National Anthem Battles

Finally some interesting anthem contests have come up. The Serbia-Ghana matchup featured two of the better anthems we’ve seen so far. Though the Ghanaians might have won the actual match, I give the edge to the Serbs with a somewhat sinister-toned national anthem that perhaps carries over some notes from the crazy times of civil war. Ghana’s was a close contender, though they lost some points for sounding too much like Germany’s “Deutschland, Deutschland”.

Australia vs. Germany: The Australians started off weakly with a piece that sounded like it was off the soundtrack of Titanic 2, before the vocals kicked in and almost saved it for them. The Germans, despite some umph being removed from their anthem due to some post-WWII forced lyrical edits, ended up on top as they always do (or so the stereotypes say). Puzzling considering some of the horror material out there–the Marseillaise to give one example (that line about  “may an impure blood / water our furrows” is rather scintillating). My decision here might also be based on the fact that the Australian anthem was not, in the end, “Waltzing Matilda,” currently a hit on youTube and with my 2 year-old.

Other Kinds of Matches

The Holland-Denmark match, regardless of its result costing me a bloody fortune, was anticlimatic to say the least. One expected a contest worthy of the Laudrups and the Cruyffs and instead was handed, well, a footballing slog of Bendtners and Van Bommels. If they weren’t still alive, the aforementioned legends would roll over in their grave and root for Germany. A comical own-goal sealed the fate of a hapless Denmark, who had less ideas than they did natural brunettes.

A major reason this match promised so much before it actually occured was considering the history of the total-footballing Dutch sides. There was once a time when they thrilled the world and reached all the big finals. In the past few tournaments though (‘98, ‘02, ‘06, and especially in Euros 2004 and 2008) they stormed through the group stages like banshees. Who could forget how they thrashed the Group of Death in 2008, beating world champ Italy 3-0 and making them look like an amateur team from a pasta factory. Then tearing World Cup runner-up France a new one 4-1, while making them look like [insert stereotype here] a local bakery Sunday team.

The Japan-Cameroon, while a great match, reinforced stereotypes about the Japanese being lightweights and the Cameroonians being hapless despite possessing an island of world-class football in a player like Eto’o. In the end, there were enough dramatics to satsify, with exhausted Japanese players looking like they were playing a man down, while Cameroonians used their cliché superior athleticism to knock balls too far in front of themselves. I could imagine what Eto’o might have been thinking: “Cameroon needs 10 more Eto’os”.

And finally, no surprises in the Italy vs. Paraguay. The Paraguayans seem to enjoy their self-made image of utterly empty football based on defending in numbers and hoping that the opponents’ shots hit off of one of their ten defenders and out of play. Despite this, an early goal set up some dramatics made worse by the “typical” Italian slow-motion start to the World Cup. Of course, in the end, those darn Italians did what everybody knew they would do, and tied the game, then nearly won it, while playing shite football.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Things Can Only Get Better, Tomorrow

One awaits the result of the miracle surgery of Drogba. Surely, his reappearance after a broken arm would rank up there with the return from the dead of Garrincha in the 2002 Brazilian™ run to the title. Portugal, meanwhile, after nearly a decade of  persistent “Golden Generation” rhetoric, seem to have assembled a squad of also-rans and ineffective forwards, plus the Poutiest Lipped Footballer of All Time™ Cristiano Ronaldo, whom the Madrid press still tout as the “Best in the World” despite being shown up by Lionel Messi approximately 20 times in the past 2 seasons at various competitions.

And finally, in the ultimate battle between Southern Hemisphere capitalism and North Korean communism, we have the old dogs of Brazil featuring one of their least Brazilian teams ever (only 2 of their squad are Brazil-based). They take on, well, North Korea, about whom little is known besides the fact that April 25th is the date of the founding of their military, as well as the military team that their manager also manages (not to mention a number of their players). That, and their intriguing star, Jong Tae-Se, who despite being known as the “People’s Rooney” back home would rather be like the aforementioned Zombie Drogba.