The World Cup has been genuinely good. I said it wouldn’t be, a lot of people said it wouldn’t be, and we were all wrong. The football has been sharp, the crowds have been loud, and it looks like we’re heading for a real heavyweight final. Nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong about a tournament.
Anyway, that’s not what this mailbox is about. Let’s get to the real argument.
Scholes and Carrick: The Ultimate Complimentary Pairing?
A Manchester United fan named Gaptoothfreak sent in a take that is going to get some people fired up. His argument is that Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick, at their peak together, were the most complete central midfield pairing in history. Not the most glamorous, not the most fashionable. The most complete.
He’s got a point about how they fit together. Scholes was the chaos agent, the guy who could unlock a defense with one pass and set the tempo of a whole game. Carrick was the control, the positional discipline, the guy who snuffed out attacks before they even got going. According to Opta data from Carrick’s 2011/12 season, he completed over 90% of his passes while averaging 3.3 tackles and 2.6 interceptions per league start. That’s ball retention and defensive work in one package.
The beauty of it was that they never stepped on each other. Scholes could roam and create because Carrick had the space behind him locked down. Carrick could recycle possession because Scholes was always an option to turn defense into attack instantly. They made the game look slower than it actually was. Sir Alex Ferguson trusted that midfield to control the biggest matches in England and Europe, and they delivered five Premier League titles and a Champions League together.
Obviously, names like Xavi and Iniesta, Busquets, Modric and Kroos, Keane and Scholes are going to come up. But the argument isn’t about who had the better individual players. It’s about who had the most complete partnership. And honestly, it’s a better debate than most people want to admit.
Brazil’s Fall From Grace Is Real Now
Sean from East Finchley, who is 67, wrote in about something that’s been gnawing at him. He remembers when Brazil had an aura that no other team could touch. He was too young for 1970 but he vividly remembers 1982. He said it felt like they played with a different ball because the ball did things nobody else’s could. Socrates, the guy who smoked cigarettes and had a medical degree, just gliding around the midfield. That team was magic.
But somewhere along the line, that aura faded. 1986 was maybe the last gasp. 1990 was a break. 1994 they won it but it wasn’t the same. Since then, only Ronaldo and maybe Ronaldinho briefly brought back that old feeling. The decline was perfectly summed up by Rivaldo holding his face in 2002. That 1982 team would never have stooped to that. They just knew they were brilliant and they showed you.
Now people are actively laughing at Neymar and Brazil. That’s a shift that’s been building for years.
Egypt Got Robbed or Just Naive?
The Egypt vs. Argentina match has generated a lot of heat. The disallowed goal from Mostafa Ziko is at the center of it. Let’s break down what happened. Marwan Attia made a challenge on Lisandro Martinez near the touchline. The referee saw it and didn’t call a foul. Egypt then played on, worked the ball down the field with three passes, and Ziko finished. The referee didn’t blow the whistle during the buildup. But because Ziko scored, VAR stepped in and awarded Argentina a free kick. If Ziko had put that shot wide, it would have been a goal kick to Argentina.
Dale May from Swindon is calling this decision dishonest. His logic is sound. The tackle wasn’t a red card offense. It wasn’t reckless. It was a committed challenge and Martinez made the most of it. The referee didn’t think it was a foul in real time. So why does VAR get to retroactively award a free kick for a non-red-card tackle that was already seen and judged? It doesn’t follow the rules as they’re written.
Andrew from Canada has a bigger question. What does “clear and obvious” actually mean? If VAR has to be certain, why does the referee need to go to the monitor? If the referee needs to review it, then it wasn’t clear and obvious. The whole system gets muddy when opinions are involved.
Paul McDevitt has a different take. He thinks Egypt lost the plot. Going 2-0 up with 15 minutes to play, they should have shut the game down. Instead, Salah kept getting caught on the ball, Marmoush missed a sitter, and the whole bench was too busy reacting emotionally to every decision to manage the game. Argentina, always edgy and happy to use gamesmanship, took full advantage. Egypt were naive.
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