Hello soccer fans!
Great weekend of soccer as half the teams have now played their first game.
On Saturday, the three matches all featured a goal in the first few minutes. South Korea's early goal portended a dominate performance as Greece was completely outmatched (2-0). Against Nigeria, Messi lived up to his best-in-the-world billing, putting on a clinic in the give-and-go and the dribbling-through-people. However, with great keeper play by Nigeria, Argentina only managed a single goal on a set piece (1-0) putting South Korea on top of Group B on goal differential.
The guys who play with their hands were the story in the epic US-England clash on Saturday, a tale of two goalies. Robert Green earned himself a permanent place in English soccer history when he flubbed a routine grounder from Dempsey into the net. Think Bill Buckner but for an entire country. Meanwhile Tim Howard’s remarkable saves with badly bruised ribs was the great equalizer for the Americans and the 1-1 draw. Winning Group C likely means avoiding Germany in the second round, and both teams will be looking for a lot a goals against Algeria and Slovenia.
On Sunday, inproper use of the hands was again the story as was the red card, issued to a player on the losing team in all three matches. In the 72nd minute of a scoreless Algeria-Slovenia match, an Algerian striker inexplicitly acted like a wide receiver trying to catch a deep post. This blatant hand-ball earned him a red card and, playing with 10 men, the Algerian keeper whiffed a pretty simple save. Slovenia (1-0) earned 3 points and sit on top of the Group C standings.
Similarly, an even Ghana-Serbia game went to Ghana (1-0) on a late penalty kick due to a Serbian defender swatting the ball with his hand in the box. Someone needs to explain the rules of football to these guys.
And Germany-Australia finally gave us some scoring as Germany looks like a formidable team in the tournament with their thorough 4-0 thrashing of the Socceroos.
In the pool, three of the first eight games ended in ties so there are 5 possible points. 18 of us are currently tied for first place with perfect brackets.
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