Internationals

This weekend continues the long road of international teams in Europe trying to qualify for Euro 2008. (The European Cup can be thought of as like the World Cup, only it involves nations solely from Europe.) While there are actually a number of interesting matches this weekend and early next week, many eyes in America will be firmly on England.

First, the England U21s (the national team of players under the age of 21) will be playing Italy. This in and of itself means it will be a fairly interesting match, but more importantly, the game will be the first competitive match played at the new Wembly stadium in London, which has finally opened after many delays. Many people like to refer to Wemby as the “home of football,” and no one can doubt that many great and historic matches have been played there. It’ll be good to have a Wembly open again; incidentally, the February 2007 issue of Fourfourtwo has a nice spread on the stadium. It does seem like a great place to watch a game.

The full English Internationals, meanwhile, will be playing a qualifier against Israel (who are not a bad team at all). Many observers feel that if England lose (or even draw) in this match they may very well not qualify for Euro 2008. If England does lose (and especially if they also lose their match next week against Croatia) it looks as if head coach Steve McClaren will be cut loose. This match could hardly have more controversy and interest, then, although it actually could have if David Beckham wasn’t injured. Beckham’s recent stellar play for Real Madrid (before the injury) had led some to call for Beckham to be placed again on the England squad. Beckham’s bad wheels are probably a relief to an under-fire Steve McClaren, but he still needs some wins if he is to save his job and reputation.

Friendliness

There are some pretty interesting international friendlies that will be played over the next few days, including France v. Argentina. The three games that will be easiest for fans in the U.S. to watch, however, are as follows:

Brazil v. Portugal

3:00pm EST, Tuesday, FSC

Should be an interesting game with some big names, although traditional stalwarts of the two teams, including Figo, Ronaldino, and Ronaldo will not be playing. It will be a good chance to see Kaka, Adriano, Robino (if he plays) for Brazil as well as Christiano Ronaldo for Portugal, who has become one of the best players in the world over the past few months. Presumably there will be no winking during this game, and one thing we know for sure is that Wayne Rooney will not be around to stamp anyone’s nuts. Shame.

England v. Spain

3:00pm EST, Wednesday, FSC

Lots of big names like Raul, Rooney, Owen, Cole, Terry, and Beckham will not be playing, but still enough star power to make this fun. We’ll see how Steven Gerard takes to wearing the captain’s armband, and see how the English team as a whole does when half their team is out injured. The bloodthirsty English press is already calling this a make-or-break game for manager Steve McCalren, but that is probably just typical bluster from a news corps that wouldn’t know moderation if it was, say, kicked in the nuts by it. In the form of a maniacal Wayne Rooney.

USA v. Mexico

9:00pm EST, Wednesday, ESPN2

For the grand championship of North American soccer! (South of Canada, at least.) Bob Bradley looks to be going with a fairly experienced squad for tomorrow night’s match, presumably because he would like to shed the ridiculous “interim” tag and just manage the U.S. team without worrying about being replaced in three months. Personally, I’m all for it. He seems like a good man for the job and, more importantly, he actually wants the job. Anyway, seems like an entertaining enough match that, I’m sure, ESPN won’t try to oversell at all. After all, they never do.

Blast from the Past

Yesterday there was a great slate of games on television. Nearly every match I watched was exciting and fast paced and held my rapt attention until the final whistle. Don’t worry, Real Madrid. I’m not talking about you.

One of the most interesting games I watched yesterday, however, was one that was played more than five years ago: last night Fox Soccer Channel aired the famous 2001 match between England and Greece that led to England finally qualifying for the World Cup Finals in Asia. It was an exciting game best remembered for David Beckham’s perfectly placed free-kick, but for me there were two other things that really stood out for me.

1). The first was how much better the game flowed than what I am usually watching on television today. At first, I could not fathom why, but eventually I did figure it out. There was no diving! Or, almost none. But for the most part, when someone was knocked down, they simply got up and kept playing. It was almost as if everyone was playing as genuine sportsmen.

Contrast that with the sport today: everyone knows that the 2006 World Cup would be best known for its diving if not for my friend Zinedine’s head-butt. But this diving is starting to seep into league play, and it seems as if it is worst in Spain. Yesterday Real Madrid’s match with Mallorca was a virtual festival to the art of diving; even the announcers on GolTV don’t seem to care anymore. A fistfight almost broke out between the two teams when Real’s Rudd van Nistleroy didn’t kick the ball out of bounds on a breakaway when a Mallorca player went down. Rudd claimed he didn’t see the player fall, but what wasn’t acknowledged was that, of course, the player in question had dived anyway. It makes the football brutal to watch, and makes the game itself much less beautiful.

2). Watching this game from 2001 also hit me when I realized how long this core of guys from England were playing together. Beckham, Gerrard, Neville, Ferdinand, etc., were all there in 2001 just as they were there in 2006 in Germany; presumably some of them will still be missing penalties in Europe 2008 and beyond. Watching them play together when they were so much younger alternatively amazed me and also made me a little sad that this group of guys could never get the job done.