Day Five

Holland were good value for this win against a Danish side that seemed to accept early on that this wasn’t going to be their day and that they’d be better saving their efforts for the weaker teams in the group. Missing Arjen Robben, the Dutch played van der Vaart alongside Sneijder but they didn’t seem to flow until changes were made around the hour mark and Elia came on to give them some width. The first goal was a freak own goal where Poulsen’s misdirected header hit Agger’s back and rolled agonisingly in to the net. Kuyt’s late goal was an example of Sneijder’s exquisite passing and vision. His reverse pass saw Elia break through the Danish defence and as his shot rolled back off the post Kuyt followed in to secure victory.



Japan caused an upset I suppose, with their first victory overseas in a world cup game. They looked, like the South Koreans, to be organised and workmanlike but without the cutting edge until they punished some poor defending from both Cameroon full backs. Assou Ekottu failed to close down the cross and then M’bia was out of position and left Honda too much space which he easily punished. Eto’o was badly misused out wide on the right in my opinion and should have been playing as a striker. He’s used in that right sided role for Inter but they do have the likes of Milito to play in the middle ahead of him.



Paraguay came close to pulling off a major surprise in the final game of the day but weren’t able to hold on and beat the reigning champions, maybe they would have but for a shocker from keeper Villar. Alcaraz punished poor defending by Italy after Di Rossi and Canavarro seemed to get in each others way but Di Rossi did more than enough to atone for his earlier error when he punished Villar’s flap just after the hour mark.



Some people are saying the Germans are at an advantage having been using the Jabulani ball since March in their domestic league. I think they just passed and finished better, but my thought about the ball is this, teams have been training with it on open and windy training grounds, now they are using it in enclosed stadia the ball isn’t wobbling around half as much as we were led to believe. Maybe I am wrong, we’ll see as the tournament develops.


I have managed a pitiful four correct results from eleven games but no correct scorelines? At this rate I’d struggle to predict if night would follow day!
Lets see how these do



New Zealand 0 Slovakia 1
Ivory Coast 1 Portugal 2
Brazil 3 North Korea 0



Whilst I am making random predictions here is one from left field. Portugal’s Liedson to be top scorer, you read it hear first.