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Sunday, April 03, 2005
Taneo: Very good but not good enough
By Paul J. Taneo
Free-for-all
FOOTBALL is one of the most demanding sports. Not just because speed, stamina and team work are at a premium but because even if you play a lot better than your opponent, you can still lose.
Take the recent North Korea-Bahrain Asian Group 2 qualifying match to World Cup 2006 for instance.
Playing before 70,000 fans on the artificial turf of Pyongyang’s Kim Il-Sung Stadium, the Koreans came out like bats out of hell, relentlessly attacking (18 shots in all) at every opportunity but sadly weren’t as aggressively capable on defense, as the 2-1 Bahraini victory showed.
Bahrain’s Husain Ali, scored both goals, perhaps half glad that star strikers Ala’a Hobeil and Rashid Jamal were injured.
But the start of the game didn’t seem like Bahrain would get that result.
North Korea immediately took most of ball possession. Kim Yong-Jun’s third-minute attempt that went wide was the first of many North Korean incursions. Han Song-Chol a minute later came closer and was denied by Bahrain’s splendid goalkeeper Mohammed Jaffar.
North Korea came up with another attack in the seventh minute but Bahrain turned them back and counterattacked.
Midfielder Mohammed Salmeen carried the ball from the halfway line to the right wing and crossed to Ali, who scored with a diving header past a hapless goalie Kim Myong-Gil.
That early goal should have warned the Koreans that all their energetic attacks would not suffice but nothing changed. They tried and tried and tried again still to be denied and Bahrain scored another goal, although that wasn’t until early in the second half.
The first half was Frustration City for the Koreans with Jaffar making like a cat maintaining Bahrain’s nine lives by making six pressure saves, highlighted by a brilliant dive to the right in the ninth minute to palm out Mun In-Guk’s straight strike. Jaffar was almost flawless in coming up with about a dozen saves in the match.
Still playing loose on defense while focusing most of their energies on equalizing, North Korea paid dearly for it by conceding another goal in the 58th minute in eerily identical circumstances.
Ahmed Hubail ran down the right flank and crossed to Ali, unguarded in the penalty box, who without pressure right-footed in his second goal.
Five minutes later, North Korea at last got a goal in, by way of Pak Song-Gwan’s header on the left from a distant cross to the right. No one bothered Pak as the Bahraini defenders concentrated on those in front of goal.
North Korea did not let up on the offensive pressure but was unable to add to its lone goal. Perhaps Bahrain was just lucky to have an excellent man on goal as its field players could barely keep away the Korean attackers and only concede a single goal.
Not bad for a team that came to Korea hoping to escape with a draw too conscious of the injuries to some of its stars and the abandonment of its coach who jumped into Oman’s national team.
And too bad for a team that will forever be remembered for reaching the quarterfinals of the 1966 World Cup and almost seemed certain of making the semis by going 3-0 up against Portugal but were stunned by Eusebio’s four goals in a 5-3 overturn of events.
DE JAVU OF SORTS. Similarly, the game between Uzbekistan and Kuwait in Group 1 had the Uzbeks keeping possession of the ball most of the time with more attempts on goal than the Kuwaitis. I must admit though that I only saw the last 20 minutes of the match, but if the last part was any indication, the Uzbeks threatened the goalkeeper a substantial part of the rest of the match too.
Kuwait won by a score of 2-1, and just as eerie is that two of the goals in this game were scored in the 7th and 62nd minutes, like in the Bahrain-North Korea match.
But the most striking thing about these two games is the manner of victory.
This is one aspect which separates football from other team sports like basketball and baseball; you can show your superiority almost all throughout the game but still lose.
In basketball and baseball, the better performing team (this is not the same as being the better team) will more likely be the winner when the final buzzer sounds or the last inning is played.
We can say that football (soccer) players, compared to other sports, are being kept on their toes more. Maybe that’s why it’s called football.
(sports@sunstar.com.ph)
(April 3, 2005 issue)
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