World Cup Game #16

There's always going to be big upsets in the World Cup and this was the first of this tournament (and probably won't be the last either). The Spanish played stylish swirling football that fooled and tricked the Swiss out of pattern and position frequently but just never got the goals on the board. The Swiss on the other hand never got flustered even when they were out of pattern and the second they got the ball, dropped back into their own patterns and steadily worked their way up the field. For all the much-vaunted Torres/Villa pairing, it never really materialised and the sole Swiss goal got the result the Swiss wanted.

If the Italians made their usual flat start and the Argentinians made their usual stuttering start, the Spanish made their usual bad start.

World Cup Game #17

Uruguay came out against South Africa firing, in really different style to their first game where they were cautious and defensive. South Africa did try hard and came close on occasion but they were playing a far better team. Diego Forlan looked much better this time - and Uruguay looked much better for that. Better still was the fact that Uruguay didn't just score a single goal and then shut up shop. Instead they kept attacking right through the game and got the result they needed, a 3-0 win.

France and Mexico are going to have to be very careful if they want to get out of this group with Uruguay in this kind of form.

World Cup Game #18

If a couple of the other top tier teams had made poor starts, France made a disastrous one in this second group game, losing 2-0 to Mexico. The French were really lackluster and never generated any kind of fluency whilst the Mexicans took their chances and threw everything into the game. Admittedly, the second goal was to a fairly dodgy penalty but, to be honest, France were well beaten before that.

Even if they win the next game, France are in serious danger of being the first seeded team to get eliminated from this World Cup.