That Was The World Cup That Was

THE Socrates' take on World Cup 2018

 

EH BIEN! Football has indeed come home, given it was a Frenchman, Jules Rimet, who came up with the concept of the World Cup. Fitting then, Les Bleus should end gallant Croatia's gallant pursuit of the trophy.

 

Luka Modric - deservedly won Player of the Tournament

THE player of the tournament was, of course, Luka Modric, the little Croatian captain. We have known for a long time, he is a class act, and he deservedly won the Player of the Tournament call. I could not take my eyes off him during the Croatians' semi-final win over England. The way he drifted off his markers into space, then delivered a stream of perfect passes was pure John White – there can be no higher praise for a midfield general.

GOAL of the Tournament: There were one or two contenders, but, which one to pick. In picking a winner, you are torn between two opposites – individual brilliance and team efficiency. In the latter category, you cannot go past that last-gasp Belgian winner against Japan; one end of the park to the other in under ten seconds. It was brilliantly-constructed, more-so given the point in the match in which they pulled it off, marvellous team work.

That was the easy pick, but, for individual goal, well, I am going for a set-piece. I have long said, football does not pay enough attention to set-pieces. Association Football is the purest, most free-form code of football. But, I have always maintained, only with set-pieces does a coach have a chance to really set his side up to score; and, if they can complete the set piece move successfully, then, a team will or certainly ought to, score more goals.

Hey World - watch this. CR7 prepares to shoot against Spain

For that reason, I am torn between two strikes, the Toni Kroos last-gasp free kick for Germany v Sweden, and CR7's almost as late free-kick goal against Spain. On balance, I am going with Ronaldo's goal. I think the Kroos effort owed something to poor goalkeeping, I'd have been annoyed had I been beaten from there, but, there was absolutely nothing De Gae could have done to keep out Christiano's effort.

Add the timing, and the pressure he was under. Go on, admit, the world was willing the big-headed so-and-so to mess it up, only he didn't.

TEAM of the Tournament: They didn't win it, but, I am going with Croatia. They arrived in Russia, ranked 20^th in the world, then, often dragged their by Modric and Rakatic in midfield, they went all the way to the final. Along the way, they fairly boosted another nation not there – Scotland.

Yes, Gareth Southgate grew on us as the tournament went on. Sure, this was a different, an almost humble England. But, and what a shame there has to be a but. There media was the same-old, same-old: “England expects”, “football's coming home”, blah-de-blah-de-blah. Let's hope, by 2022, we are independent, have our own independent media and, whether Scotland is there or not, we get a Scottish slant on things, and are not subjected to the myopia of the English media.

England – we don't hate you, but, we hate your fucking media.

VAR: What can we say about this. As someone who covers a lot of Rugby Union, I am well-used to seeing the TMO – Television Match Official – rugby's version of second-guess technology in operation. Rugby's been using it for far-longer than football and still, occasionally, they get it wrong. This will always happen, because of the human element, and humans make mistakes.

But, by and large, I thought VAR worked. I dare say the system will be reviewed and refined. I do feel, however, as is the case with rugby, the final say always has to go to the man in the middle. We must always uphold Law V (I): “The referee is the sole judge of fact.”

ENGLAND: Yes, I know, why should we bother about another country? Well, quite simply, as in so-much of Scottish life, we pay attention to England. We only started the bloody SFA because the (English) FA looked as if they were going to take responsibility for all football in these islands, and, to quote that great Welsh sage Max Boyce, if you are from Ireland, Scotland or Wales: “It matters not who won or lost – so long as you beat England.” They are the common enemy.

Gareth Southgate - Scotland's favourite Englishman

The soft-spoken, argely undemonstrative Mr Southgate almost made England loveable up here. He was the guy the English media didn't want, but, he is now as impregnable as no England manager has been since Sir Alf Ramsey on 1 August, 1966. Of course, they still, eventually, sacked Sir Alf, and may well do the same to Gareth.

He knew his players from the Under-21 team and he kept the faith. His problem, however, is this – English football is in-thrall to the Premiership, whose clubs are, in turn, in-thrall to Sky TV, BT TV and the billions flung at it.

There is also the fact, the basically thick as mince England fans have been brain-washed by their media into wrongly believing the Premiership is: “The best league in the world”, so, rather as they believe England is the entire UK, they believe, because their league is the “best” (which it isn't), then the England team must be the best.

There were signs during this World Cup, that a lot of England fans had had a reality check, but, England Expecting, and managing these expectations, is still the biggest obstacle in Southgate's way.

WHETHER SCOTLAND? Good question; an furrit tho' Ah canna see – Ah guess and fear. Like England, we seem to delight in putting obstacles in the way of young Scottish talent, although, to be fair, the fiscal realities of Scottish football means, we are perhaps more-ready to give young players a chance to shine. The trouble is, as soon as they make a name for themselves, they are off to the bigger money in England.

That, however, has been a fact of life since the Scotch Professors were enticed south during the reign of Queen Victoria.

We need a plan, a system whereby we develop our young players properly and give them a chance to grow into international players, and, until we get this, we may well continue to be on the outside looking in.

In drawing Albania and Israel in Group 1 Of League C in the new UEFA Nations League, which kicks-off in September, we have got lucky. If we cannot win the group and be promoted into League B, we should just give up. But, we need to plan, execute that plan and work hard, over the next decade or so, if we are to get Scotland back to where we want to be in European and World football.

We need to get more Scottish players playing in our top league, and give these players more-exposure to European football. If we don't, we are going nowhere but down among the easy-beats.

If Croatia, Iceland and Wales, all smaller nations, can reach the finals of the big two tournaments, we have no excuses for our long years of failure continuing.