World Cup South Africa 2010: Days 10 & 11.

South Africa (Jun 22) – For all the moaning about the ball and the Vuvuzela horns, play must continue.  Sadly, there has been little in the way of criticism of the match officials who, unlike the horns and ball, are actually ruining the tournament with their absolutely ridiculous and sometimes despicable decisions.

Regardless, there is little that can be done I guess, so on with the football.  The first game of day 10 would be a chance for Paraguay to take a shock position on top of their group all that stood in their way was Slovakia.  Team Paraguay started well and at no point did they seem like losing.  They took the lead in the first half through Enrique Vera who found himself on the end of an intelligent pass by Barrios.

Although Slovakia pushed for the equalizer, Paraguay proved to be too strong and in the dying minutes scored the second and killer goal through Riveros.  Three points to Paraguay, sitting pretty at the top of their group.

I will admit to thinking the Italians would be quick in dispatching the Kiwis, I doubt I was the only person who thought that.  Anyone who follows Italy in tournaments knows of their slow start style.  A game against New Zealand should have provided the perfect opportunity to find form and score a few goals…  I believe my prediction was 3-0 to the current champions.

Sadly, I was way off, which is in part due to my unique ability to get every prediction I have made completely wrong, and I never take into account that the officials in this World Cup are an absolute disgrace.

Early in the first half, a New Zealand free kick curled into the box and onto the foot of Smeltz, who was offside after the flick on from one of his teammates, who had fouled an Italian defender in order to be able to flick it on…  Once again, the linesmen and ref had got it super duper wrong.

I had given up completely on the match officials after the one-millionth elbow to the face of Italian players by the Kiwis had gone unpunished.

As it always is with Italy, however, they do not take well to being beaten, this is evident by their meticulous World Cup record of having never lost a game in regulation time since 1976.  This is down to superior skill, passion and an amazing ability to cheat better than anyone in the tournament is.

I realise that cheating is mainly wrong, but only when done poorly, and outside the box.  Taking a dive in the box is as accepted as getting sly punches in the kidneys, or raked with the studs of defenders…  They are a nasty bunch, defenders.  As a former striker myself I will admit to having taken my fair share of dives in the box, but only when I felt it was all I could do against the defence…  I cannot abide play-acting, especially if it is to get a fellow player sent off.  Simply put, going down under slight pressure is acceptable, taking a dive and holding a part of your body that was not hit is deplorable.  Although it seems many people do not agree with my point of view on this subject.

Back to the game, and the reason for my defence of diving, Daniele De Rossi dived to win Italy a penalty.  He dived and he won the penalty, the ref didn’t hesitate.  This is acceptable for a few reasons, mainly because it was a great dive, the defender was pulling his shirt, and De Rossi knew the ball was getting away from him.  Unlike the diving on show a few days ago from Uruguay, which was blatant and overly theatrical.  Italy are good at it, I believe they invented it.  Every team cheats, but they are not all good at it. The ones who are not good at it are generally the ones who moan loudest about it.

Iaquinta expertly scored the penalty.  The game ended 1-1 and Italy really have to pull their socks up if they plan to defend their title.

The last game of the day, would see Brazil play Ivory Coast, the game was highly anticipated.  Sadly, the officials would mess it up once again.

The game ended 3-1 to Brazil, which was a fair result about how the teams played, but one of the Brazil goals was a definite handball, which the ref seemed to notice but, unknowingly on camera, simply laughed it off with the scorer.  Fabiano, who scored two, and Elano, who scored shortly before almost getting a broken leg in a particularly nasty tackle that went unpunished, scored the Brazil goals.

The game ended on a sour note when one of the Ivory Coast team ‘pulled a Rivaldo’ on Brazil and got Kaka sent off.  The player in question ran into Kaka off the ball and acted as if Kaka had just stabbed him in the face with a broken bottle.  The ref did not see it, and the linesman didn’t see it, but since when did that matter, the ref sent Kaka off with a second yellow.  He misses the next game, which does not really matter to them because they qualified for the next round…  It is just a shame because he is great to watch.

Day 11.  We are almost at the end of the group stages.  After today there will be games being played simultaneously to stop teams playing for results that would see other teams being unfairly knocked out.

North Korea were not exactly expected to provide any entertainment at this tournament, they are regarded as a fairly serious mob who were making up numbers.  Their first half against Portugal however showed the world that North Korea have some game.  Sadly none of this game was evident in defence and they went 1-0 down going into the break after Portugal opened their defence up like a tin of beans.

As mentioned though, Korea did push the Portuguese hard at times in the first half…  They simply did not have any luck.  This run of bad luck ran into the second half as they struggled to deal with the pace of Portugal, and in particular one Christiano Ronaldo who set out to prove his worth.

Anyone who likes to blink a lot would have missed a whole lot of action in this game.  The Portuguese just went to town on the Koreans.  One goal after another, at time it seemed like every couple of minutes they were scoring.  The game ended 7-0 to Portugal, 6 different scorers, even Ronaldo who has a dry history of international goals got in on the action despite running a few yards with the ball hiding from him on his own back.  Cue jokes about Kim Jong Il kidnapping the player’s families…  Which isn’t a funny joke, due to its possible basis in reality, but it is a popular one here in Scotland.

Chile played Switzerland in the second game of the day and the Swiss showed that far from being a nation of cuckoo clock making, yodelling purveyors of fine chocolate and neutrality, they can also cheat with the best of them. Unfortunately, for them it did not work in their favour and they were beaten and reduced to 10 men after Hitzfeld was ruled to have elbowed two players in the face, which is debatable.

It was not all bad for the Swiss, they broke a record previously held by Italy by not conceding a world cup goal for 551 minutes…  It is just unfortunate for them that they could not hold out a little longer.  At least they have good chocolate.

Spain played their second game after a shock opening game defeat to the Swiss, this time they would face Honduras.  There was never any doubt as the Spaniards showed why they are tipped to go far.  David Villa scored a great solo goal, embarrassing the Honduras defence.  Villa scored Spains second and almost got his hat-trick when Spain was awarded a late penalty, but he somehow skewed it wide after sending the keeper the wrong way.  Honduras never managed one shot on goal.

Day 12, there is 4 games today, Mexico v Uruguay and France v South Africa will be played at the same time this afternoon and then tonight will see Nigeria v South Korea and Greece play Argentina.  Some French players have said they might not show up, given their opening two games it probably would not matter if they did or not, they are absolutely terrible now.  One of the worst teams in South Africa next to Honduras, North Korea, and England.

I am not going to waste my time predicting any results.

Henry Hunter.

Posted by henryhunter on June 22, 2010. Filed under Africa Regional News,Henry Hunter Politics - World News,International News,International Sports,South Africa,Sports,Sports - Africa,WorldNewsVine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.