Greetings World Cuppers --
Interesting World Cup with traditional old world powers -- England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain – showing weakness as the Americas continue their run through the tournament. Group B was decided with Argentina’s 2-0 defeat of Greece and South Korea hanging on against Nigeria (2-2) to earn the draw and the number 2 spot. Nigeria missed a number of chances at the end to get the goal that would have sent South Korea home.
In Group A, the French team followed up their strike with a last place position in the group after losing to South Africa 2-1. With France playing terrible, down 2-0, playing with 10 men, vuvuzelas wailing like never before, it looked like South Africa had a chance to get the other two goals needed to advance. But all South Africa earned was some consolation in beating a world power as they became the first home country not to advance. Uruguay again kept the ball out of their own net and made the most of only a couple opportunities in winning 1-0 against Mexico.
The second round will see Argentina take on Mexico on Sunday, in a rematch of their nail-biter four years ago where Maxi Rodriguez scored the goal of the tournament. Uruguay plays South Korea on Saturday.
In Group G, Portugal beat up North Korea 7-0 putting them in a great position to advance. Alas, this was the first time the North Korean government allowed its citizens to watch their team live. Ivory Coast needs Brazil to beat Portugal and make up a differential of 9 goals in their game against North Korea to secure a spot. I wouldn’t call this out of the question.
And finally Group H saw Spain defeat Honduras 2-0 to earn their first points while Chile squeaked by Switzerland 1-0. Spain plays Chile next which should decide the fate of this group.
In our little soccer pool, the scoring now includes the four teams that have qualified for the Round of 16. Recall that you get 2 points if you correctly predict a team to qualify, 3 points if the team is in the correct spot (1 versus 2). Ben now sits all alone in first place in correctly picking 3 of the 4 knockout stage qualifiers in their correct spot.
Tomorrow, we’ll see the climax of Group C and D. If USA can play a full game like the second half against Slovenia, they have a great chance to win the group. 7 am Pacific on ESPN – be there!
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