Tony Becca
THE WORLD Cup of football got off to a fine start in Munich on Friday afternoon and although it is too early to tell, based on the eight matches played up to Sunday evening and with due respect to Brazil, the people's favourites who bow into action today, it promises to be an interesting contest with a wide open race for the title.
So far, four of the favourites - Argentina, England, Holland and hosts Germany - have been in action and although all four have won, even though, what with early jitters, the excessive heat in some of the towns and the emphasis on winning the first match rather than on playing good football, it is too early to judge their class, only one of them demonstrated the quality that is necessary to win the Cup.
That one was Argentina.
Although they defeated the Ivory Coast by only one goal, Argentina were in control throughout the match and seemed to have taken their foot off the gas in the second half.
IMPRESSIVE
In contrast to that impressive performance, although they won the opening match 4-2 against Costa Rica, Germany looked suspect in defence and gave up two goals; England, despite a good start and the benefit of an early defender's goal against Paraguay, were ordinary in the second half; and Holland, but for Arjen Robben who scored their one goal early in the proceedings against Serbia & Montenegro, also looked weaker and weaker the longer the match progressed.
With four of the big teams, plus a disappointing Portugal - who hung on for a 1-0 victory over first-timers Angola - ticking off victories and therefore starting well, there was enough room for three teams lower down the pecking order to make a little noise, and none more so than Trinidad and Tobago who are appearing in their first finals.
With Ecuador surprising Poland 2-0 in Munich and Mexico tagging a spirited Iran 3-1 in Nuremburg, Trinidad and Tobago shocked the world, probably even their Caribbean colleagues, when they held the accomplished Sweden to a 0-0 draw in Dortmund on Saturday.
It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a great performance by Trinidad and Tobago - for the simple reason that although they countered well on a couple of occasions and got two chances to score, they were cornered in defence for most of the time and were not competitive.
FIGHTING SPIRIT
In terms of a result, however, in terms of succeeding in accomplishing what they set out to do and in preventing the opposition from accomplishing what they set out to do and after they were reduced to 10 players a minute or two into the second half, in terms of fighting spirit, it was a great performance by a team which, as newcomers to that level of competition, was expected to have been easy pickings for an experienced team like Sweden.
The score was expected to have been anything between 2-0 and 4-0. Instead, after 90 minutes it was 0-0, thanks to the entire Trinidad and Tobago team, but mainly to goalkeeper Shaka Hislop and captain Dwight Yorke who won the Man of the Match award.
Did Trinidad and Tobago really expect to draw with Sweden, to prevent them from scoring even one goal?
No one knows, but here are the words of their Dutch coach, the former Real Madrid coach, Leo Beenhakker, minutes after the match.
"On paper we are supposed to lose against Sweden. But football is not played on paper. It is played on a pitch. The game is not mathematics and in football two plus two very rarely equates to four. It's usually three or five."
So far, the tournament, highlighted by Trinidad and Tobago's feat against Sweden, the skill of Robben and Javier Saviola of Argentina and the long-range drive by Germany's Torsten Frings that ended up in the roof of Costa Rica's goal, has lived up to expectations and Brazil or no Brazil, if it continues in that vein, it will end up as one of the greatest World Cup tournaments of all time - and definitely so when it comes to the race for the title.
