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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.

They waited until the very end, but Gus Hiddink finally pulled the right strings and yanked Australia from disaster with a 3-1 win over weak Japan.

It was shaping up to be a gift to Japan from inept officiating. Several calls were missed, including a crucial non-call when Australian keeper Schwartzer was fouled and Japan scored midway through the first half.

Australia had to beat these minnows if they were to have any chance to get out of the group. They nearly didn’t. The overrated duo of Kewell and Viduka once again displayed their mediocrity, but Hiddink finally put Tim Cahill on the pitch and he was the deciding factor. Even if it took 85 minutes.

Japan certainly didn’t deserve the win, or even a draw in this match. They only took a small handful of shots, and the one that trickled in shouldn’t have counted. So, fair enough. Oz deservedly took the three important points here, but even with Hiddink, who else can they beat?

I sat down to the Portugal match fully expecting to see something like the usual 6-0 thrashing they generally serve up to Angola. The Angolans understandably hate their former colonizers and there’s usually plenty of fire and red cards. Portugal don’t just beat them, they humiliate them. Today’s match was a comparatively listless 1-0 for the Portuguese.

It looked like it was going to be brutal when Portugal scored after 4 minutes, but the match bogged down after that, and Portugal once again seemed content to back off the gas a bit once they felt they did enough to win. The three points should have never been in doubt in this match, but they left Angola with every chance to steal a result, right up to the whistle.

Portugal took the points, so it doesn’t matter if it was 1-0 or 20-0, but if I’m a Portugal fan I’m starting to worry about it being deja vu all over again. They are supposed to play with the South American style, with flash and flare. Instead, they seem only to have mastered the South American Achilles heel–they walk on the pitch as if the game was already won and the match is just a formality.