Let's see how it went....
FRI 11th June
South Africa 1-1 Mexico
(SA - Tshabalala, MEX - Marquez)
Decent opening game, both teams passed the ball quite well. Tshabalala's goal was great, even though his name reminds me of Tony Christie's "(Is This The Way To) Amarillo", but South Africa's defence means they probably won't go far, which is a shame as you really do need a host nation to stay in it for a bit.
France 0-0 Uruguay
Highlight of this match was Henry appealing for a penalty for handball. That was it.
SAT 12th June
South Korea 2-0 Greece
(Lee Jung-Soo, Park Ji Sung)
First real quality performance from a team, South Korea completely outplayed Greece and completely compensated for their lack of height and strength compared to Greece, who seem really poor and I can't see them even getting a point to be honest.
Argentina 1- 0 Nigeria
(Heinze)
I don't know how this game finished one-nil to be honest, Argentina should have won by four or five. I know I tipped Nigeria as a team to watch and there were decent flashes from them but Argentina were much better, Messi in particular, But it is worth noting that when Veron went off there was absolutely no one in midfield to pull the strings, which doesn't bode well as far as I'm concerned.
England 1-1 USA
(ENG - Gerrard, USA - Dempsey/Green)
England crap again. No semblance of decent passing at all, Gerrard and Lampard mind boggingly poor. Capello messed up picking Green, Milner and King then instead of giving Milner a chance or at least bringing on Joe Cole he throws on Wright Phillips. Most bizarre thing was the English press giving Capello a pass saying they played well just unlucky, must be scared of him.
SUN 13th June
Algeria 0-1 Slovenia
(Koren/Chaouchi)
Yeah I'm crediting a goal keeper with another goal, what the hell was he at. This was by far and away the worst game of football I've seen in a while. Only good thing about this result is that Slovenia go top of England's group.
Serbia 0-1 Ghana
(Gyan)
Seemed like a classic compared to the Algeria/Slovenia match, but probably just average. Ghana looked very decent even without Essien and Muntari, but Serbia could have won that match if they just pulled their fingers out, very poor from them. Their defensive tactics of just kicking anyone who comes within forty yards of their goal came back to haunt them very quickly with Lukovic's red card followed by an insane handball from Kuzmanovic, who still managed to complain to the ref and look shocked for about five minutes, even though it was quite clear what he did.
Germany 4-0 Australia
(Podolski, Klose, Muller, Cacau)
Four goals in a match, WOOP! Germany look very decent going forward and Australia were abysmal with a defence that looked like they never played before. Good to see the ref booking two German players for diving but he got Cahill's red card wrong in my opinion, foul from behind alright but could have just given him a yellow.
Will I dare make predictions for the next three days, well okay then....be fun to see how wrong they are:
MON 14th June
Holland 2-0 Denmark
Japan 0-1 Cameroon
Italy 1-0 Paraguay
TUES 15th June
New Zealand 1-1 Slovakia (although that game is anyone's guess)
Ivory Coast 2-2 Portugal
Brazil 5-0 North Korea
WEDS 16th June
Honduras 1-1 Chile (again wild guess)
Spain 3-0 Switzerland
South Africa 1-1 Uruguay
TV REVIEW:
So many highlights. Southgate, Keegan and Vieira all wearing white shirts and black jeans at the England game, Shearer struggling to understand a word Adebayor says, Hansen giving out about wasting his birthday watching Algeria/Slovenia, Souness using the term "raped" to describe Torres destroying Vidic, O Herlihy wanting to know why Germany had so many foreigners and why don't we do that, Dunphy saying he should give himself a red card for predicting Australia would be good. But the greatest bit so far is Edgar Davids complete lack of enthusiasm on ITV, jesus that was a bad call getting him in, doesn't seem to give a shit about any of it, looked asleep, before I think it was the Korea game, on Saturday and then when asked who he wanted to win between Germany and Australia "Don't Care". The standout line from Apres Match so far for me was from tonight's when Bill said "So lads I was reading the inside of a packet of Strongmints and it said.....".