As the last of the opening matches in the World Cup finals finishes I expect some exciting matches to following, what has so far been a pretty boring six days of football.
A shock 1-0 defeat to Switzerland sees Spain being the only seeded team to lose their opening match, though Italy and England gave less than convincing performances in their 1-1 draws with Paraguay and the USA respectively.
Brazil spluttered past North Korea while Argentina made hard work of beating Nigeria 1-0; and the most boring game of the six days so far was most definitely Ivory Coast 0 Portugal 0.
Nobody fancied Germany before they kicked off. But after a 4-0 thrashing of Australia they are the only team that have decided to go for it from the outset. Never one to dismiss Germany, I was pleasantly surprised in how they played ‘the beautiful game’ instead of offering a methodical utilitarian approach to winning a match.
So with South Africa beginning the second round of matches tonight, against Uruguay, they have the chance to top Group 1 and possibly seal their place in the knock-out stages.
In a pre-World Cup Finals article I suggested the following nations would qualify from each group:
Group A: Mexico to win, South Africa – runners-up
Group B: Argentina to win, Nigeria – runners-up
Group C: England to win, USA – runners-up
Group D: Germany to win, Serbia – runners-up
Group E: Holland to win, Denmark – runners-up
Group F: Italy to win, Paraguay – runners-up
Group G: Brazil to win, Ivory Coast – runners- up
Group H: Spain to win, Chile – runners-up
I am sticking by my original predictions though Spain are going to have to have a plan b if they are going to progress.
