Posted by fústar in 
After waxing lyrical for 10 days about a World Cup that has, thus far, been one of the most entertaining (and high-quality) I can remember…it's time to get a bit nasty.
While Esteban Cambiasso's sublime goal for Argentina (against Serbia & Montenegro) garnered worldwide praise, Atsushi Yanagisawa's astonishing miss against Croatia is being mentioned only in the football 'funny pages'. If Japanese fans and an incredulous international audience had managed to forget said incident, a graphic in today's Independent (see here) did its best to remind us just how mind-bogglingly awful it was.
For those who didn't see it 'live', here it is…in all its tragic splendour:
I've seen players side foot the ball over the bar, off the bar, just past the post (etc) in such situations, but I don't think I've ever seen a miss this close in where the player pokes it 8 yards wide, back across the goal, from a position where (as the fella said) it was easier to score.
If there's a better goal than Cambiasso's in this tournament we'll be extremely blessed. If there's a worse miss than Yanagisawa's, then God help the poor bastard who's responsible!
[tags]World Cup, Japan, Croatia, Yanagisawa[/tags]
