Soccer

Joe Crann

Now that I’ve seen my team well beaten and knocked out of the tournament I can sit back and enjoy the World Cup for what it is, a showcase of the beautiful game.

It’s been a weekend of truly exciting football and I realise that, for a neutral, the England v Germany encounter will have been a brilliant exhibition of footballing talent.

Even as an Englishman the Germany v Argentina quarterfinal is a prospect to lick your lips at. Ghana have a whole continent on their side after kicking the US into touch and will face Uruguay with their confidence sky high. Suarez and Tevez’s goals weren’t too hard on the eyes either, however once again officials made a hash of things. 

Germany and Argentina were both involved in games with contentious decisions within them. There was the “goal that never was” for England and the “goal that never should have been” against Mexico, but at the same time, the best teams still came out on top in both games.

Despite Germany and Argentina deserving their quarterfinal spots, this is the perfect example of why we need to have goal line technology and why referees need to be able to check game footage during the match. There really are no excuses anymore and if Sepp Blatter doesn’t do something about it then we, as football fans, need to start a football revolution.

Too many times in this World Cup have bad decisions cost players game time. Kaka to name one, missed out on the Portugal game because of a bad decision and consequently the footballing world missed out on having its two most expensive products battling against each other. Kaka v Ronaldo could have been rather interesting.

The atmosphere here is still amazing and even after seeing my team and yours go out of the competition, I still feel like I can enjoy what is left of this African spectacle, revel in the festival spirit that the Rainbow Nation has brought to this prestigious tournament and hope that the final on July 11th gives the South African nation the game that it deserves.

Soccer-Laduma contributor

Joe Crann