Category: World Cup (Page 12 of 17)

Brazil barely got through what will surely be their only competitive match of the group stage 1-0 against a more than decent Croatian side.

It was a surprisingly even match just about the whole way through. Croatia’s defense held except for one brief moment before half-time and Kaka took advantage and won the game with a great strike. Both teams go away fairly pleased, and comfortable in the knowledge that they’re both advancing.

As a fan, this would have been the match to go to of the first round so far. The atmosphere seemed amazing. Both sets of supporters brought the game to life.

Hopefully Ronaldo plays himself into match fitness. They don’t really even need him, but he’s clearly been enjoying the fruits of the land more than soccer lately. All the rumors look to be very true. He’s still a good player, but he’s not great anymore–unless you’re speaking of size.

Ronaldinho is though. So is Kaka, Cafu… The list is long and well known. They’ll do enough, often enough to beat anyone. They may not be invincible, but if they lose it’ll still seem like a fluke.

That said, Croatia could have easily beaten them today. I was very impressed with their performance. Prso, Kranjcar, Srna all looked great, and the defense was solid against the best offense in the world. I wouldn’t want to play either one of these teams in the later rounds.

Why do I keep doing it? I should know better by now. Every international competition, I look at teams like Spain, Holland, Portugal, and especially France, and say they are just too talented not to succeed. Surely, they’ll come to play this time. Then they all completely fold every time.

France seems very much at it again. Despite oodles of offense and class all over the pitch, all that firepower once again fizzled out for a 0-0 loss, I mean draw, against Switzerland.

The match started out with a good pace and looked like it was going to be entertaining, but by the end the French looked completely frustrated and dumbfounded. Very familiar.

The Swiss may be happy with this draw, but they should have beaten France here–everyone else does. They had three golden, practically ‘can’t miss’ opportunities, but none of them found the net. The usually erratic (to be kind) Fabian Barthez, managed to avoid any moments of lunacy for once, to give France a share of the points.

None of the stars look to be the same players that regularly light it up for teams like Real, Arsenal, ManU, etc. They put on that French kit and look extremely average. The team may well stand around waiting for the likes of Zidane and Henry to do something. Those are two of the best players in the world, they should be doing something.

Sickening. When does Brazil play?

In what, for me anyway, was the least anticipated match of the first round, Korea swept away Togo 2-1.

Togo looked better than I expected, actually. Even when they were down a man. All we’ve heard for a week was what a mess the team is in. They were in the news daily, mostly worrying about whether they were going to be paid. They’ve threatened to leave, and their coach did for a bit. With all the distractions, I was expecting a rout–at least as much of one as lowly Korea could muster.

The difference in the match was coaching and Korea simply looked prepared to play. You’d expect that from Dick Advocaat. Still, this is the first match of the tournament I wouldn’t have minded missing.

I can’t see much wrong with the Italian side after they calmly took care of a decent Ghana 2-0. They looked confident from the start and never wavered. This could be their year.

The US looks to be the worst team in the Group. I know they just played one lousy match and might rebound, but I can’t see them taking a point from either of these teams.

The Czech Republic clearly superior in every phase of the game, essentially ended any US hope of escaping from the tough Group E. The 3-0 dismantling left the US looking doubtful and exposed the idiocy of the FIFA rankings for what they are. The US is clearly nowhere near 5th in the world.

Despite the easy win, the match might also end up hurting the Czech’s chances down the road. Their mountain, and scorer of the first goal, Jan Koller went out with an apparent hamstring problem. He would be a major loss to that team.

Tomas Rosicky, on the other hand, is going to be amazing in an Arsenal kit this year. He took over after Koller was carted off and put in the other two excellent goals.

About the only hope for the US now is that they looked so pathetic and overmatched today that Italy and even Ghana may underestimate them in the next matches. It would be hard not to. Who was even on the pitch for the US? Keller couldn’t be blamed for not stopping any of the rockets past him, and Reyna was okay. The rest of the team may as well have been wooden cut-outs.