Off the Ball: The hand of God strikes again

By Andy Goldberg Jun 17, 2006, 17:13 GMT

Berlin - No sooner do I fire of a despatch about the unparalleled potential of this World Cup and Argentina go and produce one of the finest displays of football I can recall.

This instant classic combined sublime individual skill with sensational teamwork. As anyone who watched the game can testify the result could have easily have been in the double figures - and this against one of the most feared teams in the so-called 'Group of Death': a Serbia and Montenegro outfit that had topped their group in qualifying and had conceded only one goal in their previous ten games.

I'm telling you. If they can somehow manage to keep playing like this Argentina could even make the Brazilians look ordinary.

But achieving such heights again will not be easy. The game against the Serbs was one of those rare times when the cosmic forces aligned to sprinkle a little bit of footballing pixie dust on every Argentinian move. Or to put it another way the Argentinian players were in the elusive sweet spot of sport: loose yet alert, focused yet tension-free, confident yet by no means blase.

Anyone who has played tennis, swung a golf club or kicked a ball knows that addictive feeling. For the tiniest nanosecond you envision the play, and then it just happens exactly as you planned. Us mere mortals are lucky if we can stay in that zone for a fleeting second or two. But the Argentinian team kept it up for a full 90 minutes, including that magnificent 24-pass move that culminated with a perfect back heel by Hernan Crespo and an imperious blast into the roof of the Serbian net by Esteban Cambiasso. Each flick, dummy, pass, backheel and shot came off as intended, as though guided by some mysterious force. Could it be that the hand of God is back in the Argentine camp?

No excuses

'I have never been involved in a more beautiful goal than that,' said Crespo after the game. 'The result was easy because we played so well. Normally when you play at such a level it doesn't matter who the defence is.'

The Serbs seemed to agree and didn't even indulge in that legendary sport of losers - finding ridiculous excuses. The Ukrainians have complained of croaking frogs, the Dutch of dry pitches, the English of the heat and Brazil's Ronaldo of dizzy spells that defy medical explanation. French midfielder Florent Malouda came up with the best excuse - an hour-long operation for haemorrhoids of which he said 'thankfully, the worst is behind me'.

But the fighting Serbs ('we are all ready to die for our homeland' said striker Mathias Kezman before the game), knew that excuses were useless in the face of the superb Argentinian skill.

'We played against a fantastic team and there is no shame in losing to a team of this calibre,' said Mladen Krstajic, the experienced Serb defender who plays his football for the German team Schalke 04. 'I will be the first to congratulate them on a wonderful performance.'

Their homeland press was a little less magnanimous however - reacting to the defeat with scathing howls of derision. The headline I liked best came from the world-famous Sportski Zurnal. Its headline was simple yet elegant. 'Catastrophe' said the paper. 'Pants dropped six times.'

Brazil on razor's edge

While the Argies have laid down the football gauntlet, the soccer stars of Brazil have been laying down for another reason: to get their legs shaved.

Sports fans will know that swimmers indulge in such effeminate activities to reduce friction in the water, while cyclists go for the silky smooth feel to avoid getting hair in their wounds when they take a tumble. So what's the excuse of Ronaldo, Ronahldinho, Lucio, and Adriano? Apparently having smooth legs makes their massages more effective, not to mention giving them the gleaming thighs craved by metrosexuals the world over.

But if I were a Brazil fan I'd be worried. Next up the fancy Samba boys face the bristling Aussies, a rugged outfit not known for their pretty style. The Brazilians had a poor start in their opener against Croatia and could be succumbing to the old curse of hubris. 'They`re not superheroes,' says swaggering Aussie captain Mark Viduka. 'They`re people like us. They`re just 11 men.' Or not.

No mercy on the field for Africa

Thanks to the successful campaign by U2 frontman Bono, Africa is getting billions of dollars in debt relief. Shame that it can't get a bit of football relief too. At the time of writing the five teams from Africa have played seven games. But between them, Angola, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Togo and Tunisia have racked up the uninspiring total of 2 points out of a possible 21 thanks to Tunisia's goalless draw with Saudi Arabia's and a similar scoreline in Angola's gutsy game with Mexico. The goal tally: 11 against, 5 for.

England expects

Well over 100,000 English fans have made their way to Germany and in general they are performing much better than their disappointing team.

Police officials in Nuremberg where the three lions played against Trinidad and Tobago have been effusive in their praise for the Brits - who are behaving more like English gentlemen than than classic British yobs. A late night visit to Berlin's trendy night spot in the Prenzlauer Berg reinforced this notion. Groups of Brits were sitting around the cobble-stoned alleys and courtyards, sedately sipping beer and daintily nibbling on sausages, while it was their rowdy German and Swedish cousins who barged around drunkenly, roaring out football chants at the top of their voices. 'Ah the Brits,' said a German bystander. 'You think you know them and then they surprise you.' If only that were true for the team as well.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur