I never played the game, but a lot of friends have, some at reasonably high levels in Europe. It seems aggressive tactics and styles are part of it, and something they all encountered. They've all spoken of some tough gamesmanship that reminded me of preparing to face a real aggressive ice hockey situation. People who see the game as boys in shorts falling down have never taken a hard shot to the achilles. Argentina has always played a rougher game. No one was surprised.
The England side just wasn't good enough. At least they weren't Germany or Portugal (or Italy). A lot of teams in the competition learned that same lesson. I'm still shocked at how France collapsed - I thought they were going places. I disliked the Argentine team but they had skills. Unless you're Spanish, your team simply wasn't good enough, no matter how good some of the individuals on it were. It was a meat grinder tournament.
Those final four teams were all impressive. I'm glad Canada made the final sixteen (a surprise to me). I hope there are kids out there in countries all over the world who are going to dazzle us in four years. I hope they use the millions they rake in to buy fish!
I like to travel, and I have never been to a country where people didn't play that game. If there's a flat field, a park or a large empty yard, there's someone playing that game in it. There are also grifters and thugs everywhere, so that gives us FIFA and the scenes yesterday, but you take the bad with the good. I'm looking forward to the next one, and hopefully remembering to sometimes dust off the TV for the rest of the summer.
