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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In Visitors, I invite one person each week to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Vijay Krishna, a huge football fan joins us to analyse Indian football as it stands today. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By Vijay Krishna

What gives the game of football its universal appeal? The answer is simple: it is the game of the masses. That is precisely why “the beautiful game” is so popular everywhere. In that case, why isn’t it popular in India? Of course, it is popular. Why else would anyone want to watch games in the middle of the night?

But what of Indian football? Without resorting to any other means, answer one simple question. Who captains the Indian football team? Baichung Bhutia, you say? Sure of the answer? Well that underscores why Indian football isn’t taken seriously by many, though football per se is rising in popularity amongst the youth of this country.

And yet, this was the country which qualified to play in the 1950 World Cup finals. Of course, it’s another story that we didn’t travel because the football team insisted on playing barefoot. It might also surprise many to know that some of the country football clubs are older than most popular football clubs in Europe, including Manchester United, Real Madrid and AC Milan.

So what ails Indian football? Is it politics, lack of money, lack of interest or are we simply condemned to support Brazil, Italy, England and the like? To understand the situation better, I spoke to a few officials in some football associations. People in such positions will hardly concede that it is internal politics which stalls the development of the game. Lack of money is the reason everyone cites.

Lack of money for what? Officials argue at the national level, domestic football is more popular than domestic cricket. There is a lot more money on offer too. But football associations do not command the same amount of resources as does the BCCI. One of the major expenses is in conducting national-level competitions. This entails a lot of spendings; but everyone claims that competitions are the only way to popularise the sport.

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We have seen pee goal. There is a lot more obviously. Claire Heald of BBC goes on an expedition to find what you can buy this world cup. See the pictures here..

.. and yes, do buy some thing even though some people will squirm and tell you the products are over priced. Ignore the squirming spoil sports. After all isn’t price what buyers and sellers agree to?

There is a bargain on the things as well as BBC points out:

A bargain 9.95 euros buys three thongs in a plastic football. They come in the host nation’s colours, Brazil’s and Italy’s.

So which country’s thong(s) are you buying this world cup?

A lot of teams are not meeting expectations after just 1 or 2 games into the world cup - France, England and Brazil in their own distinct ways. Does it mean that the expectations were misplaced in the first place? To an extent, that is true for every team for if you asked any fan before the world cup regardless of the team he was supporting, the optimism regarding his team was a key aspect you could identify immediately before any thing else.

So the disappointment will exist for fans of most countries by the time the world cup is over. There will be the happy fans from Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana but most fans are likely to feel sad rather than happy on their team’s performances as their team exits. For England, the gelling isn’t happening. There is also the feeling that the team and it’s stars are not really as good as the media makes them out to be. For France, a victory jinx seems more inexplicable. The team weren’t favourites before the world cup begun but who would have thought that they would be winless after two games.

Zidane is playing well and the team is loaded with talent. I was speaking with a friend and his explanation, radical as he termed it, was that the players play at different paces which hampers the team over all. For example, Henry is too fast for the rest of the team. Synchronisation is vital and it is true that France is missing that at some level. However, it is also true that they have been unlucky with goals not happening. I do hope that their luck turns because it would be a shame if they went out early.

Enough about England and France. I have been born and brought up in Calcutta and so I could have easily been any one of those guys from the picture in the previous post. I will focus on the team I support - Brazil. It is easy to criticise and I don’t like criticising but I have little option left here. Brazil has been poor in the world cup so far and it has left a lot of fans in despair. One game can be ignored. Not two. Australia adopted a complete defensive strategy versus Brazil. Brazil is, after all, Brazil. More significantly, Australia already had three points in the bag and so even a point against the defending world cup champions would have been reason enough for a lot of celebration for them.

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Brazil football fans in Kolkata [Via BBC].

Decalink will feature once a week from next week. I duck this week’s Decalink though (excuse - time restraints and extremely slow connection). So you don’t find me giving you interesting links on golf, NBA playoffs, NHL, motorsport, cycling, tennis, cricket and any sport you might have missed.

I will give you one link though. Desipundit asked me to write on sports and the Indian blogosphere which can be read here. A must read if there ever will be one.

Okay, I will stop now.

I spoke about unpredictability in sport yesterday and it occured yet again - just one you least expected it as usual. The people were complaining about the lack of big upsets this world cup. There has been Ecuador but they aren’t in that strong a group or that big a threat in the over all picture. More importantly, they haven’t displaced any team that’s big.

Then, there was Ivory Coast. An extremely talented team which played an exciting and attacking football which can cause problems for any team. Sadly, talent alone does not win you world cups. You need defense. More importantly, you need experience and toughness which strides over the unpredctiability of sport - more so in a game like football.

Ghana has the same attacking streak in them and they upset a Czech team which looked so good in game 1. US drew their game which makes things all the more interesting. So it is all down to the last game now. Despite a round robin existing, it is always perilous when you are defeated in even one game. It can mean that you leave your fortune in the hands of other teams. It is not easy to win the world cup - even a moment of slip up leading to a goal and a game lost can mean an exit.

This has been a superb world cup so far and it now has an upset it needed to keep the excitement factor at a high level. I am still backing the Czech to reach round 2 but it will be down to one goal here or there now! On a different note, it is good that the US also drew a game. Apart from giving them a bleak hope, it also means out of the many who were excited about the world cup in the US this time around, at least some will stick on to following football which is so vital for the development of any sport.