Day 6; Capello cursed by calamitous 'keeping?

The sixth day of these World Cup finals saw the first round of group stage fixtures surpass, and the second begin, meaning that the hosts were once again in action, this time against Mexico, lead by their manager, Miguel Herrera who not only appeared to be looking for a point from the Brazilians, but also looking for a reason as to why he doesn't have a neck.

Where is it? He's just all chin and face.

But before Brazil played their second game, Belgium, everyone's 'dark horses,' to the point where they've actually become one of the big favourites, had to play their first game, against Algeria. This meant that Fabio Capello had to wait a few more hours before he could attempt to begin to redeem himself after his depressing World Cup campaign with England, including horrors such as draws with USA, and coincidentally, Algeria, as well as a thrashing at the hands of Germany that Hitler could've only dreamed of, and the fact that he brought Matthew Upson and Emile Heskey along for the whole experience. His Russia team met South Korea in a nightmare clash for commentators, as every Tomski, Dickchenkhov, and Harry-Lee-Cheung-Pyo turned out for the 11pm kick-off.

Un-surprise package, Belgium, did actually surprise us, due to their poor start to the tournament after so much pre-tournament hype. Hype which started as Football Hipsters giving them the peace sign of approval back in qualifying, to now, much more mainstream punditry warning us about Marc Wilmot's talented side, riddled with Premier League players in top form after good seasons with their club, such as Kompany, Lukaku and Hazard, and there's Fellaini, whose just a Premier League player. However, Algeria read the script, ripped it up, and rewrote it to include themselves taking a first half lead. When once a Frenchman, Sofiane Feghouli, was brought down by a sleepy Jan Verthongen inside the box, he was given the opportunity to score from 12 yards, which he took confidently to score Algeria's first World Cup goal in 28 years.

The lightest of dark horses trailed into half time, and 50, 60 and then 70 minutes past, with the young Lukaku being replaced by an even younger, Divock Origi, a player even the most retro-shirt wearing of Football Hipsters can't know much about. But it was Wilmot's subs that made the difference, as Fellaini, off the bench and off the back of a disastrous season at United, provided a superb header off his Moyes Era-embodying-afro, and into the back of the net. Ten minutes later, pieces of the script were retrieved and glued back together, as yet another #SuperSub of this tournament emerged. Dries Mertens was the man to smash in the winner, and prize the three points which seemed destined to belong to the Algerians about eleven minutes prior.

Fellaini either looking as equally shocked as we all were that he scored, or signalling that 'this one was more Moyes.'

Brazil, or 'Brrrrraaaaaaaazzzzeeeeeeeeeel...' as the ITV pre-show jingle refers to them as, fielded a side with a couple of changes to face Mexico. One change was in personnel, Hulk, presumably injured in comic-book action, was replaced by Ramires of Chelsea, pushing Oscar into a wide position where he was so effective against Croata. (See here ->  http://thinkingjustoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/2014/06/day-1-oscar-playing-in-shadows.html ) The other change was the hairstyle and hair colour of Dani Alves, who looked as though he was having a head to head competition with Neymar, to see who could look the most like Emile Sande.

The hosts didn't perform in a way that fulfilled our expectations of skillful, samba football, drilled into us from the flair of the 1970 team, and those Joga Bonito commercials for Nike in 2006. The lack of Brazillian-ness in this squad is typified by their main striker, the immobile, lazy, flat-footed, clumsy forward, that is Fred. A Brazilian striker whose more, Ronaldo in a post-career Charity Game, than Ronaldo of 1998 or 2002.

The chubby striker's lack of any movement/communication between his brain and muscles, hindered Brazil greatly as they were unable to get behind the Mexican back five, lead by a superb, and now veteran within every sense of the word, Rafa Marquez. Glimpses of brilliance from Neymar were still present, but even he, with skills more than capable of paying a wide range of bills, failed to beat his opponents defence and the outstanding, Guillermo Ochoa in the Mexico goal.

Save after save he made, denying Neymar's technically pleasing efforts, including a second half effort from his left foot, and a Pele-Banks styled header and save in the first half. But I prefer to make comparisons between Ochoa's actions with an even more legendary goalkeeper, one who may not be a World Cup legend, but a goalkeeping immortal in my eyes. When he denied Thiago Silva's header from point blank range, the look of satisfaction he gave as he looked around at all the outfield players for their plaudits, brought back more than welcome memories, of the hero that was, Jerzy Dudek in Istanbul 2005. The combination of surprise, delight, relief and tongue-out, was almost identical to Dudek after denying Shevchenko from similarly close range in extra time of the footballing euphoria, that was Istanbul.

Other than Ochoa's denials, the scintillating nil-nil draw should also be remembered for what sins Marcelo carried out in the dying moments. Breaking into the box, although out wide, the Real Madrid left-back looked as if he had a chance to win the game for his country, and send Brazil absolutely crazy, whether it be via a finish from a tight-ish angle or by putting it on a plate for a teammate. However, bottling it completely, he opted to throw himself to the ground in what was possibly the most cringeworthy moment of the World Cup as of yet, appealing to the referee for a desperate penalty before, during and after taking his plunge to the turf. Correctly, no penalty was given, and the pressure will now be on Brazil, not that it wasn't intensely already, in their final group game.

Comparisons were drawn to the legendary Iran-Nigeria game of 2014, as Russia and South Korea treated those of us unemployed enough to stay up late for every World Cup game, regardless of the sides involved, to a more traditionally dull, nil-nil draw. That was up until late-ish in the second half at least, up to this point entertainment had been provided by Russian keeper, Igor Akinfeev, and his inability to look even remotely comfortable with the amount of semi-dangerous, long range attempts on his goal. Eventually, he had flapped at, dropped, and fumbled one too many, and he spooned one of the most feeble efforts of the lot through his margarine covered gloves and into his net, to cement himself a feature in 'Own Goals, Gaffes and Footy Banter; the DVD', when Christmas 2014 comes around. The whole fiasco must've brought unwanted nostalgia for Capello, who'd seen his reputation slip through Rob Green's flimsy hands four years prior. 

Akinfeev's mishap was cancelled out however, as Alexandr Kerzhakov preserved his teammates blushes for a later date, by equalising with a poacher's effort that Gary Lineker would've been sure to jokingly over-praise, had he been presenting the post-match coverage. Like in South Africa, Capello began his tournament with a 2-points-lossed-rather-than-one-point-gained-tinged draw, but more importantly, those of us who had nothing to do in the morning got to see some of the drama we were hoping for.