Almost all the countries have now played their first game of the World Cup in South Africa. There hasn’t really been much offense and the games and the goals are few and far in between. Games have been really defensive, most of them only tallying 1-2 goals and sometimes none. Day 4 of the World Cup demonstrated this trend of lack of goals… let’s take a look at what happened.
Italy 1 Paraguay 1
The 2006 World Cup Champions from Italy played Paraguay in a key match of the top two teams from group F. Many critics are saying that this is the easiest group of the tournament, which means that no one is really being considered to having a chance to win the World Cup.
Italy Ties It Up
The game was boring. Even though there were two goals, the game had very few scoring chances and shots on goal. The teams were both very defensive and that is not exciting at all. The game was also frustrating to watch as the players were really into diving and acting injured… not fun!
Japan 1 Cameroon 0
Honda Hero
This game only had one goal but was much more exciting than the Italian game. The Japanese were big underdogs against a bigger, stronger Cameroon and Japan pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament winning 1-0. It took a while for Cameroon to get going, but after Keisuke Honda’s goal for Japan, the desperation to tie the game made the game much more fun to watch. They didn’t tie the game but there were some great final moments of action.
Netherlands 2 Denmark 0
Eljero Elia
The Netherlands played a really young kid by the name of Eljero Elia who was one of the fastest players of the tournament. His speed and great play was very exciting to watch as he helped set up both of the Netherlands’ 2 goals. Eljero is only 23 years old, he’s small and only weighs a buck fifty, but boy was his speed a factor. He was constantly beating Denmark defenders up the wing and don’t be surprised if he is huge factor leading the Netherlands to their first World Cup.
Get ready for the group of death. The next games include Brazil, Portugal, the Ivory Coast and North Korea. They call this group of countries the group of death because the teams are so good. Who do you think will advance? Let us know in the comments below…
