England vs Paraguay 1-0

A 1-0 victory was good enough for England to get 3 points. However, the match left the English asking more questions about their team than being particularly happy. Paraguay isn’t the strongest of sides. England creeped to victory rather than having a convincing performance. Any thing can happen in football but I don’t see England causing a serious threat in the competition if they don’t improve on the pitch drastically.

Sweden vs Trinidad and Tobago 0-0

The Soca Warriors are celebrating. 10 men Trinidad and Tobago have held off Sweden. Sweden dominated possession. Sweden attacked a lot. However, they hit very few shots on target and nothing materialised into goals. There was the very good defending by T and T and the excellent keeping by Shaka Hislop. It is all about scoring goals though. Maybe Sweden should not have kept that extra man marking Stern John and had attacked more. The English will be very happy with this result. It makes qualifying for them a lot easier!

Argentina vs Côte d’Ivoire 2-1

The match was expected to, and produced, the best match of the tournament so far. The pace was faster than any thing we have seen in the tournament. There was controversy as well when the ball crossed the line (looked like that to me at least) but the referee did not give a goal to Argentina early on. That did not matter as Argentina scored two more. Drogba pulled one back to make things exciting in the last 10 minutes. Ivory Coast have a lot of talent and would have easily qualified in most other groups. It can still be possible as they can give Holland a run for their money.

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For part 7 of the series, I caught up with Trinidad and Tobago’s Liam Camps. Camps, 18, is a huge sports fan. Liam got hooked to football when Dwight Yorke signed with Manchester United. From then on, he began to take great interest in football. He followed the team with passion during the ill-fated campaign for the last World Cup. Yorke was one of many who delighted in the inspirational triumph this time around, Camps says.

I thank Camps for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about the T and T football history and the football culture which exists

Football and cricket are the two major sports in Trinidad and Tobago. The support for the Warriors is typically overwhelming, and hopefully that will be seen in Germany with a sea of red. Twice in our footballing history has the country been in a position to qualify for the World Cup.

The first time was in 1989, but the USA won 1-0 on that occasion. T&T got another life in this campaign, and under the astute leadership of Leo Beenhakker, and as they say, the rest is history.

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