World Cup 2010

I came out of the Quarter-Finals with a worst prediction accuracy compared to before, a mere 50 percent. If I call the final correct, I will just go ahead and award myself 50 extra bonus points. Anyways, these match-ups are still tricky. However, I feel I have been correct this entire tournament about the final, that somebody new will lift the title. Uruguay seems to be able to do one thing correctly, and that is winning, even at all costs. Look at the last game against Ghana, Luis Suarez completely ignored the rules, saved a goal with his hands, and sacrificed himself for his team, even if it was cheap, but the hand ball won the game. This team won’t have him for this game, pushing the weight of the attack on Diego Forlan, and I don’t know if this team can take the pressure with a one man attack. On the other hand, the Netherlands are notorious for underachieving. Two finals with no trophy. However, those two finals were against the host countries, Argentina and Germany respectively. They also are just over the hump by coming from behind to beat Brazil, but there are bigger mountains to climb. In the other match-up, I feel I will have some difficulty in deciding. Germany has been playing tremendous soccer at the moment, and have somewhat been cruising. They had some hiccups with the lost to Serbia and the 1-0 win over Ghana, but in all the other matches they have been nothing short of dominate. I have something else going against me, I always underestimate the Germans. I am just not a fan of German soccer. Spain on the other hand has been flying under the performance radar. This Spanish team at the moment has been unimpressive, but has gotten results. Really, I have no positive thing to say about the Spanish team at the moment, but maybe they will breakout. This is also a rematch of Euro 2008 where Spain beat Germany 1-0, I believe, but I don’t feel like looking that up, and that was when everyone jumped on the Spanish bandwagon. This is a tough one, but I have to go with what I said in the beginning. I predicted a Netherlands-Spain final, and I am lucky to have them both in this position. All I can do now is hope I’m right, and then I will give myself 100 bonus points for predicting this at the start.

Semi-Finals

Uruguay versus Netherlands= Netherlands

Spain versus Germany= Spain

The World Cup isn’t over, but our tour is finished. We laced our shoes up one last time to stand under South African Skies, but the scenery was different this time.  We spent our last day in South Africa in Johannesburg visiting the World Cup Stadiums.  Fortunately, we didn’t run out of time, and we just snapped a picture of Ellis Park before darkness denied us a chance at getting a picture.  If you have been following the World Cup, Johannesburg has two stadiums being used for the World Cup, the main stadium Soccer City and the famous Ellis Park.  Soccer City has the privilege of hosting the opening game as well as the finale, and Ellis Park has history rooted in Rugby.  Ellis Park held the Finale of the 1995 Rugby World Cup where South Africa won their first Championship.  I believe that is where Invictus, Matt Damon, and Morgan Freeman come into play.  I was pleased in seeing the stadiums and I kind of wish we got to see more of Johannesburg.  We also got to see the Uruguay bus, and hey, they are now in the Semi-Finals.  I am also pleased that we chose Cape Town as our base of operations.  For Soccer City, the only real way to get to the stadium is by bus, and that would get annoying really fast.  There was no way really to walk there because Soccer City was about 18 km (no idea about miles) from the city center.  Ellis Park seemed confusing as well because I saw no train, and once again the only way to travel was by bus.  Green Point Stadium in Cape Town was like a 20 minute walk, not counting security check-in, from the Central Train Station, and was located near the V & A Waterfront, which had many restaurants and what not.

                As a whole, I thought South Africa was a great host.  I had a little bit of doubt going into this World Cup, but once I was there I realized that any World Cup will have their problems.  People are always going to complain about the referees and the new ball every World Cup, but outside of that there really isn’t anything to complain from my point of view.  I know they had the British fan Invasion, strikes, and other minor mishaps, but no World Cup is without some problem.  My parting words for this World Cup would be, “The people were nice, always giving friendly greetings, Cape Town was a beautiful city with gorgeous mountains, and I had the time of my life.”  Yes, I quoted myself, but I hope someday I get a chance to go back to Cape Town, see how the city changes.  I am going to be putting pictures of Soccer City and Ellis Park.

The knock-out stage gets tougher, but I barely could pick the teams that advanced out of the Round of 16.  I accurately predicted a five out of eight, leaving me at a 63 percent correct.  Ouch. Rough, but I hopefully pick up some slack with the Quarterfinals.  There are some blockbuster tickets in this next round.  Argentina versus Germany and The Netherlands versus Brazil are the heavyweights, while Uruguay versus Ghana will be pretty interesting to see how these two teams decide to play.  Paraguay versus Spain looks one sided (for Spain), but this Paraguay team seems tricky to understand.  They haven’t done anything prolific, but they keep advancing. Anyways, Argentina, Germany, The Netherlands, and Brazil could come away with the trophy in my book if they advance.  I could use a dart board to decide my picks and people wouldn’t think I was insane for picking one team over the other.  Uruguay versus Ghana is tricky because these teams have very conservative tactics.  Ghana is fine with playing defense, being physical, and making you turn the ball over, while Uruguay tries to get an early goal and play defense.  Uruguay looks like they can turn their defense/offense on like a light switch, making them difficult to pick.  Well, I probably should explain my picks, but I rather just pick them. Here we go:

Quarterfinals

July 2^nd

Netherlands V. Brazil= Netherlands

Uruguay V. Ghana= Ghana

July 3^rd

Argentina V. Germany= Argentina

Paraguay V. Spain= Spain

The group stage is over, and I believe I finished with 75 percent accuracy.  I predicted 12 out of the 16 teams to advance. I thought I should have done better than my brother, but we tied so not much to brag about on either side.  Since the group stage concluded, I have my picks for the Round of 16.  There are some tough matchups to predict in USA versus Ghana, Germany versus England, Brazil versus Chile, and Spain versus Portugal.  They are what I consider the hardest to predict.  USA has been lucky as well as been unlucky (but got the job done, and I think if they beat Ghana they have a good shot at the Semifinals), and Ghana has been strong, but the two goals they scored in the group stage were off PKs. Germany came out with guns blazing, but have faltered in the last two games, and England has been somewhere.  The Brazil-Chile matchup is tough because they both qualify together, but Brazil won both games during qualifying.  Is third time the charm for Chile? Spain has looked troublesome, but has seemed to battle the storm, while Portugal had a rocky start in qualifying, but their fortune has turned and they haven’t been scored on during this World Cup. These were some tough picks to make, and I shall see how they play out:

Round of 16 Predictions

Saturday

Uruguay v. South Korea= South Korea

USA v. Ghana= USA

Sunday

Argentina v. Mexico= Argentina

Germany v. England= Germany

Monday

Netherlands v. Slovakia= Netherlands

Brazil v. Chile= Brazil

Tuesday

Paraguay v. Japan= Japan

Spain v. Portugal= Spain

On Monday the 14^th, my brother and I had our second game at once again 8:30 local time.  The stadium and the field were once again up to standards, and there was more excitement in the atmosphere around this game.  The only down note was the weather in that the day and night were rainy. The sky cleared off for a couple hours, but once we started for the security check-in (went quicker this time) the rain began pretty heavily.  I bought a poncho before hand, so I was set to watch the game in the rain if need be, but the rain hardly fell during the game.  The play of this game was tremendously better than our first game.  Italy seemed to just want to attack, attack, and attack.  They always had at least three people pressuring, with multiple midfielders making runs.  They were trying to come with the big guns, and put this group away quickly.  However, Paraguay was content to hold back, and just absorb everything that Italy threw at them.  Their strategy was working when they took an early lead off a header by Alcaraz from a set piece or corner kick, when Buffon went out with an injury at half, and when their absorbing tactic was still working in the second half.   Of course, Italy found the equalizer off a corner that was tapped in after the keeper initially missed the ball by di Rossi.  That is how the game finished, a draw.  We had two games, both draws.  But this game was better, the teams decided to have an intelligent attack, leading to their goals. I got to see some GOOAAALS!!!  The game went well, there were goals, and I got to see some more world class players, such as the Italian defender Cannavaro who was really a good defender.  I would have liked to witness some more games, but I am happy I was able to see these games, and I am pretty exhausted from just seeing those two games.  We heard on the news that some guy was trying to break the record of attending 20 games in one World Cup.  There are 64 in total.  Man, six games like we wanted would be pushing it for me.  I enjoyed the games that we went to, and possibly I’ll try to catch a US qualifying game for the next World Cup.

On June 12^th (in case you missed the game), the United States of America fought the evil overlord England once again.   This was of course a soccer match and nothing more, but the thought of taking on England does have significance.  Once this game was scheduled, the US media immediately brought the 1-0 1950 USA win over England out of the closet, and the snowballing of importance that this game had for the United States continued until June 12^th.  If you probably asked an average person where soccer is taken seriously, I could only guess and say that they would say England, Spain, Brazil, possibly Germany, and possibly Italy.  I am pretty sure that is what ESPN did last summer, and they decided to show an EPL game a week, and some rare times La Liga games.  The showing of English games on US television (though most were shown at 7:30 in the morning), and the fact that about nine players play in England, this game truly was vital for US fans, and the chances of the US advancing past the group stage.  I only have my brother to attest to this, but I did call a draw.  That is exactly what happened.   As most know, the US gave an early lead by leaving a big gap in the middle of their defense.  Seriously, you could have placed a pinic table, grill, and then about 15 people could have had a cookout in the middle of their defense, but the US dug deep and came back with something pretty lucky.  Clint Dempsey turned Steven Gerrard around twice and just let the ball fly.  After he kicked the ball, one of the oddest displays of goalkeeping happened, and Robert Green misjudged the ball completely, bounced off his hands, and went right into the goal.  Hey, the US got a result, and that is all that matters.  In fact, I thought the US played really well, and if they didn’t have the defensive trouble in the first five minutes, then who knows what could have happened.  They kept the ball away from Rooney, when he did have the ball they made him shoot from outside the box, and dared other English players to step up and do something.  They only did in the first five minutes, and they went missing, couldn’t find someone else to get the ball to, or shot the ball right at Tim Howard. Good Job USA.  I read the paper the day after the game, and the paper gave high praise to Steve Cherundolo , which they couldn’t be more correct.  He was really impressive, and was a cornerstone at the right back spot, always getting the best of the attacker. He also did well at getting into the attack as well as holding possession.  Now, the USA has to win their last two games and they are out of the group stage.  Their next game is this Friday, June 18^th at ten local Indiana time.  Go USA!

When my brother and I heard that there was a rugby game featuring the Springbok (South Africa’s national team), we decided that the chance to attend would be really interesting, considering we don’t know much about rugby.  Before attending, I knew that scoring was a try (I didn’t know the point allocation) and that the games went 80 minutes.  After attending, I know a try is worth 5 points, conversions are worth 2 points, and there is something called Penalty which is worth 3 points.  Outside of that, I couldn’t tell you the point of a scrum, or some little minor aspects of the game.  Anyways, the game was wildly interesting, and I am glad that we went.  South Africa won 42 to 17 against France, and South Africa was dominating the entire game.  They had a really good player in number 14, Gio Aplon.  He had two tries, one that he basically ran the entire field.  Also, both teams had some big fellows that could really hit, and I really doubt that I could be a rugby player.  Overall, the experience was completely interesting, and I would probably go to another international rugby game in a heartbeat.