World Cupdate

And the draws continued today as we go to Group F and Slovakia and New Zealand, two teams who frankly don't have a chance to advance out...or wouldn't have, except for the fact that all four teams in Group F are knotted up at one point a piece after Slovakia blew a huge opportunity to lead the group.  That draw pretty much doomed them in the group now, and the match itself was all Slovakia until the All Whites scored in the last minute to draw it up.  New Zealand is frankly happy to have the point.  Slovakia on the other hand just ended their chance to advance.

Ivory Coast played amazingly well even without Didier Drogba anywhere near the first half and coming in only late in the second with his arm in a cast. The 0-0 result against Portugal in Group G was impressive and suddenly we have a real competition here.  Ivory Coast definitely outplayed Portugal for all 90 minutes, and Drogba wasn't even a factor when he was in.  Portugal gets credit too for not making any costly mistakes, something several other teams in this World Cup cannot say.  As far the Group of Death however, this one was all work and no play and a rather dull affair.  Still, if Drogba gets his groove back, Ivory Coast may be surprisingly dangerous.

The big match of course was Brazil taking on North Korea. All indications were that the Canarinhos were going to cause carnage as the heavy favorites, but North Korea clearly came in playing turtle and trying to frustrate Brazil into making a mistake.  With huge amounts of pressure on Brazil to not just win but dominate by several goals, they had to push forward but North Korea walled Brazil out time and time again with five men back on defense. The first half absolutely belonged to the North Koreans by simple dint of not getting scored upon and the Koreans even had a couple of offensive chances as well.

But the second half was all Brazil, as Maicon finally broke the Korean bunker at 55 with a wicked bender.  Elano at 72 iced the game, but North Korea put one on the board at 89 as Yun Nam Ji flat out beat Julio Cesar.  Say what you will, these guys get respect in the best match of the tourney so far.