This World Cup was not only a battle of players, but also a battle of
civilizations and a battle of minds.

After Portugal knocked out the peripherals of the Anglo-Saxon
civilization (Netherlands and England), the starting point of the
Anglo-Saxon civilization (Germany) defeated Portugal.

After France knocked out the peripherals of the Latin civilization
(Spain, Brazil and Portugal), the starting point of the Latin
civilization (Italy) defeated France.

The French figured out Brazil and were able to defeat them by knowing
their game and both thwarting them at it and them beating them at it.
They did the same with Portugal, figuring out its weakness (lack of
discipline resulting in fouling) and were able to defeat them by
getting them to foul and then putting in a penalty kick. After
Portugal's Ricardo, having put in perhaps the most extraordinary
performance by a goalie ever (allowing only one out of 5 penalty kicks)
against England, gave away his secret (looking into players' eyes),
that became common knowledge, and he was defeated by players who now
understood this. That does not negate his performance or his mastery;
rather it shows his role as a pioneer (finding a new way, and then
empowering all others with it).

Italy, in turn, was able to figure out the French. They knew for
example that the French liked to put in goals at the end of regular
time; so they were able to beef up their defense and hold them
scoreless. French, after seeing Italy put in two overtime goals against
Germany, was able to understand this as well, and so they put up
tremendous offensive play in second OT to keep Italy from doing what it
did in its previous match. The Italians, in turn, were able to battle
the French at the mental-intellectual front, and get Zidane to do
something stupid that got him a red card - which knocked him out of the
penalty kicks, which he surely would have made.

To tell the truth, I would have never expected that Italians would have
been able to win on penalty kicks. But somehow they must have figured
out Barthez, and were able to claim victory, even though their goalie
was no Ricardo and their strikers were nowhere nearly as famous as
their French counterparts.

I find this result to be elegant and finely balanced from sociocultural
standpoint. And I find the new mind-based tactics to be fascinating and
a great addition to the game.

Ilya Shambat
http://ibshambat.blogspot.com

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