The Fifa World Cup 2006- Week 2 (16-25th June)

With the first week out of the way it was time for more fun in the world cup.
16th june saw the argentines in full form when they destroyed Serbia and Montenegro 6-0. Now this was a match to watch even though the former Yugoslavs are definitely not the tops. The Argentines enjoyed themselves against a rather weak opposition.
The Dutch beat the Elephants (guys from the ivory coast) as expected and this killed ivory coast’s chances of making it to round 2 in the world cup having lost both their matches.
Angola held mexico to a dull 0 – 0 draw. There was nothing special about this match except that Angola now needed to beat Iran if they were to go to the second round.
Portugal beat Iran 2-0 in another encounter with second half goals from Deco and Christiano Ronaldo thus qualifying for the second round.
The Italians were held to a 1-1 draw by the US now histrionics by the Azzuri here.
In a rather major upset Ghana beat the Czechs 2-0. This was a major upset in that group which meant that the Czechs had to win the last one against Italy to qualify.
Brazil still not having found their form were quite unimpressive in their performance against Australia. The Brazilians however won 2-0.
The croats drew with Japan 0-0. There was nothing worthwhile in that match.
France with the likes of Zidane controlling their midfield and with strikers like Theirry Henry could only draw with South Korea , the final scoreline 1-1. France still look unimpressive, a far cry from what they are actually capable of.
The Swiss defeated Togo 2-0. And spain looking as threatening as ever defeated Tunisia 3-1 winning 2 in a row and thus making sure of a place in the last 16.
Ukraine looked rather good against a insipid Saudi team and won 4-0 with andrei shevchenko getting into the scorebooks.
After 2 matches each, germany ,Ecuador, brazil, argentina, spain , italy and Portugal looked set to enter the last 16.
In their final matches in the league stage Germany again proved their might against Ecuador winning 3 – 0 with Klose netting and getting to become the contendor for the golden boot.
Ecuador however looked good when they were attempting long distance shots. But the sheer size of the germans seemd to intimidate the Ecuador players.
Poland beat costa Rica 2-1 but in that case none of the teams did qualify for the round of 16 as Germany and Ecuador had already qualified. Germany with 3 wins and Ecuador with 2.
The final round matches in group B saw Sweden holding the Englishmen for a 2 –2 draw thus setting up a showdown with germany in the last 16. This meant that the Englishmen now face Ecuador in the last 16. The bad news however being that Michel Owen was injured which ruled him out from the rest of the matches.
Paraguay won their first match in group B defeating Trinidad and Tobago but this didn’t mean anything as both were ousted from the world cup. T & T did manage to showcase some real talent to the world.
The final match in group C saw argentina holding Netherlands to a 0 – 0 draw with nothing spectacular that we’ve come to see from both teams. Maybe this might be because both teams had already qualified for the round of 16. Ivory coast came from 2 goals down to beat a 10 man Serbia and Montenegro 3-2 however failing to make it to the next round. But Ivory Coast did manage to win many fans in their first ever outing at the world cup.
Group D saw Portugal beating Mexico 2 –1 and thus qualifying with all 3 straight wins.
Iran being held to a 1 – 1 draw by Angola meant that Mexico went through to the next round thereby setting up an encounter with Argentina. And another mouth watering perspective being a next round encounter between Portugal and Holland.

Group E now deemed as the group of death saw Italy beating the Czech 2-0 to eliminate them from the world cup. Ghana beating the US by 2 –1 thereby qualified for the second round setting up an interesting encounter with Brazil from Group F who looked their best so far in the world cup with a 4 - 1 win against Japan. In this match ronaldo came back to life with 2 goals thereby equaling Gerd Mullers record of 14 world cup goals, 1 more against Ghana and he goes on to become the highest scorer in world cup history. This match was vintage brazil even though it was against a weak opposition like Japan.
Another match in group F saw Australia drawing 2-2 with croatia thereby knocking the croats out of competition and setting up an encounter with Italy.

Group G finally saw France beating Togo 2-1 and the swiss beating south korea 2-1.
Group F saw an overconfident spain managing a 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia. The star of the match definitely the Saudi goalkeeper Zaid who was kept busy for most of the match. It was the Spanish overconfidence which saw spain win with a 1-0 margin a match where the result could and should have been a bigger margin. The Spaniards meet France in the round of 16. And with Ukraine winning 2 –0 over Tunisia they meet the swiss in the next round.

The first round did see the germans comfortable at home. The English insipid as ever but lucky. The argentines and Spaniards in good form and the brazillians coming into form.


Round 2.

This round has been interesting till now.
In the first match. Germany won courtesy of 2 early goals by Podolski. The Swedes did try but couldn’t get past the german midfield.
The second match in Round 2 had Argentina beating Mexico 2-1. The first goal was scored by Rafael Marquez who was virtually unmarked by the Argentine defense.
Argentina counter attacked and hernan crespo scored just 6 minutes later. This actually looked like a Jared Borgetti own goal but finally hernan crespo claimed the goal. The match looked evenly balanced and went into extra time when Maxi Rodriguez scored a beauty and sealed the match for Argentina.
England have qualified for the quarter finals with a Beckham free kick finding the Ecuador goal. This match was highlighted by the virtually absent much hyped English midfield.
Lampard, the star of the english premier league has had the maximum chances in this world cup but has failed to score yet.

The most interesting match in round 2 yet has been Portugal Vs Netherlands which was marked by 4 red cards 2 each to Portugal and Holland.
Maniche returned to haunt the dutch scoring the only goal of the match and the dutch were rather unlucky not to score any more. Also later the match witnessed a lot of fist fights 4 read cards and yellow cards going into double digits.
With most of the Portugese players carrying a yellow card into the quarter finals England may be having some feeling of relief.
Germany have set up a mouth watering prospect with Argentina in the quarters. Its really sad as I personally would have liked to see these 2 teams in the semis. But then such is life. England against Portugal would also be something to watch out for but again out of sheer bias against the English midfield I would like to see Portugal go through.

With Australia and to take on Italy later this evening and Spain to take on france later this week this world cup seems poised for much more thrills than those that have been provided yet. It has definitely been a pretty high scoring world cup and real good action in the middle.

p.s. Joke on the Football pitch (while relaxing after a real hard practice session)
England vs Brazil played at Old Trafford. The English complain about Brazilians having too many stars… So the Brazilians decide to get drunk in a pub and let Ronaldinho play alone.
The drunk Brazilians hear on the radio about Ronalidinho scoring the first goal in the 7th minute with the commentators complaining about an unfair onside decision (with only one player)
The Brazilian team (minus the great man) has a real good party and on their return, sees Steven Gerrard being presented the man of the match for scoring an equalizer at the 88th minute. The match ended in a 1-1 stalemate.
The Brazilians go ahead and console a rather forlorn looking Ronaldinho and praise him for having held the opposition for so long.

He replies, “The bloody biased ref red carded me in the 11th minute!!”