Shep Messing, who was a teammate of Pele on the New York Cosmos and goalkeeper on the 1972 Olympic squad, is giving Post readers his insights and opinions periodically during the World Cup. Messing also serves as MSG Network’s New York Red Bulls analyst and is calling World Cup games for ESPN Radio. As told to Brian Lewis.
The Dutch have been phenomenal. Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal has been superb. On paper, the Dutch are the better team, superior to Argentina.
But let me play devil’s advocate.
The cloud for me — and I’m not in general worked up over diving, I don’t hate the Dutch, and I don’t want tons of hate mail coming in — but I can’t stand the way the Dutch have carried themselves. I can’t stand it.
I never hated the Dutch or looked at Arjen Robben’s diving, whining and pouting throughout his whole career. It never bothered me. But as a team, I don’t think they represented themselves with any sense of humility or dignity. As a fan, I can’t root for them. I don’t like their approach.
The shenanigans from Tim Krul on the penalty kicks — I just can’t condone or support it.
Having said that, they’ve been really good. Robin van Persie, Robben, Wesley Sneijder, their attack is really top-notch.
My only fallback is historically for European teams never having done it before in South America or North America. And Lionel Messi, he’s on a different level.
I don’t think this is one of those games that’s going to be dominated. When you want to look for that seminal moment to decide a game, do you think it’s going to be Sneijder or Robben or do you think it’s going to be Messi?
I’m riding Messi.
I’ve watched him for many, many years, and I underrated him as a passer of the ball.
I like Argentina’s back four. Yes, you can question goalkeeper Sergio Romero. There are question marks all over the field. But in my heart, because of the Dutch behavior, I’m rooting for Argentina.
I’m not against mental games as a goalkeeper. You do what you can do to win. I’ve been there, done it before. But Krul went too far in the quarterfinals against Costa Rica.
I had an incident in Olympic qualifying, it’s the final game at a neutral site in Kingston against El Salvador. We’d tied twice, and we ended up tied again, so we had to have sudden death to see who makes it to the next round of qualifying for the Olympic Games. I took my shirt off as the first guy stepped up to take his penalty. I started waving it, threw it at him, yelling at him and got a yellow card.
He sailed it 30 feet over the crossbar.
But you do it on the first kick, or the fifth kick. I was going to use the psychological edge of mine that I’m crazy, I take my shirt off, I’m waving it around and throwing it, acting nuts.
If he’d done it on the first or the last, I get it. But show at least a little humility.
I just didn’t like the overall behavior of the team. And I’ll be rooting for Argentina.