The Argentina Preview

Now onto the much more interesting Group B of Argentina, Greece, Nigeria, and South Korea. We'll start with Argentina.


What should I know about Argentina: I could write about Argentina and soccer for quite a while (though not quite as long as Bill Smith, who did his PhD dissertation on Argentina and soccer. I bet you didn't know you could get a PhD studying soccer - turns out that you can). Argentina is an extremely proud country, especially when it comes to their soccer team (slightly irreverent joke that people from South America who are not Argentines say: Why do Argentines run outside during lightning storms? Because they think God is taking pictures). Argentina has won two World Cups. The first was when they hosted the cup in 1978, at which time Argentina was ruled by a ruthless band of military dictators who were doing their best to operate a reign of terror for everybody who opposed them. Amnesty International, who were naturally outraged by this, tried to organize a protest entitled "Everybody a Witness" for all of the people visiting Argentina, though the Argentines - wanting to put on a good show while their team was winning - looked nothing but deliriously happy the whole time. Below are the highlights from the final in Buenos Aires:



Argentina won the cup again in 1986 behind their most famous player (and arguably the best player ever) Diego Maradona. Maradona has had a bizarre post-playing career, including a significant drug problem, hanging out with Fidel Castro, and coaching the national teams (if you watch him on the sidelines this summer, be prepared to be a little weirded out). In 1986, though, he was just flat out the best player in the world. There was significant controversy to his world cup, though, due to his goal against England. For a little background, the English and Argentines had recently fought the Falklands War over some tiny, wind-swept islands in the South Atlantic. They also had a controversial World Cup final game in 1966 which England won, and for those reasons they bitterly hated each other. During the game (which was a quarter-final), Maradona scored a goal by punching it over England goalie Peter Shilton, something which was inexplicably missed by the referee. When asked about the goal after the game, Maradona would only say that it was scored "A bit with the head of Maradona and another bit with the hand of God." It has subsequently been named the "Hand of God" goal, and can be seen below.



Later in the game, with England spread out and trying to score, Maradona proceeded to score what has been voted the greatest goal of the 20th century:



And because you can never watch too much Maradona, here's some more highlights:



All that to say that Argentina has a tremendous soccer history and great players.

Who should I watch: Argentina is not short on star players, but they currenly offer perhaps the best player in the world in Barcelona's Lionel Messi. He may be short, but he is a phenomenal scorer as you will see below:



Are there any games I should look out for: Almost every Argentina game should be worth watching, because they will either be tremendously entertaining, and fun to watch, or they will pull off a world-class choke job, and you can watch Coach Maradona fear for his life on the sidelines. It'll be either one or the other - there's really nothing in between.

How will they do: Argentina is always a treat to win it all, and this year is no different. However, they had a rocky lead-up to the world cup, and just barely qualified in their last game. So, it's anybody's guess how they'll do. There's no question they have plenty of talent.

That's it for this week. Next week: South Korea! Can you hear the drums beating?

South Africa/Uruguay

Time for more team previews, which I know you will be excited about. Okay, I know that I will be excited about them. Anyway, here we go:

First up is Uruguay. First a few words about Uruguay (since I've always thought knowing a little about the country helps you to know a little about the soccer team): It is relatively small South American country, and lies between Brazil and Argentina. Some people have postulated that one of the only reasons that the country still exists is that neither Argentina nor Brazil wants the other to gain control over the River Plate (which is one of South America's only navigable rivers), so neither will let the other over-run Uruguay. Some other things to know are that there are more people living in the Seattle/Tacoma metro area than in Uruguay, and that most of the people in Uruguay are of European descent. If you want to know some cool stories about Uruguay, talk to George Kunkel sometime, who served his mission there and had a lot of crazy experiences.

Who to watch on the team: Diego Forlan is their primary goal-scoring threat. He currently plays for Atletico Madrid, but prior to that played for Manchester United. Below are some great goals he scored; obviously he's an exciting player to watch.


What kind of team are they: The Uruguayans can score, but they are mostly a classic small South-American side - hard-nosed defense with enough goals thrown in to win a few games.

How will they do: Always hard to say. I don't think anybody is predicting them to win it, and most would say they'd be lucky to get out of the first round. Even if they do make it out, it's hard to see them going any farther.

Any can't miss games: I don't think I'd circle any of their games for sure, though Mexico-Uruguay may be a good game since Latin-American countries frequently try and pull the same tricks on each other, and the matches are usually good.

Now for the hosts, South Africa. You may already know quite a bit about South Africa, though now that apartheid is over, you may not learn as much about them in school as I did back in the day. South Africa is a country that was colonized by both the Dutch and the British. The British eventually decided to to let the Dutch have part of the country before gold was discovered in Dutch regions. The British then wanted the whole country back, and this later spawned a war between the two. Eventually South Africa became it's own country, ruled exclusively by whites, and stayed that way for many years until the 1990's. Does all this relate back to Soccer? Of course. South Africa primarily plays two sports - rugby, which was taught to white boys at their schools, and soccer, which was played by black boys at their schools. For this reason, sports have always had a little more symbolism in South Africa (and hence, the whole plot of the movie Invictus). Another thing to know about South Africa is that it can be an extremely dangerous country to live in. Why hold the world cup in country like that? Basically, FIFA (soccer's main governing body) wanted to appease it's African members by giving them a World Cup, and South Africa is easily the only country with enough stability to pull it off. And now you know.

Who to watch: Just like America, South Africa has a so-so domestic soccer league, but is mostly counting on a few players who ply their trade in Europe to make the difference for them. One of the players in particular is Steven Pinaar, who currently plays for Everton. No super-riveting video here, because he's not a super-riveting player. That should tell you all you need to know.


How will they do: Host nations almost always do better than they should - there is something about home crowds that seem to push them to do better. So, you would have to say that South Africa might get through to the second round if all the breaks go their way. Most people don't think they will, though.

Any can't miss games: It's always fun to watch host-country games, because the crowd goes absolutely nuts when anything good happens. If you get a chance to watch any of their games, I certainly would do it. As an example, below is a video of South Korea's win over heavily favored Italy on their home soil in 2002. The crowd was electric, even if the ref was insane and clearly gifted the game to South Korea.


That's all for this week. Next week we move on to group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, and Greece (much more interesting than Group A - "Hand of God" goal, Super Eagles, controversial matches, and miraculous finishes await....).