World Cup Post #8 - 6/16/06

Things are getting interesting for several teams and some groups have already been decided except for the seeding. I'm going to make some comments about each group and the cup as a whole so far.

Group A: Boy, I missed this one by a good bit. Germany is poised to get the 9 points that I predicted, but Ecuador are the surprise of this group. The hosts and the upstart South Americans have both booked their passage to the second round, having eliminated Poland and Costa Rica. I didn't give Ecuador even 1 point in my predictions and now they have 6 with their two solid wins. However, they are facing possible injuries to their two scoring stars and will have a tough time with a very confident German side. Obviously, the Poland-Costa Rica game means nothing, but the other should be exciting as both 2nd round qualifiers would prefer to get Sweden or Trinidad as opposed to England. Current standings: Germany - 6 pts., Ecuador - 6 pts., Poland - 0 pts.,

Group B: Trinidad have made a great showing having drawn to Sweden and having held out for a long time against England. Although they have also won a spot in the final 16, England needed an own goal to beat Paraguay and struggled to score against Trinidad. Sweden will be missing Henrik Larsson for their match with England, but only need a draw or Trinidad draw or loss to move on after beating Paraguay late to bring their point total to 4. Current standings: England - 6 pts., Sweden - 4 pts., Trinidad - 1 pt., Paraguay - 0 pts. I have done pretty well with this group so far.

Group C: Another group that has 2 teams already through to the next round. My prediction looks to be solid as far as placing, but Ivory Coast failed to get points so far, although they have fought hard. One thing is for sure - Argentina are everything I expected them to be. They owned possession (60%!) over Ivory Coast, but gave up a late goal after taking their foot off the pedal. There was no slowing down against the soon-to-be-separated Serbia & Montenegro scoring a huge 6-0 landslide. Look, they were up 3-0 when they brought on Tevez and then Messi - two highly prolific goalscorers. Argentina, in my opinion, have proven themselves the team to beat. Current standings: Argentina and Netherlands have 6 pts. each and Ivory Coast and S&M are at 0.

Group D: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! How do you draw to Angola. It was sweet walking around my campus of 93% Latino students who couldn't say enough about the USA-Czecj score after Mexico drew to Angola, who played down a man for the last 13 minutes. So awesome. Portugal don't look so hot either, but they controlled the match against Iran and, with their 2-0 win, landed themselves in the knockout rounds after failing to do so since the days of the mighty Eusabio back in 1966. I hope Mexico loses to the Portuguese and Angola can make up the goal differential (they are currently -3 to Mexico) while beating Iran, because it would be sweet to see Mexico knocked out early. Current standings: Portugal - 6 pts., Mexico - 4pts., Angola - 1 pt., Iran - 0 pts.

Group E: The best team in this group has turned out to be the referee in the U.S.-Italy match. How in God's name do you give out 3 red cards in a game where the only excessive physical play was a dirty Italian throwing elbows? That bastard ref had more of an impact on that game than any official should be able to. He needs to lose his job. However, the U.S. came out and played like the team that I know they are. Aggressive, tricky, smart. They held one of the cup favorites to a draw despite playing with only 9 for basically the entire 2nd half. Italy showed how little class they have by diving every chance they could and by DeRossi's getting sent off afer blatantly and purposefully elbowing Brian McBride in the face. We outplayed, outclassed, and out-hearted them. Unfortunately, we were screwed by the official. Ghana, on the other hand, showed why I love to watch the World Cup. Their 2-0 upset of the Czechs saved the U.S.'s chances of advancing and proved to be the biggest upset of the cup so far. The U.S. must get a victory over Ghana and an Italian win over the Czechs to advance. There are other scenarios, but they involve a U.S. win of more than 4 goals over Ghana, which seems unlikely. At this point, nobody has assured advancement and nobody has been eliminated. Current standings: Italy - 4 pts., Czechs - 3 pts., Ghana - 3 pts., U.S. - 1 pt.

Group F: Japan and Croatia allowed me a nice nap, but the Australia - Brazil game was so much fun to watch. Brazil has showed, in my view, that they are not the team that everyone thinks. However, if you listen to the douchebag announcers, they are still the favorite. Dave O'Brien and Marcelo Balboa saw a Brazilian team that was controlling possession and closing the game like champions. I saw a team that gave up several great opportunites to an obviously more determined, but less talented, Australian side. The problem is that nobody wants to say that Brazil is not that good. Well I'm saying it. Brazil is in the 2nd round and will win this group, but they will not get into the final. The Aussies, however, can move on with a draw against Croatia.

Group G: What a lame group this has turned out to be. France has 1 goal in 2 games and only one point. Korea has 4 points after beating a completely gutted Togo team and drawing France. The Swiss look to be getting some more points tomorrow because Togo may not actually play their match tomorrow if they don't get their paychecks from the government. If Togo quits the whole cup, France will finish with 5 points and Korea will battle the Swiss to see if they go on. It could go down to goal differential, which would favor the French and Swiss if they get automatic 2-0 wins over Togo. What a bloddy mess.

Group H: Boring boring boring. Spain kills Ukraine 4-0, their only competition in this group, and it looks like they'll actually get 9 points without trying and win this group. I think Ukraine will come back to win their last two to move on as well, but there are 4 more games in this group and they look like snorers.

Well, my boys earned back a lot of honor and now I am a big Italy fan, at least for one game. The teams looking the best right now are Argentina, Ecuador, Germany and Spain. Brazil, Portugal and the Netherlands all look to be in good form and I am pleased by the strong performance by the socceroos.

I love World Cup. People all over the city stop me to talk about it when they see me wearing one of my 3 U.S. jerseys. The only World Cup anger I have seen were these two Italian twats at Lucky Baldwin's yesterday. They came in maybe 15 minutes before the game with Starbucks, sat in the doorway right in front of people that came in much earlier, honked a little bike horn whenever Italy did something good, brought Jamba Juice at halftime, and got all pissed when my brother threw a napkin at them. The guy got up all mad and threw the napkin back saying "it hit her (his wife) in the head!" I pointed out that "it was a fucking napkin" and told him to sit down. I actually chased them down to apologize, but the bitchy wife yelled at me saying "I'm an American!" like I was anti-Italian. I tried to apologize, but she took off, at which point most of the people around told me that I was being classy and that she was a bitch. I agree on all points. Don't come to the pub, sit in everyone's way, bring in outside food, don't spend a dime on anything at the pub, and expect to get treated fairly. Bitch.