Ivory Coast v. Portugal

Ivory Coast 0 – 0 Portugal

The opening game in the so-called group of death ends with another scoreless draw. The first round of group games finishes up tomorrow, and I'll plan to post some thoughts on the preceding week. Regardless of what happens later today and tomorrow, though, the main talking point is this: the first round of a World Cup is invariably a cagey, cautious affair. In the lightening-fast group stages, an opening loss can spell disaster for any team, and four years of preparation can seemingly evaporate with one errant pass. Add to that pressure the jitters involved in finally realizing that four-year dream and, just maybe, a beguiling new ball (Jubulani post still to come, I promise), and it's no surprise that we've seen some tentative play.

The exceptions include Argentina, whose 1–0 win was hardly reflective of their confident approach. Brazil, matched against soccer minnows (and geopolitical oddballs) North Korea should win handily. And you can expect the same tomorrow from reigning European champions Spain against Switzerland (themselves geopolitical oddballs but for entirely different reasons). Portugal, despite their passel of international stars, cannot be counted among this assured group.

Today's game started brightly for the European side. Portugal, passing sharply through the middle, suggested that perhaps they'd arrived in South Africa prepared to shed their underachieving reputation. Early in the first half, Cristiano Ronaldo — whose global stature makes him a known quantity even those of you more frequent to TMZ than to Soccernet — created space beautifully with a trademark cutback and unleashed a wicked strike from 30+ yards. But whatever bit of Jubulani magic guided that shot fractionally wide and off the post was just the first of many events to conspire against the poor, oppressed winger. Every touch from an opponent that goes un-whistled and every pass from his teammate that is not to Ronaldo's standard is immediately met with demonstrative hand waving and hands-on-hips pouting.

To be sure, he was unfortunate to receive a yellow card following an unpunished Ivory Coast tackle that should have resulted in a dangerous free-kick. But the vast majority of his martyrdom is entirely imagined. **Aside: there's a great Radiolab episode that discusses a heightened ability for self-deception among world-class athletes—the suggestion being that competition, especially at the highest levels, can be hugely daunting, and mitigating doubt builds self-confidence, a crucial component to success — listen here.**

For this viewer, however, Ronaldo's robust confidence too often manifests as petulance, and it has an almost physical presence on the field—swelling with each subsequent [perceived] slight. It simply must have an effect on his teammates. No grown man cares to be berated unnecessarily, especially by someone who is far from infallible — Ronaldo gave far too many balls away through ill-advised heel-flicks. I do hope that he scores early in a match, though, only because a happy Cristiano Ronaldo is capable of creating the moments of genius that define World Cups and live on with generations of football fans.

Ivory Coast, for their part, looked better as the game progressed. Every member of the squad plays their club ball in Europe—most in one of the four major leagues: England, Spain, Italy, Germany—and their technical ability was apparent. They lacked, however, a creative presence in the middle, someone to build attacks patiently and distribute to their speedy attackers. This is a common assessment of African footballers, who often are thought to be powerful and passionate but not wily (and, yes, I realize that this smacks of some of the ugliest, most over-simplified and persistent stereotypes of Africa, generally ... I'm just reporting). Still, several surging runs from their Portuguese-inflected forward Gervinho challenged Portugal's experienced back line.

And it was encouraging to see Ivory Coast's talismanic forward Didier Drogba enter the game as a second-half substitute. Drogba, leading goal-scorer for English Premier League-winners Chelsea, headlined a long list of international stars expected to miss out on the World Cup through injury. But he entered the match in the 66th minute—wearing a plastic cast on his broken arm—and looked dangerous if rusty with the few touches he had.

The tie for these two teams isn't the positive result it was for the U.S. and England. Both Portugal and Ivory Coast will face world-ranked #1 Brazil later in the group stages, and would have cherished the leg-up from three points today. By no means a foregone conclusion, Brazil is expected to win all three games and claim first place in the group. That result would set up a race for goals for Portugal and Ivory Coast, who would look to run up the score against lowly North Korea. That could be the perfect opportunity for Ronaldo to shine, but only if he can keep his head on straight.