The first few days of this year’s World Cup made me think that this was going to be a boring World Cup. With players complaining about the ball and World Cup being hosted in an African nation for the first time, there were always uncertainties about how the World Cup would progress. The World Cup seemed to come to life all of a sudden during the last round of games in the group stage. Most of the groups finished in a dramatic way in the last matches in the group stages. There were two major upsets in France and Italy, both finalists in 2006. Both teams failed to win a match. We also saw one of the most boring ending to a match during Spain vs Chile match. With score at 2-1 in Spain’s favor and the other match tied at 0-0, both teams were certain to reach the last 16 and Chile just let Spain pass the ball around for about the last 15 minutes with no attacking approach at all.
The first day of the last 16 saw two very good games and one of the goals of the tournament. Uruguay defeated South Korea 2-1 in a match we saw one of the goals of the tournament by Suarez of Uruguay. In the other game, Ghana defeated USA 2-1. The second day (today) was a day full of actions. With England taking on Germany, the match was always going to be hyped up in the media because of the history between these two teams. The other match saw a replay of 2006, Argentina taking on Mexico. Both games created controversies involving the referees. The first game saw a Frank Lampard goal, which hit the post and crossed the line, being disallowed with the score at 2-1 in Germany’s favor. Germany went on to win 4-1, thanks to a brace from Thomas Mueller. They will meet Argentina in the quarter-finals after Argentina beat Mexico 3-1, taking the lead from an offside goal the linesman failed to spot. Higuain took the lead in the race for the Golden Boot, when he scored his fourth goal of the tournament. Carlos Tevez scored an absolute belter for Argentina’s third and the match was pretty much sealed. Mexico, however scored a goal through Javier Hernandez but it seemed like it came in a little too late as the match finished 3-1.
Now that the World Cup has come to life, I am going to enjoy it as much as I can and hope you do too. Final thoughts (predictions):
Winner – Germany
Golden Boot: Miroslav Klose (Germany)
Golden Ball: Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany)