They Think It’s All Over – It Is Now! Taxi!
Well I’m glad I’m not a betting man! Having called the England v Germany game as either a hatful of goals, for an experienced England side against a youthful German side; or a very nervy and cagey affair, leading to a 0-0 or 1-1 draw with all the heartbreak of a penalty shootout. In fact it was Germany who looked liked they’d been playing together all their lives, with speed and fluency of passing, and a pretty obvious plan not to push forwards, but instead to entice England’s old legs into advanced positions and then break and score. The result was fairly embarrassing – a total mismatch on the occasions when the Germans did break out, usually from sloppy passing by England during attacks. German piercing through balls were met by out of position centre backs and a retreating keeper. A sorry state of affairs which saw the best side go through to Quarter Finals without any worries. There was of course the decision of the disgraceful referee, Stevie Wonder; I jest, apparently the referee does have eyes that actually work, but missing a clear goal is fairly unforgivable at World Cup level. I’m guessing the only people in the stadium who thought it wasn’t a goal were the ref and his linesman. FIFA sent the ref back home to Uruguay, and issued an apology to the English FA. Big deal! So that was England 1 Germany 4, incidentally the biggest drubbing England have ever received in a major competition.
Elsewhere, the results were a little more in line with expectations. Uruguay beat South Korea to progress to the next stage with 2-1 win. The USA v Ghana match was a hard one to call, and was the first game to go into extra time. Ghana ended up snatching the winning goal early in the first half of extra time to win 2-1. That leaves Uruguay versus Ghana in the first Quarter Final.
The second match in England’s section was Argentina v Mexico. Predictably it ended with an Argenina win by 3 goals to 1. There was also a little controversy with the Argentinian’s first goal, as the player was clearly offside. For a sport with so much money riding on it, it’s abysmal how crooked the game is sometimes; there should be technology all over the pitch and inside the ball, along with instant replays to assist with decisions on goals, diving and off-the-ball incidents. But there ain’t, and it doesn’t look like FIFA want fair play to prevail. But I digress. The second Quarter Final will be between Argentina and Germany.
Again, totally predictably, Holland beat Slovakia 2-1 (the Slovakians getting a last minute penalty for a dive that should have seen the Slovakian forward receive a yellow card. Meh). And Brazil, of course, beat Chile 3-0. So Holland versus Brazil in the Quarters.
The last section saw Paraguay and Japan locked at stalemate throughout the game and after 30 minutes of extra time, the score of 0-0 taking the game into the first penalty shootout of the tournament. What a shame. It was Paraguay who came out on top, in a shootout that was almost perfect. Paraguay scored all 5 of their spotkicks, with just a single wayward strike by one of the Japanese, which clipped the crossbar and went up instead of down and in. It’s a pity to see Japan go out at this stage. Finally, and as expected, Spain beat Portugal 1-0. Spain were by far the better team and deserved the win, in a game where they constantly pushed on to score, where the Portuguese seemed only to interest themselves in trying to defend the game until a much hoped for penalty shootout. They didn’t have a plan B when the Spanish broke through, and that, as they say, was that! So the final Quarter Final will be between Paraguay and Spain.
There are some good looking games in the mix now. A few rest days for the teams before heading into the advanced stages of this tournament. The Quarters take place on Friday and Saturday.
