walter

 

Australia’s come-from-behind win was almost as amazing as West Coast’s second in two weeks. After coming back from 47 points down to beat Geelong in round 10, the Eagles banged on 8 goals in the final quarter against Carlton, to prevent what would have been the biggest upset of 2006, yet once again show that the Eagles are not really a genuine premiership threat. After all, you would never see the Crows trailing against Carlton.... 

 

In other results, the fate of Victorian sides continues to worsen, with Hawthorn and the Kangaroos suffering disappointing losses (well, disappointing for their fans, but where Hawthorn is concerned, not exactly disappointing for everyone elese). Even if both teams merged with Carlton, it is still unlikely that their combined list would be competitive against the top sides, and between their three coaches they probably couldn't find one who was up to the task anyway.

 

Finally, in front of a crowd of 80,000 people at the MCG (plus thousands more tuned into their radios from Mount Hotham), Collingwood were completely and utterly beaten by the Demons. The Pies conceded goals on twenty-two glorious occasions, each one bringing that special feeling of satisfaction that only a Victorian AFL fan can know. But a feeling that was well and truly overshadowed by three of Australia's finest finding the back of the net at the Fritz Walter House of Pain. Gold for Australia !

 

 

Hero of the Week: Aussie Guus Hiddink

 

Cult Figure of the Week: "Super Tim" Cahill

 

Clanger of the Week: The Egyptian referee. The dopey bastard apologised to Mark Viduka and Mark Schwartzer after the game for his gold-plated clanger in allowing the Japanese goal. He can be thankful that Cahill and Aloisi saved him from Vigilante justice at the hands of the assembled Australian masses.