Is it just me or is this World Cup -if you leave England’s opening crapness out of it for the moment-showing signs of being the best since Italia ‘90? And yesterday we had the first properly great performance. The contrarian thing to do here would be to explain how Argentina were actually not all that impressive, how Serbia and Montenegro were clearly thinking about secession rather than football, how this and that…No, it won’t wash. Argentina were freaking brilliant. For passing and movement and first-touch skill their 24-pass second goal was as good as thing I’ve ever seen. You could take that goal and show it to someone who doesn’t get football, and if that doesn’t convert them, then they beyond in the category whom the Catholic Church calls the ’invincibly ignorant’. At times like this football approaches the definition of baskeball, ‘chess with soul’. My one worry, if I were an Argentina fan, is that this might be a little early to be showing such sensational form.
So farewell then, Serbia and Montenegro. At least you played in a game that will be remembered for a long time. Note that Yugoslavia, if it still existed, would have a hell of a team, since both the. Croats and Serbio-Montenegrins qualified for the tournament; and Sweden’s most prolific striker, Ibrahimovic, is the son of Bosnian immigrants. This pool of players would have been a classic example of one of those Yugoslav teams who were hard to love and even harder to beat.
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