I love my football.  I’ve cried over football on many occasions (I’m a girl – not a girly girl, but football gets me emotional). Every World Cup, I cozy up in front of the television for a month and I watch every game.  I really mean it when I say I love the football.

The World Cup is the big tournament.  It’s when you get to see the  carnival atmosphere like the samba fans of Brazil. It’s when you get to see the little teams punching well above their weight.  It’s when you get to see a hitherto unknown talent explode into life on the big stage; who becomes a household name worldwide, where club teams are all scrambling to sign them, pay an absolute fortune for them, only to find out that they really could only turn it on in the World Cup arena. It’s when you see a spectactular fall from grace of individual talents who had been previously idolised.

David Beckham kicks Diego Simeone (Argentina v England 2-2)

Think David Beckham and that kick at Diego Simeone; think Rivaldo writhing in agony on the floor, pretending he’d had the ball kicked at his face by Turkey’s Hakan Unsal; think Maradona being banned after testing positive for a banned substance; think Zinedine Zindane headbutting Marco Materazzi in the final and his last ever World Cup performance.  There are amazing highs and spectacular lows, all of which are part of the whole World Cup drama.

Rivaldo feigns being hit in the face by a ball

Undoutedly, there have been a few spectacular lows this time around (most of it off the field – I’m thinking France and England here), but highs have been very thin on the ground.  There has been no stand out team, no stand out player, and very little to get excited about.  This has been the worst World Cup I have ever witnessed, and I’ve seen a few.

Zinedine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi: World Cup 2006

Matches have generally been boring, with the exception really of the Germany v England match.  Of course, being Scottish, I was praying for a Germany win and I wasn’t disappointed.  However, up until the 3rd Germany goal went in, it was a very exciting game.  It was end to end, it had all the drama you expect of this tie, and there was real controversy when England scored a goal and it wasn’t given.  Shocking refereeing by the way. That ball was miles over the line. England were definitely cheated, and it completely changed the run of play.

Apart from that there’s been nothing to write home about.  There hasn’t really been much in the way of high scoring games, apart from Portugal v N. Korea, but you would expect that. There’s been no real end-to-end games.  Every time a match comes on that should be exciting, I am let down.  Brazil v Portugal – boring; Brazil v Chile – boring; Spain v Portugal – boring.  These should have been very exciting games. The matches have all been played like they don’t matter or the players don’t care, or like a final where it stays pretty much 0-0 because no-one wants to make a defensive mistake.  I can’t say there appears to be a single team who I think are certainties to win the competition.  None of the teams are that great. I think probably the Argentinians or the Germans are looking best just now.

Thankfully, the miserable French team were gone at the first hurdle – deservedly so, since they got there by cheating in the first place!  I think their fall from grace was karma’s way of dealing with the cheating antics of Thierry Henry that caused the Republic of Ireland to go out.  However, their off-field antics played a huge part in their downfall.  No player should think they are bigger than the team or the manager.

It was also great to see the Italians go out, because let’s face it, they are without doubt the most negative team in world football.  They have the most boring league in the world, and heaven forbid any league team, or their national team, get a goal early on in a game, because you just know that the rest of the game is going to be spent defending their lead, with no attempt at going forward unless they’re hitting someone on the break.  It is horrendous to watch, and it’s how Italy usually manage to win World Cups.  It’s not because they’re a great force, but because they’re masters at sitting back and defending.  If it is an important match and they’re not winning they always resort to dirty tactics. They’re so negative. So I’m glad they’re out, even if they were denied 2 goals in the Slovakia game.  Karma again.

Brazil – a team I adore because, let’s face it, they are the samba stars – have not played like Brazil.  They have been playing effective football much in the way Germany play.  It does the job, but when Brazil play we don’t want them to just do the job. We want it done in style. That’s what people pay to see. Ultimately, that tactic failed because they have just been put out by Holland.  They have been so very unspectacular.

Spain, who were looking like favourites at the start of the competition, have hardly turned up.  Sure they’ve got through, but they’ve been fairly anonymous.  I expected them to set this competition alight like they did the European Championship, but no.  Torres has been anonymous too.  I’m certain it has been due to Liverpool’s over-reliance on him this season – that and the fact that he’s had injury problems. I was looking forward to seeing them win the competition since they’ve never done so before.

There have been little rays of sunshine, like watching Maradona with his Argentina team and the love the team appear to have for the little wizard. His press conferences have been hilarious, and his smile infectious.  You can’t fail to love him.

Maradona and Messi

One other highlight for me was when New Zealand were winning 1-0 against Italy, and bless them, they were holding their own, and it was only through the cheating of Italy that the latter managed to pull back a goal and it ended 1-1.  As far as I’m concerned, New Zealand were cheated out of their place in the last 16.

New Zealand score against Italy: World Cup 2010 Image from www.guardian.co.uk

Even though they never made it through, they still finished above Italy on the table with Italy finishing last.  It was a brilliant achievement for the all-whites – a team that have part-time footballers (one of them a banker who had to get permission from his work to go and play in the tournament!), and who managed to finish above and hold the reigning World Champions to a draw.  Probably the most exciting event in this tournament so far.

I can only hope that now we’re down to the quarter-finals that things will start to liven up.  I won’t hold my breath though, because, so far it’s been a World Cup to forget.