Heroes and Villains: Luis Suarez and Ghana in the 2010 World Cup

The one question that the world wanted answered after the 2006 World Cup was, "What did Marco Materazzi say to Zinedine Zidane?"  Shortly after the 2006 tournament, videos starring Materazzi's dirtiest fouls emerged on youtube.  Materzzi had quickly become the villain of the tournament because he had provoked our hero, Zidane, to ruin what should have been his finest hour.  

This year, heroes haven't emerged as easily.  Perhaps David Villa is the hero of the tournament.  His goal scoring has been incredible.  Perhaps you jumped on the Leo Messi bandwagon.  Messi didn't score but enabled everything Argentina produced on the field.  Stateside, it was Landon Donovan.  His last minute goal was a changing moment for soccer in the States.   Maybe Tomas Mueller is your guy.   In Africa, the hero was a country:  Ghana.  

In the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup, Ghana and Uruguay met, with Ghana holding the hopes of a continent on its shoulders.  Ghana was looking to become the first African team to make the semifinals of the World Cup.  They were the only African nation to make the knock-out rounds and had taken down the U.S. to reach the quarters.  

The game itself was excellent.  Two very nice goals meant that the game ended in a draw.  In Extra Time (not Overtime for some reason), nothing happened until the 120th minute of the match when the 2010 World Cup villain emerged.  Luis Suarez deliberately reached out his hand to stop a shot from going into the goal.  Ghana should have won, but Suarez decided that the Ghanains might miss a penalty.  He reached out and blocked the shot.  He got a well deserved red card.  Ghana missed the penalty and then lost the game in shootouts.  Kent has posted more about the cheater, Luis Suarez, asking us what we would do and said that he would do the same thing in that situation.  I'm not sure what I would do (but I have scored a goal with my arm so...).  Either way, Luis Suarez destroyed the hopes and dreams of the African continent and cheated his way to victory.  Luis Suarez is the villain of the 2010 World Cup.

Here's to Uruguay losing 10-0 to Netherlands on Tuesday.  Come on Oranje!