World Cup Game #10

The Japanese got their game going first, frustrating Cameroon who, though showing flashes of form, never really got fluent often enough. In the end, the single goal separating the teams was about right - both teams had good chances but nobody was successful.

World Cup Game #11

This game can be looked at in two ways:
1) Paraguay only lost their lead after more than an hour so were the better team OR
2) Italy were able to keep possession for long periods of time, were able to exert sustained pressure and looked dangerous from almost every set piece they had so they were the better team.

Either way, this finished 1-1 and just confirmed my theory that Italy would start slowly as usual. I was impressed by the fact that, despite the torrential rain, players on both sides were very good at keeping their footing wherever possible.

World Cup Game #12

This was a fairly dreary game to be honest - Slovakia really didn't put much together for long periods of time whilst New Zealand's attack was impotent for almost all of the game. To Slovakia's credit, they didn't shut up shop once they were in the lead and to NZ's credit, they played the whole game with three attackers in the box. NZ seemed to wake up at about the 80th minute or so and managed to get an equalizer in the 93rd minute - and it was a very good goal when it finally happened.