Sportolysis – The World Sports Blog

Any one who thought that this world cup would be played in good spirits would have realised the reality of things in the Australia-Croatia match. Football is fun. Football means a super carnival atmosphere. Football is also pretty rough, especially when matches are close, more often than not.

One word to describe the early part of the Portugal-Holland game would be intense with high quality football being played. The Maniche goal meant that Portugal had the early advantage. Then, we had the many brawling incidents of course. For Portugal, it was extremely stupid of Figo to go for the head-butt as losing another man and so a 9 vs 11 would have meant suicide.

I thought Holland shouldn’t have got involved in the brawls as it meant, above other things, a lot of time wasted which cost Holland as they were already 0-1 down. In the actual match, Holland missed some easy chances and were unlucky in other times. The two goal keepers must be commended for making some astonishing saves which were very much significant in causing a lot of tension to every one.

With each match, as the world cup script unfolds – one match at a time, the anticipation and the thrill keeps increasing. While all this happens, we keep falling in love all over again with the great tournament.

What separates an immensely talented team from a possibly great team? Coming out of tough situations with genius which is impossible to counter. It was written all over the 24 pass goal. It was also written over the Maxi Rodriguez goal.

BBC Live commentary described it thus moments after it happened:

What a goal! Maxi Rodriguez chests down Juan Pablo Sorin’s cross-field pass and lashes in a left-foot shot on the volley that arrows into the top corner.

Sanchez fumed at the defenders but I don’t think much could be done – impressive pass and astonishing finishing. The goal was much more important than the 24 pass goal in the context of the world cup as had it not occured, a strong favourite for the tournament could have exited early.

The Mexican team kept on attacking whenever it could, which coupled with their defense, set up an exciting match. There were if’s and but’s of course – Heinze could have easily been red carded which would have made things much more interesting. In injury time during normal play, the Argentine goal was disallowed when it wasn’t offside.

You have to keep on winning. There can be no excuses in the end. Argentina didn’t need any. Bravo!

Following Complete Sport’s picks, here are mine:

Picks in bold.

Second Round

Germany vs Sweden
Argentina vs Mexico
Italy vs Australia
Switzerland vs Ukraine
England vs Ecuador
Portugal vs The Netherlands
Brazil vs Ghana
Spain vs France

Last Eight

Germany vs Argentina
Italy vs Ukraine
Ecuador vs The Netherlands
Brazil vs France

Semifinals

Argentina vs Ukraine
The Netherlands vs Brazil

Dream Finals

Brazil vs Argentina

I have picked a few upsets but I have Brazil winning over Argentina in the finals.

Now, what are your picks?

Ronaldo has improve miraclously from the sluggishness of the first two matches. So much so, he can now take on any man or animal.

Every one – beware of the great fat man.

The Australians haven’t had it easy. 1-0 down first and then 2-1 down. It has been a ride so which the Australians will not forget for a long, long time.

Graham talks about the emotions during qualifying in the Australian interview:

This time, we held our own in Uruguay and had a stellar second round in Australia, managing to get through on penalties. Cue a huge party. Everyone loves it, even some of the oval ball fans, and it’s great. If we do well, thesport will really take off here.

Emotions? I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s overtaken the whole country. Everyone’s buying the jerseys. Everyone’s talking about it in the newspapers and on the street. It actually took a few days for the realisation to set in.

If you ever get a chance to watch a video of the Australia-Uruguay game in Sydney, watch it – you’ll see the emotion in the fans, the players and even in the commentators, who were close to tears. It’s an experience I will never forget. It was a pretty entertaining game too – a real cliffhanger.

It seemed that the party will be short lived when Japan was allowed a goal which shouldn’t have been. The Aussies have missed the previous world cups in the last moment and so, now that they were in the world cup, this opportunity would not be allowed to slip without a fight – and fight they did! Three goals within moments meant the hopes of qualifying to round 2 were alive.

The game versus Croatia was a scramble and by the end, every thing went crazy. It appeared more of a rugby match than a football match. Even the referee Graham Poll got caught in the excitement. He forgot to send off Simunic when he was yellow carded the second time. Then, he yellow carded him a third time.

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