Tons of goals so far. This is shaping up to be a great, attacking-oriented tournament. Hope it sticks! The big game obviously was the Dutch demolition of Spain, but both of the other games had a lot to hold your interest.
Mexico 1 – 0 Cameroon
More refereeing controversy! Mexico scored two perfectly good goals in the first half, only to see them both ruled out for phantom offside calls. Fortunately for them, Cameroon was pretty terrible so they just had to keep pushing and eventually got themselves a much-deserved goal. I was astonished at how much time and space Mexico got on the ball, even in the attacking third. They were picking out passes at will. And Cameroon seemed to have no idea how to deal with the wing backs. You wouldn’t think it would matter that much since they were playing so deep most of the time that there shouldn’t have been any space for them. But despite playing so deep, there was still routinely tons of space on the wings for them to run into. Cameroon are still technically in the competition, but frankly it would take a miracle for them to advance at this point. They absolutely HAVE to beat Croatia next time up, and on the evidence of these first games I don’t see much chance of that.
Spain 1 – 5 Netherlands
Wow. What else is there to say? I have been telling people that the Dutch were being underrated, but even with that I still said yesterday that I’d be surprised to see them win. To see them win by four goals…wow. Spain actually looked reasonably good in the first half. Not quite their best, certainly, but they were generally in control and creating some good opportunities. And if they looked shaky against the Dutch counter, it took a moment of magic from Van Persie to score. Going into halftime, I expected a much tighter second half, more closely resembling the final from four years ago. Instead, they were carved open by another wonderful pass from Blind (who was incredible) and a delicious bit of control and precision from Robben. And then…well…they completely fell apart. They started passing wildly, miscontrolling the ball, and tackling poorly. They almost gave up another wonder strike to Van Persie and then DID concede a goal that looked much like the disallowed one from Croatia yesterday. After that, they were completely in tatters. Casillas made a howler, Robben tore them apart for fun, and they couldn’t string together a couple passes.
It was crazy. They have been so good over the past six years at muffling the opposition based on their precision and control in possession. It permits them to play a super high line and press intensely on the rare occasions that they lose the ball. But today we saw what happens when you attempt to play like Spain but can’t complete your passes. You get absolutely demolished.
It’s worth pointing out that Spain also lost their opening match in 2010 and still managed to win the group. But they’ve really dug themselves a hole here. They’re going to have to beat Chile (a very good team) and Australia. And even then, they would almost certainly have to play Brazil in the round of 16. If they’re going to win, I think they have to go back to playing with a false 9, use Pedro and Fabregas, and keep Costa/Torres as subs. And sort out what the hell was going wrong in front of the back four that kept leaving them so utterly exposed.
Chile 3 – 1 Australia
The only game I predicted correctly, and I got it exactly right. But the scoreline did not reflect the sort of dominance I thought it would. Chile looked fantastic for the first 15 minutes, looked tolerable for a while after that, and then looked completely flat for most of the rest of the match. Australia really wasn’t very good, but they spent a good portion of the second half in control of the game. It was crazy. Chile’s biggest failures were a) a seeming fear of shooting and b) an inability to close down the opposing team. Which is really strange because those are supposed to be the defining features of this team. So who knows? Australia put in a good effort, but in the end they just didn’t have enough quality to exploit Chile’s lackadaisical play. Cahill was great, which was fun. He’s always been one of my favorites players, for doing so much with such obvious limitations. And this Leckie fellow was really impressive. I had never even heard of him, but I thought he was probably the most uniformly good player on the pitch. Australia very likely will lose their next two games, but they were good enough here to make it clear that they could still spring a surprise on one of the big kids. And I’m excited to see this new generation develop.
Tomorrow we’ve got four games. Very exciting. Predictions:
- Colombia 2 – 0 Greece
- Uruguay 2 – 0 Costa Rica
- England 1 – 1 Italy
- Ivory Coast 1 – 1 Japan
I think Colombia is quite strong, but that result might also be some wish-casting for me because I just want Greece to fade out quickly. I don’t think Uruguay is really that good, but Costa Rica is really not. England and Italy, I think, will both think a draw will serve them fine and will play it out. Ivory Coast and Japan…I have no idea. Nothing there would surprise me. A 6-0 annihilation by either side, a drab 0-0, a crazy 5-4…who knows?