With England out of the World Cup, everybody's sporting focus, in this country at least, turns towards Andy Murray who is taking part at Wimbledon, quite possibly the biggest tennis tournament in the world, and whether he can go onto win it and end Britain's barren run for a Wimbledon champion. The rest of the world however is focused on the World Cup, so today I will be given an overview of yesterday's matches, and then discussing Andy Murray's match that took place on Centre Court yesterday.
As you will know if you are a regular reader of this blog, I try to be as chronological as possible (incidentally, I have been trying to think what that word was for week's and even meant to include it in a previous blog, so I'm taking that as a small victory for my brain) and that doesn't change in today's blog, except for the fact that Andy Murray had technically finished his match before Brazil kicked off, but I digress. So, after all that rambling, let's get on with it, yesterday's first World Cup last 16 match saw the mighty Holland take on little Slovakia, although they were the team that knocked Italy out, so a team not to be taken lightly by the Dutch. The game was fast-paced from the outset and a brilliant one to watch with chances and goals at both ends. It was the Dutch who took the early lead as returning midfield ace Arjen Robben came inside the Slovakian defence before slotting a finish past the despairing Jan Mucha after 18 minutes to send the Oranje contingent ecstatic. After that goal, the game seemed to open up a little bit more as the Slovakian's desperately attacked to try and get back into the game. Despite this, they didn't really carve out any openings until midway through the 2nd half when Miroslav Stoch came inside onto his right foot, but unfortunately, Maarten Stekelenburg was at this brilliant best to tip the ball over the bar when it seemed certain it was in and Slovakia were level. Just moment's after this, and another chance fell Slovakia's way as Marek Hamsik, another of the player's at this World Cup to be linked with a summer move to Old Trafford, poked the ball through for Robert Vittek who, unfortunately for Slovakia, showed none of the composure he'd had against Italy and fired straight at Steklenburg. The game was unfortunately all over after 84 minutes when Dirk Kuyt played the ball across the box to Wesley Sneijder who finished easily after Mucha had made a mistake in coming off his line. The Slovakian's did just about have time to add a consolation after Stekelenburg brought Vittek down in the box, allowing the striker to get his 4th goal in 4 games at this World Cup. That mean's that despite his team exiting, he is at the moment the join top scorer with Gonzalo Higuain of Agrentina. Final score here then, Holland 2-1 Slovakia.
When Brazil vs Chile kicked off, every single losing team in the round of 16 had scored a singular goal against their opponents, and Chile faced the unenviable record of having played Brazil twice at World Cup final's, and losing both times (4-2 and 4-1) the latest of these losses coming in the corresponding round in 1998. Could they then change this record?? The start of the game was very lively with both teams attacking in abundance, however just after the half hour mark, a Brazilian corner wasn't defended very well and the big Brazilian defender Juan managed to head in very confidently to give the Brazilian's a Juan-0 lead (I'm sorry, but I had to really didn't I??). Just 4 minutes later and we saw a goal that we would associate more with the Brazilian style of play as Robinho played the ball to Kaka, who knocked it through first time to Luis Fabiano who proceeded to take it round the keeper and beautifully slot it in to the net. At this point, it looked certain that there would be no way back for the Chilean's and that they would be the first South American side to be eliminated from the competition. 2-0 down at half-time, they went in knowing they had to change something and come out positively after the break. Unfortunately, their push never materialised and the Brazilian's capitalised on the space in the Chilean midfield after Ramires picked the ball up before going on a surging run and laying the ball off to Robinho, the Manchester City player finishing beautifully with his right foot first time and effectively ending the Chilean's fight. Very little then happened between that goal and the end of the game, and the Chilean's not only became the first South American team to be knocked out of the competition (which quite frankly is a stunning effort considering that this was a last 16 match) but also the first team to be knocked out at this stage having not scored a goal in their match. On a little side note, the Brazilian's looked absolutely deadly, and realistically, an Argentina-Brazil final is still on, so that could be absolutely AMAZING if it happen's because right now both team's are playing unbelievably good football.
As promised then, the man who now carrys Britain's sporting hopes on his shoulders, Andy Murray. Yesterday, he faced Sam Querrey, the impressive American, on Centre Court for a place in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon. Now that all expectation was back on him, how would Murray fare?? After a tense first set, Murray should've sealed it at 5-3, but Querrey managed to break back in the 9th game and then held his serve to make it 5-5 and once again, Murray looked like he might shrink away from the limelight. Murray managed to hold his serve and then break Querrey yet again to seal the set 7-5. After that, Murray seemed to dominate every game and even had enough confidence to pull off ridiculous shot's like the volley in the 2nd set that John McEnroe said might be the shot of the tournament. With ease then, Andy Murray won the match 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 and remains, thus far, the only man not to have dropped a set at this year's Wimbledon. That's some turnaround from the Andy Murray we've seen since his loss in the Australian Open final to Roger Federer in January. This is a man who got knocked out of the French Open and Queen's by average player's and yet he seems to be strolling through Wimbledon and, trying to be as respectful as possible to Murray's opponent's at Rolland Garros and Queen's, is playing against a higher class of opponent in my opinion. This is now the main focus if Britain want a succesful sportsman this summer, and so I will be keeping you up to date with every Murray match as soon as I know the result's.
World Cup drinking rule. I won't lie to you, I'm really struggling to come up with good one's now, but I'll keep doing them just because I know that you guys may be enjoying them. This is one for the more boring game's really, but it's quite fun when there is a boring game on so it almost creates entertainment. The rule is, "Who is that?" and basically, when the camera pans to a randomer in the crowd, everyone must say "who is that?". As with most of these rules, the way you lose is by saying it last. I know this seem's to be the standard formation of the rules, but there has to be someone who loses and does the punishment and that just seem's the easiest way of deciding a loser does it not?
Right then, my internet has decided it wants to be an idiot and go on-off, on-off. I will post this as soon as I get a period of it being on, but I hope you have enjoyed this as I have really enjoyed writing it as I usually do. I'm off right now to watch another of the team's I've really enjoyed watching at this World Cup, Japan, play Paraguay. Hopefully Keisuke Honda will score another screamer eh??
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