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On to the last sixteen

The first round of the FIFA World Cup final of 2006 has gone according to the script, with 1998 champion France alone clearly underperforming. All the other major football powers have made it easily to a pre-quarterfinal that promises thrilling fare. At the end of the opening round of 48 games, the pre-tournament forecasts needed only one major correction — the tag of favourites had passed from Brazil to Argentina. The men in blue-and-white stripes were clinically lethal in attack, resolute in defence, picture perfect in midfield play. Their six-nil demolition of Serbia-Montenegro, which included a 24-pass goal-scoring combo, was magnificent by any standards. The niggling question that has been raised is whether Maradona's heirs have peaked too early. In the two opening games, the Brazilian team was hardly livelier than its sleepwalking superstar. The Seleção did finally produce samba football when Japan had the courage to play an open, expansive game. Brazil appears to lack a defensive mid-fielder of Dunga-esque solidity who can make up for the all-too-familiar fragility of its back-line. While Latin American teams are no longer strangers to European conditions, repeating the 1958 Brazilian team's feat of winning in the `other' continent will prove quite a challenge. England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy are steadily easing into their European-style rhythms. The Germans were surprisingly weak in defence in their first game and took almost the whole of regulation time to strike in the second; but all the components of a powerful Teutonic machine clicked into place by the end of the round. England's performances were patchy with either the defence or the attack off colour in each of its games; but the team should be able to get its balance right given the immense talent at its disposal. In keeping possession as they built the attack, the Dutch showed they have the approach necessary for success at this level; but the Netherlands might not go very far in this tournament unless it displays greater firepower than has been on show thus far. It was a huge relief for the Italians when they made it to the second round; their defence is their minted strength but they could yet be undone by the brittleness of temperament evident in their match against the United States. France, in manifest decline, did little of note in the first round; its status as the elegant dazzler of Europe might now be taken over by Spain and Portugal, which have played effervescent and proficient football.

This World Cup final has been different from previous editions: most teams have displayed a spirit of adventure unusual for the opening round. Credit for the change must go as much to the lesser forces of world football as to the major powers. No World Cup can really be characterised as a success if it does not throw up new forces that can challenge the traditional balance of power. Ghana and Ecuador have been the finds of this first round. One of the spectacular sights of the first round was the image — on hundreds of millions of television screens round the globe — of the white-clad Africans hammering forward with all the menace of an impi on the warpath. In addition to the ball control Latino teams are famous for, the Ecuadorians have an organised game that makes them worthy of their more illustrious continental rivals. Irrespective of their future in the tournament, two other countries made powerful statements. Australia and the United States, champions in many fields of sporting endeavour, confirmed that they belong at the highest levels of the greatest game of all. So too did the Ivory Coast, which had the misfortune to be the gallant and much-lamented casualty of the `group of death.'

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