Irene's Weblog

We scared the cats today with shouts of “goal” and “score” and other silly football screams.  We really wanted Slovakia to win today.

Today’s early matches were Italy v. Slovakia and Paraguay v. New Zealand. I chose to watch the Italy v. Slovakia game and was treated to a great football match. I wanted Slovakia to win and I was not disappointed. Robert Vittek scored twice for Slovakia, once in the 25th minute and again in the 73rd minute. I was sure Slovakia would win it, but the Italians came back in the 81st minute.

Not panicking too much, I told myself that Slovakia was still up 2-1 and surely they would win. Italy made my heart skip a beat when they appeared to have scored in the 86th minute. Luckily, they were offside and the goal was disallowed. Kamil Kopunik scored for Slovakia in the 89th minute and I knew the Italians couldn’t win. They were down 3-1, but the Italians made me even more nervous when they scored in stoppage time, making it 3-2.

There was a short kerfuffle in the back of the net between goalkeeper Mucha and Italy’s Fabio Quagliarella. Both received yellow cards for their infractions. I sweated out the last couple of minutes of stoppage time until the final whistle blew. I could breathe easier, knowing that Slovakia had now officially made it through to the next round. A great game all around.

Although New Zealand drew 0-0 with Paraguay and are going home, they had a good World Cup. They were in a tough group and held their own.

The two afternoon matches were Denmark v. Japan and The Netherlands v. Cameroon. I watched the Denmark v. Japan game. This was an important match for both teams as the winner was all but assured that they would move on. I honestly felt that Denmark would be the winners. It was not to be as Japan won the game 3-1.

In the other game, The Netherlands beat Cameroon 2-1. Rigobert Song became the first African to have a World Cup career that spans 16 years. The only others on that list are Antonio Carabajal (Mexico), Lothar Matthaus (Germany), and Hugo Sanchez (Mexico). The Netherlands moves on to the next round while Cameroon goes home.

I admit, I was hoping that Slovenia would pull out a tie or a win and advance, but it was not to be. The England v. Slovenia game wasn’t really exciting. Just a normal game of football, although Milner had some very nice crosses for England. The USA had many chances to score today, but they just couldn’t put any through. Finally, in stoppage time, Landon Donovan scores and the USA advances. The USA also tops their group for the first time since 1930.

The nice thing about the games was that my brother-in-law called from England right after the two games finished.

The second sets of matches were Germany v. Ghana and Australia v. Serbia. Germany managed to edge Ghana 1-0, but, both teams move on to the next round. Australia beat Serbia 2-1, but it wasn’t enough to get past Ghana, so the Aussies will be watching the World Cup from home from now on.

Due to teams cheating in the past, the final two games in each group are played at the same time. So, you have to pick one game over the other to watch. I chose France v. South Africa, which turned out to be the better game. The other game ended in a 1-0 victory for Uruguay over Mexico.

South Africa scored two goals in an exciting first half, but France came back in the 70th minute to score a goal. Gourcuff was given an unjustified red card for France and was sent off. South Africa had a few nice shots on goal that just didn’t make it to the back of the net and the game ended in a 2-1 victory for South Africa.

I really had hoped that South Africa would have made it out of the group stage, but they are the first host nation to never accomplish this task. They ended up on 4 points, equal with Mexico, but Mexico moves into the next round on goal differential. The good news is, the French are going home.

In the second sets of matches, I watched the boring Greece v. Argentina game in which Argentina won 2-0. The much better game was the South Korea v. Nigeria. Though it ended in a 2-2 draw, Argentina and South Korea will be going on to the next round.

From The Daily Mail:

I’ll never understand why people find these creepy guys so interesting.

Today’s first game was Portugal v. North Korea. The rain was pouring down in Cape Town today. It took Portugal nearly thirty minutes to break through the North Korean defense and score. It was 1-0 at the half, but Portugal completely crushed the North Koreans in the second half with goals in the 53rd, 56th, 60th, 81st, 87th and 89th minutes. Final score Portugal 7, North Korea 0. With the loss, North Korea has been eliminated from the World Cup.

Ronaldo’s goal was quite amusing and here it is to put a smile on your face.

Next up was Chile v. Switzerland. The referee is again going to be a deciding factor in the game a yellow cards came out. A ridiculous yellow for N’Kufo, and ridiculous red for Behrami. The ref showed 4 yellow and 1 red card in less than half an hour. The score remained 0-0 at the half.

The Swiss set a record of not allowing a goal in 550 minutes of World Cup play, but Mark Gonzalez scored for Chile in the 75th minute. That’s how it would end, with Chile winning the match 1-0.

While the game was good, it was marred by some dodgy refereeing and a dive by Jorge Valdivia, which resulted in him getting a yellow card. A totally legitimate yellow card for Valdivia. The ref also handed out a red card to Valon Behrami in the 31st minute , which was completely unjustified.

The last match of the day was Spain v. Honduras. David Villa scored in the 17th and 51st minutes for Spain. Spain wins 2-0. Not a very exciting match and I just wasn’t in to watching any of the matches today.

Today was also the last day of three matches per day and getting up at 5am to watch the matches. There are four matches per day for the rest of the week, but two are played at the same time. I’ll probably have them both going at the same time, but we’ll see. I’m starting to get tired of watching so much football at once.