A New England – Billy Bragg
The New World is dominating this tournament. Teams from the Americas have now won 10 games, drawn 2, and lost 3. The two draws were Brazil and Mexico playing each other. And one of the losses was Uruguay to Costa Rica. So against teams from other confederations they have won 9 and lost 2.
Now, this level of dominance almost certainly won’t last, but holy cow that’s impressive.
Colombia 2 – 1 Ivory Coast
A wide open game that inexplicably remained 0-0 for quite a long time. And then suddenly, a bunch of goals poured in. Colombia deserved the win, just barely I think, but Ivory Coast were quite strong. They’ve probably put in the two best performances from any African team. Gervinho’s goal was great, if only partly because it just makes you wonder how so many people could have let him get past them. And they had a number of good chances to equalize at the end. Once again, bringing on Drogba was enormously helpful. I don’t think that means he should start, though. This new super-sub role seems good for him. Colombia look excellent and I can’t imagine anyone from Group D will be looking forward to playing them.
Uruguay 2 – 1 England
Poor England. They probably deserved to win this one. Godin could have seen red in the first 10 minutes for a handball that just might have denied a ‘clear goal scoring opportunity’ when Rooney was through on goal. And if not, he absolutely should have received a second yellow for a dreadfully cynical challenge on Sturridge. With a man advantage for 60 minutes, chances are very high that England would have won. So it was a pretty costly bit of gutlessness from the referee (a UEFA representative by the way, showing that poor refereeing decisions aren’t unique to the less favored confederations)
Instead, England lost because of two very dumb and very preventable goals. The first one was a 2 v 6 counterattack, where the entire England defense just seemed to forget that there was a high-quality striker lurking behind them. Let Suarez free and bam, you’re down a goal. The second was a bit unlucky. Suarez was way offside but the throughball came off of Gerrard’s head. And since he was well offside, there was no one to mark him once he had the ball.
On the other side, Rooney finally broke his endless dry spell, but could have very easily scored two or three others. He hit the post with a header, had a pretty wide open shot right in front of the goal that hit the keeper, and only just missed with a free kick. Still, he was probably England’s best player for once. So good job, Wayne.
England aren’t quite out. If Italy beats Costa Rica tomorrow and Uruguay in the third match, all they’ll need to do is beat Costa Rica and they’ll still qualify. But that’s asking for three specific results, so it’s certainly not very likely. It’s kind of strange. This team has played quite a bit better than they did four years ago, but they have nothing to show for it.
Japan 0 – 0 Greece
I can’t believe I picked Japan to finish second in this group. They are awful and would be lucky to finish second in a group of two. They played a huge chunk of the game against a 10-man Greece—and Greece isn’t that good to start with—and generated shockingly little. Their primary strategy, and I’m being serious here, seemed to be: get fouled and take mediocre free kicks. My dislike for Greece is intense but I was rooting for them by the end of the game. Japan were, to be fair, markedly better for about 20 minutes after Kagawa came on. But even that was just a comparative thing. If you didn’t watch this game, you missed very little.
Predictions for tomorrow:
- Italy 2 – 0 Costa Rica
- Switzerland 1 – 3 France
- Honduras 1 – 2 Ecuador
Costa Rica looked good in their last game, but I still don’t think they’re a match for Italy. Same goes for Switzerland v. France. Honduras were wretched against France but I’m not convinced they’re actually that bad. We’ll see.