Okay, the full 16 teams have filled out the bracket. I did very well in my pre-World Cup predictions, with 13 out of 16 teams moving on as I expected. The lucky three are Ecuador, Ghana, and Australia. There were a few differences in what I predicted would be group winners and runners-up, but generally things are about what I expected.
flash 5 dowloandVery much looking forward to seeing the best 16 teams in the world (more or less) fight it out in these last days of competition. Germany vs. Sweden and Argentina vs. Mexico play today. The winners of those two games play each other on Friday, June 30th. I'm expecting a Germany vs. Argentina game for that quarterfinal, but we'll see what happens. What's great about the World Cup is that on any given day, anybody could beat anybody.
Enjoy!
Okay, penalty kick against the USA? Totally unjustified. I feel we got robbed on that one, but what's done is done.
As I said, my predictions for the next group have so far been a bit off. Ghana moving on to the second round is a huge upset. They will be facing Brazil right off the bat though, so they'll very likely be on their way back to Africa in a few days. I also was somewhat surprised to see Australia make it, although I'm quite happy they did. Hopefully they can take on Italy.
Enjoy!
At this point 8 of 16 teams have been placed in the second round match bracket. So far the only team I did not predict would make it was Ecuador. I was expecting Poland to take the Group A 2nd Place spot to play England back before the World Cup got started. Also interesting was that while I had predicted Argentina vs. Mexico and Portugal vs. Netherlands, I had all four teams in the reverse order, with the Group C Winner being Netherlands, not Argentina, and the Group D winner being Mexico, not Portugal.
So, overall I can claim a 7/8 accuracy rate for the beginning of the second round, there's just a slightly different ordering. I'll report back on how well I did with the other 8 teams in a couple days. I have a feeling there will be many more differences, but only time will tell.
By the way, if you missed Mexico vs. Portugal, you missed out on a very interesting game. I understand that Serbia vs. Ivory Coast was the best game of the four yesterday, but I did not get to see it. Anyway, I'll be rooting for Italy, USA, Australia, and Japan today. If all four games turn out like I'd want them to, the USA could end up moving on and not facing Brazil in their first game of Round Two. Very long odds, but it might happen.
Enjoy!
I've seen a lot of bad calls from a lot of bad refs, but the US vs. Italy game yesterday was a disgrace to the sport. I have never seen such a spectacularly incompetent ref. He gave out three red cards in the match. One was legitimate, a violent foul by an Italian player, which literally spilled blood. Then, for what can only be out of some kind of idea to make up for it, he gave a red card to an American player for what was at worst a yellow card, and at best a simple warning. To make matters even worse, he gave another red card (by way of second yellow) to an American player close to the start of the second half for a late tackle. This was again another case where a warning would have been more consistent.
What infuriates me and I'm sure many other soccer fans, is that three red cards in a game should never happen, especially for such controversial reasons as the last two. All it does is increase the tension on the field, leading to more potentially violent situations, and it also makes a lot of players very wary. Simply put, it puts everyone at risk, and ruins the game. The last thing any ref should want is retaliation.
Apparently the ref has been suspended before for inconsistent calls, disqualifying him from refereeing in 2002. I think that if you're suspended once from officiating the World Cup, you should never be hired again. Maybe FIFA will learn something from this, but the damage is done.
Despite the truly disgraceful match, the USA vs. Italy game ended in a tie. This isn't the end of our chances to move on to the second round, but hardly ideal. We will still need to beat Ghana. Then, if Italy does not beat the Czech Republic, our only hope to continue is by goal differential, and that means scoring at least 5 goals more than Ghana does in our final Round One match.
Anyway, grats to Ghana for beating the Czech Republic. It certainly makes things a little easier on us, but we're still very much in trouble.
See ya.