your daily recap

[rone]

Ecuador 3 - Costa Rica 0: Ecuador looked very solid, and Costa Rica looked quite lost.  Ecuador qualifies for the second round in their second Cup, and i'm hopeful that their game against Germany is going to be exceedingly exciting and well-played.  Delgado's goal was easily one of the top goals of the Cup so far.

England 2 - Trinidad & Tobago 0: Didn't see it.  T&T held on for a long time, and almost pulled off the tie.  England seems to continue to be lost, but Eriksson's subs (Rooney and Lennon) seemed to make a real difference, from all accounts.

Sweden 1 - Paraguay 0: Paraguay's just not very good this Cup.  The important players are mostly too old.  They showed occasional flashes in the second half, but not enough.  Sweden knocked the winner near the end, and their relief was as visible as England's after they finally broke through, too.

T&T needs to win by at least two goals and Sweden needs to lose for T&T to make it through.  If T&T were to win 1-0 and Sweden to lose 2-0, they'd be all tied up, and i don't know what the tiebreaker would be at that point (they'd have the same amount of points, goal differential, goals scored and allowed, and they tied).  I think it might come down to a coinflip at that point.

In the next round, Ecuador and Germany will play England and whoever comes in second.  I hope Ecuador doesn't end up facing a Rooney-revitalized England, but either way, i think they'll do very well.

Comments

[rotojeff.livejournal.com]

Caught the second half of the Sweden game, and the second half of the England game. In both instances, when the team scored the go-ahead goal, it was more of a feeling of relief than exuberance afterwards.

Tremendous effort plays by defensemen for both England and Paraguay in clearing away potential goals. For Paraguay it was all for naught, but it really saved England.

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Congrats on Ecuador.

Sara nearly clobbered me by accident today when she went leaping around the office after the first England goal. Man, give me hockey hooligans any day.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Only downer for Ecuador was a couple of stupid bookings. If the radio commentary is to be believed, there were at least two bookings for "time-wasting" at set pieces where the player was waiting for a ball to show up. Some choice comments were made about the ref.

Based on similar commentary, England pretty much sucked for 70 minutes, and won mostly because T&T ran out of gas. Once again (I actually saw this one), Sweden dominated a game but failed to finish the host of chances which they created; if their strikers can get it together, they'll be pretty dangerous.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Univisión announcers complained about the ref, too, but christ, you can't take that stupid, stupid yellow card; if you waste time, the ref will just tack it on at the end anyway. Plus Ecuador's goalie got his second one, so he'll be out vs. Germany.

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

Ecuador now only needs a tie with Germany to go through as the #1 team out of the group, right?

[eviltofu.livejournal.com]

I believe Germany has scored more goals.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

They've both scored 5, but goal difference takes precendence over goals scored. Ecuador are currently +5, while Germany are +3, so a draw will suffice for Ecuador to win the group.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yep. But a win would be fabulous.

[kawgirl.livejournal.com]

I missed yesterday's games. The tv at the jail was really really blurry. The officers who were watching couldn't even tell me what was going on. Silly, eh?

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

As a belated aside on the England - T&T game, a couple of cow orkers remarked on the following. When England scored their first goal, Peter Crouch made a mighty leap into the air to score, while his marker stayed rooted to the ground. This may have something to do with the fact that Crouch had a handful of the defender's dreadlocks.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yep. (http://england.worldcupblog.org/1/crouching-fouler-hidden-grabber.html)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Also. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2WxxwYBvrk&eurl)