Inches Away

In the movie “Any Given Sunday”, Al Pacino playing Coach Tony D'Amato delivers one of the most inspiring sports speeches of all time to help save The Miami Sharks American Football team’s season. In his famous speech, dubbed “Inch by Inch”, highlighting the fine margins between winning and losing, Tony encouraged his players to fight for every inch on that football field with their lives. Those fine margins between winning and losing have never been more evident than in the world cup matches of the last few days.

With host nation Brazil looking to put on a more convincing display than their controversial opening day win, they were denied time and again by Mexico’s Guillermo Ochoa, often at full stretch. Thanks to one of the most inspired World Cup goal keeping performances, El Tri (Mexico’s team) retain control of their destiny heading into the final group game against Croatia.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is one team that was unjustly denied control of their destiny. Enjoying their maiden World Cup tournament, the Bosnian’s were on course to win their first points, only to have their goal wrongly disallowed for offside. Moments later, they conceded a goal despite Nigeria arguably committing a foul in the buildup. Bosnia and Herzegovina will thus only have pride to play for when they face an Iranian side that was harshly denied a famous point against Argentina by Messi’s last ditch brilliance.

Just two days earlier, with the prospect of the nation that invented football being kicked out in the first round of a World Cup for the first time in fifty-six years, England had battled their way back to level the tie with just fifteen minutes to go. With momentum appearing to swing in England’s favor, their captain’s attempt to head a long goal kick back to the opposition half turned out to be an assist for Uruguay’s Suarez. Had Gerard been able to jump an inch higher, the English would probably have pushed on to the next round as group rivals Italy went on to lose to previously unfancied Costa Rica.

With fellow European giants Spain and England knocked out after two games, Portugal was on the cusp of elimination. Having fought for every inch to overcome an early deficit, United States was a few seconds away from confirming second round qualification. An evidently less than fit Cristiano Ronaldo had been subdued for much of the game, but he managed to deliver an inch perfect cross to Silvestre Varela’s head for the equalizer that literally pulled the next round from under United States’ feet with the last kick of the game. United States lives to fight another day with their destiny still in their hands, although facing a German side in need of a result to seal their place in the next round is a position few will envy.

Congratulations to Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica and Netherlands for qualifying to the round of sixteen. Brazil is also practically in the next round given that their last obstacle is the shambolic Cameroon side which has its players doing more harm to each other than the opposition. With nine more places up for grabs, it is only the teams with players that are willing to die for that extra inch that will make it to the next round.