I did a much better job predicting results today. Got Argentina exactly right, predicted an easy France victory, and had the third exactly right until literally the final kick of the game. I’m still underestimating the number of goals, though. What a tournament this has been! And still no draws…
Switzerland 2 – 1 Ecuador
For the first 92 minutes, this was the most boring match of the Cup so far. Ecuador got a goal at about 20 minutes, thanks to some terrible…well…defending is too kind a word. Did everyone in the world forget how to defend set pieces in the last week? Because Switzerland equalized with their own incredibly straightforward play: free kick to the head of the effectively-unmarked guy right in front of the goal. In a tournament with some lovely goals, these were not. And after that, not a lot. There were a couple decent penalty shouts and a Swiss goal that was ruled out erroneously for being offside (though it was much closer than some of the other errors that have been made so bothers me less). But the last 25 minutes were terribly dull for the most part. It kind of looked like both teams had placed bets on it being a draw and were actively trying to NOT score. But then in the final minute Ecuador spurned a glorious chance, lost the ball, and a lovely Swiss counter attack raced the other way and won the game. Literally the last kick of the game went into the back of Ecuador’s net. So: relatively boring game, incredibly exciting finish. And once again, the team that conceded first came back to win.
France 3 – 0 Honduras
There has been so much beautiful football in this tournament, but you always want a little diversity right? So we’ve thankfully got Honduras who has as much interest in kicking their opposition as they do in kicking the ball. They played half the game with 10 men and could easily have had two or three more sent off. It’s pretty hard to get me to root for France and against CONCACAF, but after about 20 minutes I was firmly in the French tank. At least they showed up to play the game. I don’t know that this game tells us much about how they’ll do against actual football teams, but it’s certainly better than anything they did four years ago. The second goal was certified by the much-discussed goal-line technology. And it was actually a GREAT example since even the video replay was inconclusive. It’s precisely what we need technology for and it rendered its verdict very quickly. Good on them.
Argentina 2 – 1 Bosnia and Herzegovina
Argentina failed to really impress but got three points from the second-best team in the group and are now almost certain to take first place. They got a somewhat lucky own goal very early, but other than that there wasn’t much to separate them and B&H. They were very flat and stilted. Messi gave the ball away more in that half than he sometimes does in a full month of games. I think a big part of it was the formation. The 5-3-2 REALLY wasn’t working. They weren’t taking advantage of the width and it was keeping Messi isolated.
In the second half, they still weren’t at their best, but were a lot better. Particularly in the 15-20 minutes following Messi’s goal, they looked like the Argentina side that I picked to win the tournament. Speaking of which, what a vintage Messi goal. His control of the ball, his balance, his pace, his awareness of defending players and the goal…just brilliant. All in all, it wasn’t a particularly great game for him, but it was good enough. Elsewhere, Di Maria looked really abject. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him; he just couldn’t string together a pass to save his life. But he was incredibly good to close out the year with Madrid, so I don’t see any reason to expect another poor performance like that. If he plays better, it’ll help them a lot.
On the other side of things, I liked a lot of what I saw from B&H. They probably waited too long to bring on their attacking lineup, but they bossed the midfield for long stretches. I still think they’re a pretty solid bet to take second in the group.
Predictions for tomorrow:
- Germany 3 – 2 Portugal
- Iran 1 – 1 Nigeria
- Ghana 2 – 1 United States
I had Germany-Portugal as a goalfest before I knew that this was going to be such a high scoring tournament. So it’ll probably be our first 0-0. I have no idea about the second game. Nigeria looked pretty bad in a pre-tournament friendly against the US, but who knows. And Iran sounds like they might be a bit of a reprise of Honduras. Hope not. As for the last game, well, I’ve said what I can say about the US. There’s a lot to like about this group of players but I just don’t think we’re quite there yet. If I’m wrong, I’ll certainly be happy.