World Cupdate

Group G was the focus today as we completed the first set of games in this World Cup.  A meeting of rivals as Honduras took on Chile was a pretty decent match, but it was dominated completely by La Roja.  Chile's 1-0 score indicated the score was much closer than the match really was as Chile had 19 shots to Honduras's 7.  Jean Beausejour's goal at 34' should have been accompanied by 2 or possibly 3 more throughout the match.  the only difference between Chile's domination and Germany's earlier this week is that Germany converted those goals.  Still, Chile are looking like one of the best squads in this Cup.

That match was completely overshadowed however by our first geniune upset as the Swiss clocked heavily favored Spain 1-0.  The first half was a turf war where neither side yielded much of anything, reminding me the most of yesterday's North Korea/Brazil match.  But unlike that match, it was the underdog Swiss that broke La Furia Roja as Gelson Fernandes ignored a clear red card by frustrated keeper Casillas (who knew he was beat and went for the cheap shot) and plunked the ball in anyway.  The Spaniards panicked and the Swiss kept their cool and held them off for the rest of the second half, and suddenly Group G really is the Group of Death with four surprisingly solid teams and Spain -- arguably second only to Brazil coming in -- are now in serious trouble of not advancing.  If they do advance, they could immediately face the Canarinhos in the round of 16...

Back to Group A as South Africa and Uruguay tangled, with both teams badly needing a win to advance out of the double draw that opened group play.  Uruguay's 2-1-3-4 setup with Diego Forlan as the swing man in the middle versus South Africa's 1-5-4 with Katlego Mphela on point meant something was going to give early, and that was South Africa's defense as Forlan slammed one home at 24' clipping off defender Mokoena and past the keeper.  The second halfwas more of the same, with La Celeste ratcheting up the pressure on the host country until the Bafana ran out of time when Forlan put his second goal in on a penalty kick at 80' after keeper Khune was red carded for blatantly wiping out Suarez with a brutal blow, and Pereira adds one in extra time to break South Africa's back.  It will be a long week for the host country.