Day Three
In Group C:
England 1-1 US
Algeria 0-1 Slovenia
In Group D:
Serbia 0-1 Ghana
Germany 4-0 Australia
Goalies are having problems. Both Robert Green of England and Faouzi Chaouchi of Algeria lost control of balls that you would expect them to handle. Some people have complained about the new ball acting weird. Both goals were late in the games but that shouldn’t affect people good enough to make their national teams.
Another goalie in pain, this time physical, is Tim Howard of the US who may have broken ribs. He stayed in the match after the injury, but may have to be benched.
4 comments
Many players and officials from teams around the World have expressed doubts about this new ball. But as Sockeroos Goalie Mark Schwarzer says, they all just have to do the best they can and get used to it. The ball is what it is and isn’t going to change now. Brazil’s Julio Cesar has been one of the most scathing of the Jubulani, even describing it as “a ball you’d buy in the supermarket.” I suspect there are going to be a lot of official complaints.
The ‘supernatural’ World Cup ball goalkeepers are ‘petrified’ of
It get’s worse. 🙂 The biggest problem I see for FIFA is that it definitely appears that their new ball will be so unpredictable, that the main reason for football (socker), the test of player’s ultimate skills, will be robbed. At World Cup level, that’s a travesty. I foresee major problems, and possibly even many happy lawyers! And that is a true shame.
I guess Germany were either better at working out the ball’s quirks, or luckier. The Soceroos may not be ranked up with Germany, but they are not that bad either… Not 4-0 bad! *shrug* I didn’t expect the Sockeroos to win against Germany, but I didn’t think they would loose that badly either. *shrug*
Looking at the US goal against England, it was obvious the keeper thought the ball was not going where it did. I think it was significant that the goals against England and Algeria were late, The keepers were tired and reacted with instinct rather than caution.
The Germans have obviously figured the ball out, but that doesn’t make me happy. The US tied, but it was a cheap goal and not very satisfying. I don’t know why they keep screwing around with the ball. One of the big draws of football/soccer was it was cheap to play. You could spend a lot of money on kit, but you didn’t have to, so smaller schools that couldn’t afford American football, could afford to play association football.
My brother played keeper, so I spent a lot of time kicking at him, but what kind of practice would he get if I couldn’t figure out how to place the ball when shooting? I was a defender, not a striker, so I would have been worthless with the new ball.
It is supposed to be about the players, not the equipment.
One of the Sunday Sports News shows here have a couple of old and very experienced ex-socker players on the news team. The played during the 70-s and 80’s. They said the best ball ever made was during the ’78-’79 season and they should have stopped with that! As they said, socker is about player’s skill, not the damned ball! I agree. I really hope the morons at FIFA catch hell over this!
The shoes without metal studs and new shin guards are worthwhile advances since I played [I have the scars to show the problems with both], but this ball seems to be more about producing high scores at the expense of the keeper than improving the game.