Sam Beckwith is a freelance reporter who has written for English soccer magazines like "World Soccer" and "When Saturday Comes"—in addition to covering the Czech National Soccer Team for Prague TV. We spoke to him to get his predictions for the World Cup as well as get an insider look at the Czech team that will face off against the US World Cup team on June 12th.
Let's start off by getting your reaction to the team you cover most...the Czech Republic. What happened? Were they as good as they showed against the Americans or was the U.S. team that bad? And where does the Czech team go from here?
To be honest, I'm still trying to figure that out… Perhaps the Czech campaign shows how important an early goal can be for confidence.
Against the USA, they got one, and went on to play very well. (I also think the Americans badly underperformed.) Against Ghana, they conceded an early goal and seemed to panic. I've never seen so many normally reliable Czech players - Tomas Ujfalusi, Tomas Galasek, and even Pavel Nedved - play so badly.
I also think the loss of Jan Koller was a massive blow. Heading into the Ghana game, the Czech squad seemed very tense. Coach Karel Bruckner's pre-game press conference was extremely cagey - something the media here criticized him for - and they just didn't have the confidence you'd expect from a team that had won their opening game 3-0.
The Italy game wasn't quite as bad, at least in the opening 20 minutes, but it eventually followed a similar pattern.
Bruckner has just been given a new two-year contract, covering the Euro
2008 qualifying campaign, but it's going to be a struggle. The Czechs have a very difficult group - Germany, Ireland, Wales, Slovakia and Cyprus will all have hopes of qualifying - and they'll be without some of their key older players. Karel Poborsky has already said he'll retire from international football, Vladimir Smicer probably won't carry on playing for the national team, and Nedved is still making his mind up.
Aside from France and Italy were there any other teams that surprised you with their fine play during the Cup. Any disappointments? (You can mention the U.S. team. I know I want to.)
It's been a World Cup of relatively few surprises, but some teams surpassed my expectations, particularly Germany. They had some terrible results in warm-up games and though it's one of football's clichés that you should never write off the Germans, I didn't expect much from them.
I knew Ghana would be a strong team but the quality of their performance against the Czechs was totally unexpected.
And Argentina and Spain were two teams who I thought would disappoint but who played some sensational football in the early stages.
(Ultimately, though, they didn't get that far.)
I suppose that overall the USA campaign was a disappointment, but I thought their performance against Italy was heroic. I'd been talking the Americans up going into the opening game and felt a bit silly when the Czechs beat them so easily.
Personally, I found England hugely disappointing. Of the so-called "major footballing nations" they were probably the dullest team to watch, even though they grounded out results. With so many talented individuals in the squad, I expected a lot more. They didn't start playing well until they were down to 10 men against Portugal.
Italy seemed less than stellar in the early rounds of Group play. What happened to cause this sleeping soccer giant to finally awaken?
Apart from the USA game, I actually thought Italy played pretty well in the group stage. They deserved to beat Ghana, and though it pains me to say it, they played very well against the Czech Republic, which must have been a confidence-boosting win.
Of course, Italian preparations for the tournament were far from ideal. Their coach, Marcello Lippi, has been implicated in the Italian league's ongoing match-fixing scandal, and there were calls for him to resign only a couple of weeks before the World Cup began. Because of the scandal, however, the squad seems to have developed a bit of a siege mentality, and have begun to focus solely on their games.
Italy have also benefited from a relatively easy route through the playoffs. With all due respect, neither Australia nor Ukraine are among football's super-powers and the current German team, though it has a huge amount of spirit and support, isn't the most talented group of individuals.
Typically for an Italian team, their defense is very strong, but the current squad has some talented attackers too. Italy isn’t the most likable team - the endless play-acting drives me crazy - but you've got to respect them. They're now unbeaten in 24 games and have conceded only one goal so far in the finals - the own goal against the USA. Those are very impressive statistics.
Was the Brazil team too cocky going into the quarter final?
I'm not sure that cockiness was a factor - I just think that they came up against a France team finally playing to its full potential. Up until then, I don't think they'd been seriously tested. They looked good against Japan, and in sections of the Ghana game, but, for all their talent, they rarely looked more than the sum of their parts. And when they fell behind against France, they didn't seem to have the character to bounce back.
Turning to the final game...what can we expect in this match? What are the keys to a France victory? Keys to an Italian victory?
I think again that the first goal will be vitally important. If Italy goes up 1-0, and can sit back, defend, and hit France on the counter-attack, they'll be very difficult to beat. If that's the case, it'll probably be a frustrating and rather dull final.
If France scores first, though, it could be very exciting. Italy will be forced to push forward and leave gaps in defense that Thierry Henry, for one, will be happy to exploit.
Age might also be a factor. Many of France's top players - Zinedine Zidane, Claude Makelele, Patrick Vieira, Lilian Thuram - are in their thirties, and coming to the end of a long tournament, played in very hot conditions. Even after going to extra time against Germany, I'd expect Italy to be fresher in the latter stages of the game.
Who do you see coming out on top in the final match?
Unfortunately, I think the first scenario - the one where Italy scores first, defends, and bores our socks off - is the more likely. But it could be a classic.
And one last question--as an Englishman abroad do you think Wayne Rooney will have any fallout from his undisciplined behavior against Portugal?
Beyond a two- or three-game ban, and a little press criticism, probably not. The English fans and a lot of the media have been quick to lay blame for England's exit elsewhere. England's Swedish coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson, has come in for a lot of flack over squad selection and tactical decisions.
Bizarrely, the Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo has also become a figure of hate for many fans. Despite playing with Rooney at Manchester United, Ronaldo seemed to urge the referee to send Rooney off following the stamping incident, which hasn't gone down well at home. Within 48 hours of England going out of the tournament, someone had even set up an anti-Ronaldo website!
File this under the extremely bizarre department...
France 
Italy 
Zidane 
Malouda 
Portugal 
Brazil 
Spain 
Korea Republic 
