World Cup - Day 3
Three games, Three wins!
Day three of the World, had three winners, coincidence, I’m not sure when you look at the fixtures. What is surprising is that the victories were not all as comfortable as they were expected to be. Holland and Serbia opened the proceedings and with a very good match decided by an early Arjen Robben goal. I’m not a big fan of his, mainly because he has a huge tendency to cheat, but yesterday he looked like the world beater that Holland need. It was not an east game by all means and the Serbs for their part kept on trying to the end and made sure they kept Holland honest. What is interesting about this group now is that both favourites have won. This will force the other two sides to come out and attack them in the next games and it will be interesting to see how Hollands defence copes as they did not look the most solid against Serbia.
Next up came Iran and Mexico who served up a very entertaining early evening game. If Mexico had thought this would be an easy game, they would have had a shock as Iran took the game to them and definitely showed they weren’t here just to make up the numbers. They created several good chances before Mexico took the lead against the run of play. Credit to Iran for not folding and getting themselves back in the game, before eventually falling to a couple of late goals. The Mexican coach will be a little concerned with this performance, and will know that they will need to improve upon this if they want to get to the next stage. Like England they will be happy with the three points and will look to consolidate on these in their next match. If Iran choose to keep playing this type of attacking football they will certainly have a good chance of causing an upset in their next two games
Finally, Portugal struggled past a very average Angola 1-0 in the evening game. This would not be the ideal start for them as Angola are widely seen as the whipping boys in their group. Big Phil Scolari will be sounding a lot like Sven today as he will be saying it’s the three points that count and not the performance. Behind that though he must be concerned, Portugal will be a team that expect the quarter finals as a minimum and anything less will be deemed as a failure. They will need to sharpen up and make a few changes, there was no Deco for this game and if he continues to sit on the sidelines then they may well struggle. If results go for them they will have an easy route to the quarters, if they don’t we could see an early exit for a fancied team.
Day three of the World, had three winners, coincidence, I’m not sure when you look at the fixtures. What is surprising is that the victories were not all as comfortable as they were expected to be. Holland and Serbia opened the proceedings and with a very good match decided by an early Arjen Robben goal. I’m not a big fan of his, mainly because he has a huge tendency to cheat, but yesterday he looked like the world beater that Holland need. It was not an east game by all means and the Serbs for their part kept on trying to the end and made sure they kept Holland honest. What is interesting about this group now is that both favourites have won. This will force the other two sides to come out and attack them in the next games and it will be interesting to see how Hollands defence copes as they did not look the most solid against Serbia.
Next up came Iran and Mexico who served up a very entertaining early evening game. If Mexico had thought this would be an easy game, they would have had a shock as Iran took the game to them and definitely showed they weren’t here just to make up the numbers. They created several good chances before Mexico took the lead against the run of play. Credit to Iran for not folding and getting themselves back in the game, before eventually falling to a couple of late goals. The Mexican coach will be a little concerned with this performance, and will know that they will need to improve upon this if they want to get to the next stage. Like England they will be happy with the three points and will look to consolidate on these in their next match. If Iran choose to keep playing this type of attacking football they will certainly have a good chance of causing an upset in their next two games
Finally, Portugal struggled past a very average Angola 1-0 in the evening game. This would not be the ideal start for them as Angola are widely seen as the whipping boys in their group. Big Phil Scolari will be sounding a lot like Sven today as he will be saying it’s the three points that count and not the performance. Behind that though he must be concerned, Portugal will be a team that expect the quarter finals as a minimum and anything less will be deemed as a failure. They will need to sharpen up and make a few changes, there was no Deco for this game and if he continues to sit on the sidelines then they may well struggle. If results go for them they will have an easy route to the quarters, if they don’t we could see an early exit for a fancied team.
posted by Sports Potato at 6:46 PM
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