By Milton Nyakundi
On the third day of the African World Cup, I must admit to you that I woke up from my bed and left my house a very unhappy person because of two reasons. Why? Because strikers had refused to show up at the tournament and by that I mean we hadn’t seen any goal by a striker even with the hue and cry about the ‘Jabulani’ from the goalkeepers.
Well, Robert Green was green enough to concede such a goal but I maintain it was not a case of mediocre goalkeeping as you may think, ‘Jabulani’ had everything to do with it, yes, it was the ball’s path and bounce that messed up the young man’s opening match memories as a member of the three lions squad.
My disappointment continued and couldn’t have gone worse than see Algeria, a team I thought contained everything as a surprise package, go down so ignominiously in the hands of ‘lowly’ Slovenia.
Kudos Ghana for making Africa proud and for the first time in three days we saw Africa pride in results as opposed to the simplistic argument that we have staged our world cup successfully.
I know you agree with me on everything so far so allow me now to deviate and talk about Germany’s performance. Why on earth would the three time champions had to pump four goals into Australia’s goal? Okey, it felt nice to see goals flying in finally and of course strikers doing their job but I have my reservations on the manner in which the goals came in because on a day with 3 matches then you get one team scoring 4 out of the seven goals notched on the day, its not fair.
Am not sympathizing with the Australians because they looked miserable throughout but am also questioning the prudence of the Germans in that game because why would you kick a dead dog or kill a dead lion?
The Bavarians have never lost an opening match at the world cup since Spain in 1982 but in all that, they have only won the world once but have always announced their arrival by thrashing teams in ruthless fashion – its sad that in 2002, they won 8-0 in the opening match of the 2002 edition but still they never lifted the trophy.
My hypothesis is that the Germans biggest weakness is in their strength and that is why they must be ruthless from the start to scare their subsequent opponents which is a trait associated with cowardice.
Its important that at this stage, we hold due respect to teams because such high-scoring matches could kill the morale of fans turning out to watch the victim sides; please don’t kill a dead lion unless it shows signs of resurrection but Australia didn’t even console their nerves with a single goal so why continue with the rout?
Well, Robert Green was green enough to concede such a goal but I maintain it was not a case of mediocre goalkeeping as you may think, ‘Jabulani’ had everything to do with it, yes, it was the ball’s path and bounce that messed up the young man’s opening match memories as a member of the three lions squad.
My disappointment continued and couldn’t have gone worse than see Algeria, a team I thought contained everything as a surprise package, go down so ignominiously in the hands of ‘lowly’ Slovenia.
Kudos Ghana for making Africa proud and for the first time in three days we saw Africa pride in results as opposed to the simplistic argument that we have staged our world cup successfully.
I know you agree with me on everything so far so allow me now to deviate and talk about Germany’s performance. Why on earth would the three time champions had to pump four goals into Australia’s goal? Okey, it felt nice to see goals flying in finally and of course strikers doing their job but I have my reservations on the manner in which the goals came in because on a day with 3 matches then you get one team scoring 4 out of the seven goals notched on the day, its not fair.
Am not sympathizing with the Australians because they looked miserable throughout but am also questioning the prudence of the Germans in that game because why would you kick a dead dog or kill a dead lion?
The Bavarians have never lost an opening match at the world cup since Spain in 1982 but in all that, they have only won the world once but have always announced their arrival by thrashing teams in ruthless fashion – its sad that in 2002, they won 8-0 in the opening match of the 2002 edition but still they never lifted the trophy.
My hypothesis is that the Germans biggest weakness is in their strength and that is why they must be ruthless from the start to scare their subsequent opponents which is a trait associated with cowardice.
Its important that at this stage, we hold due respect to teams because such high-scoring matches could kill the morale of fans turning out to watch the victim sides; please don’t kill a dead lion unless it shows signs of resurrection but Australia didn’t even console their nerves with a single goal so why continue with the rout?
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