Does anyone know what player was on the spanish Fifa commercial were it showed him being looked at for losing?

Question

I believe he was from argentina and is shows him going to the supermarket and then home with everyone knowing they had lost the game.

Answer 1

I don't know for sure but it might be Messi

Answer 2

Argentina??? No, he wasn't on our team and I have no idea who he is. I know the commercial, but not the player.

I think the people above me confused the commercial. Messi is in the Pepsi "baile" commercial, not that one.

Answer 3

i actually had the answer to this at some point but i cant remember and i dont know where i found it....but these idiots know nothing because im 200% positive its NOT messi.

Answer 4

It's a Mexican Player, I his name is Juan Francisco Palencia.

Answer 5

I've lived and loved almost every moment of this World Cup: shooting the breeze with strangers; the chaotic cha-cha-cha of writing, watching and more writing; the 7am starts and 2am finishes, reprised and repeated. It's been a wonderful Groundhog Day.

Everyone agrees the Germans have been wonderful hosts, the Fan Fests a runaway success, the mid-summer mood magnificent. The only debate left in town is over the quality of the football.

Yesterday on these pages, Rob Smyth noted the paucity of goals at this World Cup and offered a few tentative remedies, including testing 10-a-side. The responses were fiery and sometimes dismissive. You may not have agreed with his answers, but some even took issue with his right to pose the questions.

But football isn't an ultra-orthodox sect; there should be room for heretics and honest thinkers. We must always take stock - what works? What doesn't? How can the game be improved? The dying days of this World Cup seem as appropriate a time as any to collect some thoughts, many of which are reprised from a previous article of mine. Suggestions and enlightenment, as always, welcome.

Lack of goals: here to stay

I've heard trenchant claims that the lack of goals in Germany 2006 is either cyclical or a statistical blip. I disagree. All the signs are it's a trend (witness Japan/Korea 2002, Euro 2004, Ligue 1 2004-5 et al) of defensive dominance, due to the virus-like growth of 4-2-3-1. Increasingly teams are trusting they can nick a goal and preserve their lead. Usually they're right.

That's not to denigrate great defending. When practised by the Fabio Cannavaros of this world, it's a rare art - and should be celebrated as such. But it's about balance. Just three of the 14 World Cup knockout games so far have contained goals from both teams, while a makeshift Arsenal defence featuring a novice centre-back and a central-midfielder-***-left-back went 10 Champions League games without conceding a goal. This art has become too easy.

Attacking play

Most teams - perhaps more than in any recent World Cup - have shown positive intent, yet there's been little end product, especially in the knockout stages. Innovation and imagination, a Cruyff turn or Cuauhtémoc Blanco bunnyhop that leaves you drooling, have been lacking too.

The lack of goals in Germany 2006 is one thing, but the stunningly low number of saves per game is perhaps more telling. Over the last 25 years, I've enjoyed many a low-scoring match - usually because there have been plenty of scoring opportunities. But Shaka Hislop's heroics against Sweden and Petr Cech's one-man blockade of Ghana apart, a keeper's workload has usually been restricted to two or three stops a game.

The ubiquity of 4-2-3-1 doesn't help, of course, but neither does Fifa's insistence on introducing a super hi-tech beachball just before the World Cup started. Generally the shooting has been poor and the crossing substandard: if the ball doesn't crash into the first defender it usually flies about 10 yards too high. If these explanations don't wash, then what does? Could it be this generation of attacking players isn't as sensational as we've been told?

A few suggestions

Forget what the traditionalists tell you. The history of football rules is one of exploitation followed, several years later, by correction. The introduction of referees, changes in the offside law, professional fouls, the backpass rule and so on, have all come about following this process.

Such intervention needs to happen again. Because ever since the wondrous magic of Euro 2000, football's delicate balance between attack and defence has spun increasingly out of kilter. Here are a few ideas:

- Stop the clock every time someone gets injured. Too often players feign distress, especially in the last 10 minutes, wasting two or three minutes of play and destroying their opponents' momentum. They're rarely seriously injured. Another option: if the injury is in the middle of the pitch, allow the physio on but keep playing. Either way, more playing time may lead to more goals.

- Investigate the use of sin bins. At the moment it's rational for defenders to body-check, scythe and take out opponents in promising positions, picking up a professional yellow, because conceding a goal is far worse. The possibility of 20 minutes in the sin bin - with a yellow card chucked in - for cynical fouls might change a player's incentives and, ergo, behaviour.

- Increase the size of the goals by a few centimetres. Yes, you hate the idea. Every football fan does, but surely it's worth experimenting with in a semi-professional league? After all, keepers are at least a foot taller now then in the 19th century when goalpost sizes were laid down in law.

On referees, again

Apart from one or two look-at-me types, I've usually felt sorry for most of them. There's so much cheating, diving, shirt-pulling and general fakery going on, it's impossible to spot everything. And Fifa's directives haven't helped. I still don't understand why Fifa demands a yellow card for shirt-pulling, but tugging at corners is fair game. We've also had at least three goals that weren't given, numerous wrongly awarded yellow cards and myriad incorrect penalty decisions.

Two forces are at a play in the modern game. First, football is faster and more frantic than ever before. Second, there are fewer goals, which also exacerbates the impact of poor refereeing. Decisions may even out over a season, but they rarely do so over the course of a match.

More suggestions

As I've argued before in this tournament, there needs to be a panel to review and rescind yellow and red cards after the match, and instant video replays for major decisions.

Video evidence is treated by suspicion by many, particularly by luddites who believe it would slow the game down too much. But we're talking about the occasional major decision - a goal-line clearance, penalty or offside appeal - which would add seconds not minutes. If there were any doubts at all about the TV replays, the referee's original decision would stand.

Introducing technology would also change the risk v reward debate that zips around a player's head: there'd be no incentive to dive when someone in the stands could alert the referee, who would soon be waving yellow in your direction. What's more, as a recent piece in the New Scientist pointed out, it's often impossible for linesmen to get marginal offside decisions right: often their eyes deceive them. Why not give them help?

Final thought

No, before you ask, I don't want to see football scores mirror rugby. But the flip side - 90 minutes of turgid tedium - is nearly as repellent. Yes, 0-0 draws can be exciting, but many are negative and sterile. How many rubbish 3-2s have you seen?

Recently Michel Hidalgo, the manager who led Michel Platini's France to a glorious Euro 84 title, issued the following cri de coeur: "We must find ways to encourage audacious players and we must fight goalless games. It is goals that leave their mark on the memory."

The first World Cup my father saw was Switzerland 1954, which averaged 5.38 goals per game. That seems alien and extravagant to my generation, which has been conditioned to accept around 2.5-3 goals per game. But in another 20 years, 1.5 could be the norm. It's a prospect that should make us all shiver.

Answer 6

messi

Answer 7

great effort, desperate_ad, i enjoyed that...looking forward to more T-I-C posts from you, lol.

Answer 8

I think messi...

Answer 9

NO