day 7

*note: the following was written at 6am this morning, but i'm just posting it now in mid-afternoon...

i just got back from the pub and watching two matches; my heart’s still pounding from england’s leaving it late against trinibago. i can hardly type straight…

match 18: ecuador v. costa rica

this looked to be, for most people, it seemed, a boring match, but not for me because it was two latin american teams and, well, i’d get excited to watch a world cup match involving luxembourg and, say, indonesia. it’s the world cup, for chrissakes…!

anyway, i was interested to see how each team would come back from their opening matches–the south americans’ win over poland and the central american lads’ loss to a far-from-dross german side. could ecuador ride their momentum to a win and qualification for the round of 16? could los ticos nick a point, possibly three, and keep themselves in the running for the next round?

the opening exchanges were typical in that the teams were getting a feel for each other and the match itself. ecuador were making noises on the costa rican side of the field, but nothing threatening until the 8th minute, when luis valencia crossed from just outside the right side of the box to carlos tenorio, who eluded his defender and headed home assuredly. it was a shocking start for costa rica–again, as they had given up an early first goal to germany, too–and they really never looked like threatening too much the remainder of the half.

los ticos struggled to find any rhythm and the equatorians dominated first-half possession. costa rica had a fairly decent chance three minutes from the break, but it was really their only chance of the opening half. and they were fortunate to be down only 1-0 at breaktime because ecuador’s agustin delgado whiffed on a perfectly-placed cross to him just in front of the goal mouth nearly on the knell of halftime.

in the opening moments after the restart, costa rica looked sharper and, in the first five minutes had several decent chances, but not much quality to take advantage of them. just when it looked like costa rica were going to keep pushing for an equaliser, they nearly gave up a goal in the 53rd minute because of shoddy defending.

two minutes later, their shoddy defending in their own box from a clearable throw-in did result in an ecuador goal of amazing quality by the aforementioned delgado from as tight an angle to the near post as you’ll see. it was a super goal, but the costa ricans weren’t dead, yet, as they should have pegged one back a few moments later when mauricio solis ran riot into the ecuador box only for it to go for nowt as his effort was wonderfully saved by ecuador’s christian mora.

from there, it seemed that costa rica ran out of gas and their rhythm sputtered. much of it had to do with ecuador’s fine style of play, too. it was about a quarter-hour from time that i realised ecuador were on top of the group on goal difference, ahead of germany, and would remain so unless the central americans could muster an effort to pull a goal back.

a frantic costa rica tried to gear it up in the last five minutes and came close to halving the score in the 87th minute, but alvaro saborio’s well-placed, swerving effort could only bounce off the cross bar and out of danger for ecuador. and in injury time, ivan kaviedes made costa rica pay for not cashing in their chances when he deftly lofted in edison mendez’s lovely cross to make it 3-0.

this result means that both ecuador and germany are assured of places in the round of 16. these two will square off in their final group match with germany needing a win to assure themselves of finishing first and avoiding perhaps england in the round of 16. a mere draw mean ecuador will top the group and play the second place team from group b (that is the england group, along with trinibago, sweden, and paraguay).

there has been a lot of talk about how good germany have looked, but they find themselves staring up at ecuador in the group table and, to be honest, the south americans have, in their first two matches, looked every bit the prussians’ equal. don’t bet the farm on germany’s winning the group just yet…

match 19: england v. trinibago

i was as worried about this match for england as a full bottle of jim beam in dubya’s presence. i’m sure that many englanders around the world weren’t worried–thinking no way england play like shite and trinibago like resolute soca warriors for the second straight match–but i was scared sober. i had been very impressed with ten-man trinibago’s game effort against sweden and expected nothing less from them again. i certainly didn’t expect england to be as poor as they were against paraguay, but that didn’t ease my mind.

plus, there was the added agony of knowing that half of trinibago’s squad play or have played in england (even if not always in the premiership), so there was familiarity; on top of that, there was the added incentive for the islanders of going against their former colonial masters, something i never underestimate in international footie. a draw was highly possible in my mind, if not an out-and-out upset.

from the outset, england dominated possession, but lacked clarity in front of the soca warrior goal. time and again, they would blast chances over the goal, or get a weak effort on goal, or, for the love of shiva, peter crouch would fail to get good head on the ball (um, no comment on my choice of words there).

how is it that a man who’s more than 200 centimeters tall not be good at heading a football? a man that tall should be able to head most crosses down on goal, not over the crossbar time and again like a man 30 centimeters shorter. i don’t rate crouch at all–certainly not as a starter–and for more than 80 minutes of this match, he did nothing to change my mind.

david beckham’s crosses lacked their usual precision, joe cole was not as beguiling to the trinibago defense as he was to the paraguayan defense last saturday, lampard and gerrard continued blazing long range efforts over the bar, and owen was again without much pace. england had three good chances in the first half only to be undone by either bad luck or poor quality (in all honesty, it was more the latter than the former).

trinibago, on the other hand, had only two good chances:the first one, a header by stern john from a dwight yorke header that just sailed wide, and the second one, another effort by john that was destined for the back of the net (since england’s keeper, paul robinson, had made a major gaffe by coming out on a ball that he misjudged and whiffed on) only to have super john terry seemingly come from estonia to clear the ball off the line. i thought my heart had stopped on that one.

trinibago would have rightly felt aggrieved not to have been ahead, 0-1, at the break, and they continued, after the restart, to frustrate england, who were still dominating possession, but lacking verve and cool in front of the net. we thought that wayne rooney would be introduced at halftime, but england manager, sven goran eriksson, gave his starting charges about ten minutes more before giving in and subsituting rooney for michael owen and young aaron lennon for jamie carragher in the 58th minute. this meant a change in the england formation from a 4-4-2 to 3-5-2 and it began to pay immediate dividends.

while rooney may have lacked match fitness and sharpness, his entrance onto the pitch energised his teammates and the very partisan england crowd. lennon’s pace–something owen so clearly lacks at the moment–on the right side tormented the left side of the trinibago defense, though he wasn’t often able to deliver quality crosses at the end of his runs. however, it was beginning to open up some space for beckham on the right and lampard in the middle.

however, england still couldn’t breach the trinibago goal and one began to sense an unwanted (from an admittedly england point of view) draw looming like an invasive mother-in-law. that, or a sudden trinibago counterattack that would catch england off-guard and result in some fluke goal like nearly happened in the first half.

finally, however, lennon’s pacing gave beckham some needed space for a cross and he delivered, in the 83rd minute, a pinpoint one that crouch finally put with conviction past the keeper and into the back of the net. fortunately, he didn’t celebrate with his damned “robokop” dance, but instead just seemed happy and relieved to have finally breached a stubborn defense. his only good touch of the match was an important one, but i still don’t rate him.

it still wasn’t over, though, as trinibago pushed for an equaliser; however, instead of an equaliser from the islanders, it was england who scored when gerrard put it out of reach in injury time with a patented left foot blast from 25 meters. the scoreline was nearly halved seconds later when the aforementioned stern john went cheeky with a backheeled goal, only to have it rightly disallowed for being offsides.

the scoreline was 2-0, which flattered england immensely and did no justice to trinibago’s effort. the result gave england passage to the round of 16 and leave the other three in the group still with all to play for. in fact, a paraguay win over sweden followed by a trinibago win over paraguary and a sweden non-win against england would give the tiny island nation a passage to the next round in their debut world cup. how excellent would that be for a football minnow!!!

now off to collect myself and cheer for paraguay against sweden. oh, and peter crouch was, incredibly, the man of the match. i’m assuming none of the muppets who choose this ever laid eyes on aaron lennon or john terry at any time throughout the match. oh, well…

match 20: sweden v. paraguay

i watched the sweden-paraguay match, saw sweden play all game with frantic desperation not to have another draw, saw paraguay play for the draw by playing stout defense (so that they’d have a huge chance for qualification against trinibago in their next match), saw freddy ljungberg save the night for the scandinavians with an 89th-minute header. i realise that there are still lots of story lines from this group and that trinibago still have a shot to go through; in fact, only the paraguayans are eliminated–they have to be gutted. i came prepared to cast my wit and oh-so-not-incisive-at-times commentary on the match…

…only to be too damned tired to write much more than this.

things i hope don’t happen today: argentina have the same form as they did against cote d’ivoire; robben terrorises the ivorian defense; fifa don’t overturn crouch’s goal for fouling the trinibagian defender on england’s first goal.

things i do hope for today: angola pull the shock of the tournament by upsetting mexico; les elephants (cote d'ivoire) see off holland and serbia take out argentina to make everyone in group c level on 3 points; sleep.