oh, right, the world cup's on

[rone]

Needless to say, i'm ecstatic about Ecuador's victory yesterday.  The Germans seem to be a lot better than expected.  And the English are a huge wad of suck; England-Paraguay was a terrible game.

Also: Trinidad & Tobago played very well and held off the Swedes with only 10 men. Argentina played a good first half and a crappy second half; Ivory Coast's goalie had problems that were all too familiar to me.

For all the hype about England's and Argentina's chances to win it all, they sure didn't look like potential champions today.

Comments

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

I don't think performances in the group stages are very significant: all that matters are the results. For example, Brazil looked a bit shaky in their first couple of group games in Japan. OTOH, teams have looked like world-beaters in the group stages at a number of tournaments, to fall early in the knockout stages (classic examples were the USSR and Denmark in '86, when they each put 6 past Hungary and Uruguay respectively, only to lose in the last 16).

As for the England hype, I'll be surprised if they get past the quarter finals. Neither of their main strikers is fit (one of them probably won't be fully fit even if they reach the semis), and they only have two other forwards in the squad (admittedly, Crouch seems to be playing well). They have some good midfielders and defenders (but Neville isn't fully fit eaither), but Robinson is merely competent in goal, and they keep trying to play their best midfielders out of position, instead of putting together the best team. As a Scot, I'm not a fan of England, but I have enough sympathy to wish them a reasonable tournament.

I think Argentina have a better chance. The world cup is about a strong squad, not just the first 11, and their back-up players look pretty handy (Aimar is a very useful replacement if Riquelme(sp?) gets injured). I think we'll get a better measure of them, and the Ivory Coast, in their second game...