Menner N Men 5 – CombatWombats 2

The futsal season kicked off last night, and the mighty Combat Wombats were in action at North Sydney. I arrive first, shortly followed by another three members who promptly vetoed a pre-match drink, and I was forced to head towards the field in a complete state of sobriety.

After a quick kick-around, the lagging two members of the team showed up – in work gear. With only five minutes to go until kick-off, they headed off to get changed, and then disaster struck! Duncan, our star midfielder, sustained what could be a crippling injury to the foot.

Luckily for us, Dunc managed to walk it off, and we headed on to the field where the other team and referee were assembled ready for the start. Unfortunately, out two late arrivals had decided they needed to apply mascara before the game, and so the start was delayed, which, combined with my aforementioned sobriety, made the team a little nervous before kickoff.

And a nervous start it was – we conceded four goals in the first half, and could only reply with an inspired MJ Dean shot, 1 yard from the goal. The keeper had no chance. Going into the break 4-1 down, we resolved to keep possession in the second half and try to peg back some goals.

It was a different team that took the field in the second half, as, calm and composed, we took control of the game. Shot after shot went nowhere near the goal, but still we persisted. Chuck caught the referee’s attention with a nasty slide tackle, but no card was presented. Finally our persistence paid off with another MJ Dean special, this time from at least 1.2 yards out.

Alas, it wasn’t to be, and to add insult to injury Menner N Men slotted home a final goal from the sideline, despite a valiant effort by yours truly yelling at all and sundry.

It wasn’t all bad news though – the two other games ended up 5-0 and 10-1, putting us in fourth position on the table, thus poised in semi-final contention. I was nominated “Man of the Match” with 4 votes, ahead of Mike (on 1.5) and Chuck (on 0.5), while Mike goes to the top of the Golden Boot competition. Keep up to date on all the stats at the CombatWombats page.

Next week sees Combat Wombats take on our avowed arch-rivals the Mullets, at 9pm Monday night, ANZAC Stadium, Nth Sydney. Be there.

Cricket world cup – the saga continues

Well, six Super 8 games left to play, and there are only a handful of questions left unanswered:

1. Who killed Bob Woolmer?
2. Will Allen Stanford’s inaugural Twenty20 tournament knock the pointless 50-over version of the game out of existence?
3. Will the world cup final rate higher than Benny Hinn’s This Is Your Day?

Oh, and Ireland (presumably) qualified for the 2011 World Cup by beating Bangladesh last night. Here is my proposed format for the 2011 tournament:

1. Teams are divided into two groups: evenly ranked teams in one group, oddly ranked teams in the other group.
2. Each group plays a round robin, with each team playing seven matches over seven consecutive days.
3. On the eighth day, the top team from each group plays in the final to decide the winner.
4. The ten test-playing nations get back to the real form of cricket, while everyone else buggers off home.

Brilliant!

Does Ricky Ponting understand the Duckworth-Lewis system?

Short answer: probably not.

But then again, neither do the Channel 9 or ABC Grandstand commentators. They were repeatedly predicting that Australia’s target would be revised upwards due to the lost overs.

Idiots.

I’m not claiming that the Duckworth-Lewis system is easy to understand. It’s not complicated, but it’s probably not something that the average cricket fan could be bothered spending time to get their head around. Surely however, professional commentators could spend half an hour of so learning the principles behind it so they don’t look stupid. Your target can only be revised upwards if your opponent’s innings was rain-affected.

Anyway, back to tonight’s game.

England scored a paltry 8/246 to open.

Australia came out, fully aware that there was a high probability that their innings would be affected, and the Duckworth-Lewis system would come into play. Had Ponting understood the D/L method, he would have impressed on his players the importance of keeping wickets in hand. Australia has a long batting line-up, but unfortunately D/L doesn’t take this into account, so the worst thing you can do in a rain affected game is to throw away early wickets.

For those of you who don’t know how D/L works, here is a quick overview. D/L takes two things (“resources”) into account:

1. Overs remaining
2. Wickets in hand

According to the D/L tables which I managed to get my hands on (which admittedly aren’t the version used in ODIs, since these don’t seem to be available), throwing away 5 early wickets has the same effect on your innings as sitting on your arse for 25.3 overs.

Hayden, Ponting, Gilchrist, Clarke and Hussey all gave away their wickets. When 9 overs were lost in the first D/L revision, the target went down by about 25 runs or so, even though Australia was scoring at 6.5 runs per over. If we had instead scored 0 runs per over, but kept the wickets in hand, we would actually have been in a far better position after the D/L revision.

Mistake number one.

When Australia came back in to bat, the score board was displaying something called the “par score”. This is the score required to win if the game finishes immediately. Australia were 36 runs or so behind the par score at this stage.

Now, the par score is calculated on our two resources. Overs, and wickets. When your start losing lots of wickets, remaining wickets becomes very important, and overs don’t really matter. This is because it’s not a lot of good having 30 overs left if you’ve got Pidge at one end, and Bracken at the other.

Thus the scene is set for mistake number two. The batsmen at the crease were Hodge and Watson, two capable batsman who probably shouldn’t be playing for Australia, but are nonetheless handy with the willow. To catch up to the par score, you need to score runs without losing your “resources”. Overs and wickets. Remember, at this stage overs aren’t really that important.

So what do Hodge and Watson do? They start tonking it – believing that the par score has something to do with run rate. The run rate at this stage was already way ahead of what England were at any stage of the match.

Of course, tonking the ball all over the park is not really condusive to retaining wickets. As the wickets fell, the par score went up, and the remaining batsmen just tried to tonk it harder.

Australia ended up with 8/152 from 27 overs. The sad thing is, we could have won it by scoring a mere 4/142 (according to my calculations using the unofficial version of the D/L table).

The result is, of course, history. The worst English side to ever tour Australia becomes the first side in 14 years to beat Australia at home in a one day series.

Let’s hope that it’s sunny in the Carribean.

France 1 – 1 Italy

Italy lifted the world cup for the fourth time after defeating the French 5 – 3 in a penalty shootout.

Zidane opened the scoring with a calmly taken penalty after a dubious decision from the Argentinian referee. It wasn’t long before Materazzi equalised at the other end from a corner, and Italy went on to dominate the rest of the first half.

The second half went mainly France’s way, but they failed to capitalise and the scores remained locked at 1-1 at full time. I don’t know how many times this has happened this world cup, but the overly defensive tactics employed by most of the coaches has cost a number of teams dearly. Hopefully in four year’s time we will see a shift in tactics, perhaps towards some 3-4-3 formations. We will if I’m coach, that’s for sure.

Anyway, extra time was hard fought by both teams, and ten minutes from full time Zidane headbutted Materazzi square in the chest. The officials didn’t spot it, but unlike Figo’s headbutt several weeks ago, this one didn’t go unpunished. The fourth official viewed the incident on video replay, and radioed the officials. After a brief consultation with his linesman, the referee sent Zidane off, ending a brilliant career on a pretty low note.

Anyway, the Italians will be happy with their trophy, although their joy will be short-lived as the fate of four big Italian clubs will be decided tomorrow, and many of the players could find themselves in Serie B or lower.

Wimboredom Action

After a slow start to the Wimboredom tournament (possibly due to it being smack bang in the middle of both the World Cup and Le Tour…), there was finally some action in one of the women’s quarter finals.

Look at the smiles on the faces of the crowd! They won’t see entertainment like this for the rest of the tournament. The mystery streaker was eventually defeated in straight sets by super-brat Lleyton Hewitt, who was then thankfully knocked out by Oz Open star Marcos Baghdatis. Lleyton apparently couldn’t concentrate on the matchup, perhaps he was still pondering the speed of the streaker’s balls…

Portugal 0 – 1 France

Thierry Henry won France through to the world cup final with a spectacular fall inside Portugal’s 18 yard box.

Carvalho just slightly clipped Henry with a trailing boot, and Henry let the referee make no mistake about it, flinging his arms out like he was playing for Italy themselves. Zidane stepped up to slot resulting penalty away and Le Bleu were up by a goal with under an hour left to play.

Portugal took this incident as an excuse to start diving into the air every time they managed to reach the French penalty area. Cristiano Ronaldo was the worst offender, at times looking like he could have been knocked over by a feather. No cards were given for simulation, due to FIFA’s idiotic policy of cracking down on everything for the first stage of the tournament, and then letting the players get away with hell in the knockout stages, so that no big names miss the final.

So July 10th (Sydney time) will see The Azzuri versus Le Bleu – the battle of the blues. Can the Italians win the cup and bring some pride back to the shattered state that their domestic league is in? Can one of the greatest players ever to strap on a pair of boots – Zinedine “Zizou” Zidane – go out with a bang by winning his second title? Can players from either team manage to stay on their feet for more than 30 seconds at a time?

Watch this space for a wrap-up of all the action next week. Bye for now.

Germany 0 – 2 Italy

A thoroughly uninspiring 105 minute defensive yawnfest was replaced by an explosive final 15 minutes in Dortmund as Fabian Grosso yet again became the hero, putting Italy through to the final with his 119th minute strike.

Germany paid the price for being too defensive, looking like they were playing for penalties for the most part of the game. Italy controlled the first half but didn’t really create any chances. Germany came back in the second half, retaining possession but again not doing anything with the ball. The first half of extra time was much the same, with the game looking sure to go down to penalties.

Italy however, were desperate to win, given their atrocious penalty shootout record. The final 15 minutes was filled with end-to-end play, with both keepers tested again and again. Alessandro Del Piero was introduced, and showed his class immediately up front. Italy hit the woodwork twice, and were denied by Lehmann a couple more times. Eventually, the ball fell to Grosso in the box, and he fired home a brilliant shot with 90 seconds remaining on the clock. To round off the victory, who else but Del Piero chipped over Lehmann’s head to make it two goals, right on the death.

All eyes now on the France vs Portugal match. If Portugal win through, it could be a dive-fest in Berlin next week.

Semi Final Preview

The first of the semi finals kicks off in just under 17 hours, so let’s start by recapping how the teams got through.

Germany was the first team through to the semis. They qualified for the finals automatically as host nation, then cruised through one of the easiest groups, beating Poland, Ecuador and Costa Rica along the way. A convincing win over Sweden saw them through to their first test against Argentina in the quarters.

The German midfield struggled to contain Riquelme, who set up Argentina’s opener with a beautiful corner onto Ayala’s head. Luckily for the host nation, Riquelme was subbed off soon after, and the German attack started to find it’s feet. After pressing the Argentine defence, the Germans finally found an opening through their lead scorer Miroslav Klose, heading home a Ballack cross to send the game into extra time, and eventually penalties. Germany, cool and efficient as ever, won through 4-2 in the shootout.

Their opponent’s in the first semi will be Italy. The Azzuri cruised through their qualifying group, losing only the one match to Slovenia, but conceding 8 goals all up – a massive amount for the usually miserly Italian defence. Drawn in a reasonably tough group, they only managed a draw with the US after easily beating Ghana, which set up a knockout game with the Czech Republic. Italy won through to the final stages after holding the Czechs in a tight struggle.

Their round of 16 game against the Socceroos proved to be another tight encounter for the Azzuri, with Materazzi being sent off for a fairly innocuous tackle early in the second half. Australia failed to capitalise on the advantage, with super-coach Hiddink preferring to save his substitutions for extra time. This didn’t eventuate however, as Fabian Grosso took a dive in the final seconds of the match. Referee Luis Cantalejo, instead of sending Grosso from the field for a second bookable offence, pointed to the spot to give Totti the chance to send Italy through. Totti confidently converted the penalty in extended time, sending Italy to meet the Ukraine in the quarters.

An early goal by Zambrotta and a brace of goals from Luca Toni in the second half ensured an easy victory over Shevchenko’s team, and Italy was through to meet the hosts in what will be a thrilling matchup. It is worth noting here that the Italian media were responsible for the suspension of German midfielder Torsten Frings from the semi final, after bringing additional footage of a brawl between Germany and Argentina to the attention of FIFA’s disciplinary committee. The Italians, with their domestic league in tatters, will give anything to take home the world cup from this tournament.

The third team through to the semis was Portugal. After their shock loss to Greece in Euro 2004, the Portugese are looking to finally add a major trophy to their cabinet. They qualified undefeated through a group containing Slovakia and Russia, but despite being ranked 7th in the world were not seeded by FIFA. The ended up in a pretty easy group, and conceded just the one goal to Mexico, coming through with three wins.

Portugal’s round of 16 match against the Netherlands, now known as the Battle of Nuremberg, featured no less than 16 yellow cards and 4 red cards. Maniche’s early goal was enough to ensure that the Portugese would go through, although Deco and Costinha earned themselves suspensions with both players being sent from the field. Cristiano Ronaldo copped a heavy challenge on his thigh and looked to be an injury concern, but managed to recover in time for the quarter final against England.

One of the most boring games of the tournament was played out by an under-strength Portugal against an uninspiring English line-up. Rooney was sent off in the 62nd minute after kicking Carvalho in the nuts and then almost starting a brawl by shoving Cristiano Ronaldo aside. Beckham had also been subbed off after his hair got messed up, and so the game got a bit more entertaining. But not much. Portugal failed to capitalise on the extra man, but managed to go through on penalties thanks to their keeper Ricardo, who saved three times to ensure a 3-1 win to his side.

Finally, France came good to join Portugal in the second semi final. France were the most unimpressive team in the qualifiers, managing just five wins from their ten games, although they conceded just the two goals. They were drawn into a tough group containing Switzerland, who qualified through a playoff after coming second in France’s group, 2002 semi finalists South Korea, and Togo, who faced problems of their own over player payments.

Again, France were unimpressive in the group stages, only managing a victory in their final game against Togo. Still, this put them through in second place under Switzerland, and gave them a round of 16 match against neighbours Spain.

After conceding an early goal, France suddenly remembered how to play football, dominating the perennial underachievers with goals to Ribery, Viera and Zidane. Hopes were high as they went through to a rematch of the 1998 final against Brazil.

Once again, the French dominated, shutting down Ronaldinho, controlling the midfield, and generally outplaying favourites Brazil. Zidane and Henry combined for a spectacular goal to win the game, and the French will be confident going in to their penultimate match.

So, the two games then…

Germany vs Italy: Germany will go in favourites, but don’t be surprised to see something special from the Italians. If they can control the midfield, shut down Ballack and block Miroslav Klose, the Italians just might sneak away with a victory here. I’ll be supporting the Germans, but either way this should be a fantastic match.

Likewise with Portugal vs France. The onus here is really on the Portugese to make something happen, and with Deco returning from suspension they should be able to create some opportunities. The Portugese are prone to a bit of play-acting, so expect to see a lot of rolling around clutching ankles from the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and co. I’m tipping the French on this one – they are yet to reach their full potential and yet made it look easy against Brazil.

That’s all from me for now. I’ll see you at the preview of the finals – hopefully we’ll see a Germany vs France encounter, then Portugal and Italy can settle third place in a diving contest. Ciao!

Italy 1 – 0 Australia

Italy made it through to the quarter finals in the only way they know how – with a last minute dive by Fabrio Grosso inside the penalty box.

This has to have been one of the most obvious examples of simulation since Ronaldinho’s famous head clutching incident. The dirty Italians, down one man, with seconds to go in regulation time, had no chance of outlasting Australia for a further half an hour if the game went to extra time. The Italians invented the dive. Grosso runs in to the box, Lucas Neill slides in way too early, practically coming to a halt before Grosso runs at him and launches himself into the air. Notice in the photo that Grosso is already falling over, and he hasn’t quite reached Neill yet. Conclusive evidence.

Yet again another very poor refereeing decision goes against Australia. To be fair to Italy, the sending off of Materazzi early in the second half was probably a little harsh, but this doesn’t excuse them from using the lowest of tactics – cheating in order to win through over the greatest team in the world.

Anyway, no point dwelling on that incident. Australia are out, but we’ll be back – I imagine that we’ll be pretty close to favourites to win the Asian Cup next year, and maybe luck will go our way and we’ll have a rematch against the Azzuri in four years time to take our revenge.

Local hero Lucas Neill was clearly the best performer in Australia’s campaign – the man was an absolute brick wall, performing countless crunching tackles to keep Australia in all four games. He’s safely got my vote for Australian of the Year. Tim Cahill will stand a good chance of election if he decides to run for President, or if we can’t be bothered changing to a republic then maybe we can just install him as the new G-G. The rest of the squad clearly deserve to be given AOs, while for Hiddink they should bring back the old Knight of the Order of Australia category, and name our super-coach Sir Guus.

Anyway, two days off now until the quarter finals: here they are with the teams I’ll be supporting in bold:

Germany – Argentina

Italy – Ukraine

England – Portugal

Brazil – France

Okay, so Germany vs Argentina was a tough decision – I like both teams. Brazil vs France was also tough, I’m not a big fan of the frogs, but I just don’t want Brazil to win again. Portugal could struggle due to suspensions and injury, but England struggle full stop so hopefully the Portugese can win through. And as for Italy vs Ukraine, all i can say is: go Shevchenko! His time at Milan should help the boys in yellow to knock over the cheating Eye-Ties.

Why We Will Beat Italy

Italy have had a pretty indifferent start to the tournament. Apart from their win over Ghana, they struggled against the USA, despite being a man up, and they failed to control the game against the Czechs, despite being a man up.

Italy are the one-nil specialists. They like to grab a goal and defend their lead. Australia are the comeback specialists. Once you get comfortable, they’ll hammer away at you, and eventually they’ll score. Just ask Uruguay, The Netherlands, Japan and Croatia.

Italy are a bunch of prissy, theatrical ballet dancers who drop at the first sign of a tackle. Australia take no prisoners. We will crush them into the dirt and send them packing back to their leg waxing salons on the Mediterranean.