Goals are over-rated
I don't think you can ever really be neutral watching a football match. The issue is more complex than merely having an allegiance to one of the teams, or a prejudice against the other. You want to see good football, whatever 'good' happens to mean to you. To me it means, broadly, playing with an attacking spirit, with flair and a high level of technical ability on show as well, if possible. So immediately you're not the blank slate you may even try to fool yourself into thinking you are. And, of course, if one team shows these qualities significantly more than the other, you'll instinctively wish for their success.
So it was for me and Russia last night. Their display of attacking verve trumped Sweden's consummate Sweden-ness last night. It was the kind of performance that left you wanting more, and their win means we shall get it on Saturday night as they play - can it be true? - Holland. They scored two team goals so wonderful that I'm tempted to regard them in the same light as Holland's three (three!) similarly-worked efforts against Italy and France. That it's a Good Thing that they have qualified is something we can probably all agree on, except the Swedes, and perhaps Sam Allardyce.
Yet my abiding memory won't be of any of the above. I reckon there should be award for Best Non-Scoring Shot of the tournament; it should be instituted just so that we don't forget Henrik Larsson's miss. A gorgeous, long-range, twisting header, it inexplicably looped towards the far top corner. Just as inexplicably, it failed to drop in, instead bouncing off the top of the crossbar.
In that moment, despite having already fallen for Russia, I was a Sweden fan. It hurt.
It's been said that Pelé's fantastical dummy against Uruguay in 1970 was all the more beautiful for the fact that it was followed by a near miss when he collected the ball and shot. I'm beginning to agree with this.
It's probably this bloody tournament. Not having my own team to follow, nor a natural rival on whom to wish bad cess, has left me vulnerable. I've fallen in love with so many teams in the last week and a half. Naturally, some have already broken my heart ; and I know that some more will do so again during the next ten days (that's not being pessimistic; it's just a mathematical certainty). Watching these games, I've become hypersensitive to these little moments of tragedy, and I dwell upon them.
I'm frail, people. Just now, I saw an ikkle drop of rain-water fall off a leaf and onto a squirrel's head, and I cried.
Who knows what I'll be like by the time the competition's over? God, I love football.
