Last night, the quarter-final stages of the World Cup came to a conclusion, and boy were they dramatic. In today's post, we take a look at all 4 quarter-final's in our World Cup round-up, aswell as a semi-final round up of the tennis at Wimbledon but unfortunately, we have our last World Cup drinking rule. I can sense the tears flowing for you guys already, so I'll dive straight in and get the round-up's done before you break down completely.
As chronolgically as possible then, Friday's lunchtime kick-off saw Brazil take on Holland in what was one of the most highly anticipated match-up's of the 2010 World Cup. Having watched Brazil destroy Chile in their last 16 match, I doubt there was any heavy betting against the Samba star's going into this match and when Robinho swept in deliciously after 10 minutes, it seemed as though the Brazilian's would almost certainly be waltzing into the semi-final. Despite all the positive talk about the Dutch defence before the match, it seemed to simply dissolve when, on 10 minutes, Felipe Melo spotted the run of Robinho and slid a brilliantly insightful pass through to the Manchester City man who, much like he did against Chile, swept in first time past the onrushing Maarten Stekelenburg, who actually had a good game despite his early lapse. The rest of the first half passed without much extra incident, and the Brazilian's must have been going in at half-time feeling very confident of booking their semi-final place against either Uruguay or Ghana. However, a defensive mix-up just 8 minutes after the restart changed the game as the seemingly unadventurous Dutch were gifted a goal thanks to a Felipe Melo deflection. As the ball came in after a lofted ball was played by Wesley Sneijder, both Julio Cesar and Felipe Melo went up to clear the ball, but unfortunately for Melo, the ball glanced off his head and crashed into the back of the net giving the Dutch a way back into the game. Just 15 minutes later, and the Oranje Army took the lead through a Wesley Sneijder goal and Brazil seemed very much on the ropes. I actually haven't seen the second Dutch goal yet as I was watching Andy Murray, but I have been assured it was of the highest quality which is what you would expect from a player like Sneijder who has been excellent for the Dutch thus far. Needless to say, the 2nd Dutch goal sparked the Brazilian's into action and they threw everything at Holland. Unfortunately for Melo, he got a bit too worked up and was sent off for a blatant stamp on Arjen Robben. In all reality, that just typified what was a bad day for the midfield stalwart, despite his assist for Robinho's goal, and he will now head back to Brazil in disgrace at how his tournament has sadly come to an end. Not long after that, the World Cup had come to an end for all the Brazilian player's and Dunga's time as manager of Brazil simultaneously came to an end as he resigned shortly after. It would've been a brave man to bet on Holland before the game having seen the sort of football that Brazil were playing heading into the game, but afterward's he would probably have been quite a rich man as Holland produced a massive shock to make it to the semi-final's. Final score then was Holland 2-1 Brazil.
I'm sure people would've looked at the match-up's on Friday and possibly made plan's to go out during the night-time game as it could never match the excitement and drama of the early kick-off. If you did that, get online and check out the highlight's because this was genuinely one of the best games at this year's World Cup. Full of attacking football, hot-headed challenges and 2 brilliant goal's, it was a pleasure to watch and a very, very good advert for World Cup football. In a topsy-turvy first half, the Uruguayan's were the one's who made all the early running after a few early shot's were well-saved by Ghana keeper Richard Kingson. However, midway through the first-half, the Ghanain's started to come into the game a bit more as Asamoah Gyan and Kevin-Prince Boateng started to get chances on goal. During this period, the Ghanain's managed to snatch the advantage just moment's before the interval after a speculative 40-yard drive from Sulley Muntari deceived Uruguay keeper Muslera off-guard and flew into the bottom right corner sending the African contingent within the stadium absolutely delirious. It looked very much like Ghana would become the first African team to reach the semi-final of a World Cup, but the game would take a swing back to deadlock just after half-time as the spectacular Diego Forlan drilled a free-kick into the back of the Ghanain net to break African heart's. The game was then very stretched as both team's tried to find the killer goal against their opponent's and the Ghanain's wasted quite alot of good chances and good positions by picking out the wrong pass in advanced positions. The game then ended 1-1 and we were thrust into extra-time for only the second time at this World Cup and as the Uruguayan's visibly tired, the African's seemed to get a second win as they looked for that Golden goal that would give them their semi-final place against the Dutch. At the end of extra-time, it was Forlan's strike partner's turn to break the hearts of the Ghanain's. As Adiyiah, one of the Ghanain substitutes, headed the ball goalward's, Luis Suarez raised his hand's instinctively and pushed the ball away from just under the bar. In all fairness to the referee, he saw it straight away and Suarez was immediately given a red card, and as he walked off the pitch in tears with his shirt over his face, Asamoah Gyan stepped up to take the penalty, and everyone in Accra and in the stadium must've thought it was a dead cert that Gyan would send Ghana through. After a short run-up, Gyan decided to go for power rather than placement and unbelieveably struck the bar with the last kick of the game. As the game headed to penalties, footage was played of Suarez celebrating Gyan's miss, and I think that's pretty bad because he went from inconsolable to jumping around like a mad man almost mocking Ghana. It was terrible behaviour to do that on the side of the pitch as it looked very disrespectful to the Ghanain's. I have to give credit to Gyan who just moment's after his crucial penalty miss stepped up first in the shoot-out and banged his penalty home. That did take alot of guts and so I have to say well done to him for that. The Uruguayan's though don't live on sentiment and they eventually took the penalty shoot-out 4-2 to knock out the only remaining African side and break the heart's of a continent. They will face Holland in Cape Town on Tuesday.
So next is the team that I predicted would waltz to the final and win the whole thing. I'm really glad that I put that out there and made such a big call. At least I didn't bet anything on it which is nice I guess. Saturday 3 pm was the big quarter-final between Argentina and Germany. This was the big one that we all looked at when we knew the shape of the quarter-finals and was set to be one of the games of the tournament between one of the sure fire favourites and an inexperienced but brilliantly talented young team. It was certainly a brilliant game, but unfortunately for me, I had predicted an Argentina win, in fact I believe I even said that they would definitely win the whole tournament on this very blog. Well they won't win it now after they were crushed 4-0 by the insanely clinical German's. The goal's came from Thomas Muller, after 3 minutes, two for Miroslav Klose, 67 and 89 minutes, and finally Arne Friedrich, 74 minutes which was the defender's first international goal and what a time to score it really. I was hugely disappointed with the Argentine's attacking and defensive play. They looked as though they didn't care about being in the quarter-final and definitely didn't look as though they wanted to play a semi-final. It's a shame really because now the two team's that were playing the best football at this World Cup are both out and it's because neither of them showed enough desire to go out and beat what should've been, for them, relatively easy opponent's given how poor the European team's have been thus far. It's strange because I thought Maradona and Argentina had more in the bag than that and maybe they do, but they just needed to show it against the German's. As England proved, you can't just turn up to face the German's unless you are playing your best game which the Argentine's obviously didn't learn. Sorry for being foolish and predicting that they would win the tournament, and so now I have to pick a new team. Germany??
Saturday evening saw another Europe-South America clash and so far, it was 2-0 to Europe. Could Spain make it a clean sweep of European victories over their South American counterparts?? The Paraguayan's actually played very well against the European champions and I think they were unlucky to come away having been eliminated courtesy of an 83rd minute David Villa goal. That was the striker's 5th goal at these finals and he now stands alone as the top scorer, an accolade his play has surely deserved so far. The Paraguayan's were unlucky to miss a penalty they won in the second half of the game, but perhaps even more unlucky not to be given the chance to take it again after the Spanish defence was seen encroaching on the replay. Just moment's later, the Paraguayan keeper stopped a retaken Spanish penalty and in all honesty, after that, I genuinely thought that the Paraguayan's might make a fight of it and possibly come out on top, they did fight until the very end and I think they can be immensely proud of the way they played against the hotly favoured Spanish and the fact that it was only a 1-0 victory sort of show's you that the game wasn't all Spain and wasn't dominated by Spain so thank you to Paraguay for at least making a game of it.
Ummm semi-finals of Wimbledon then. Tomas Berdych, conqueror of Roger Federer, came up against 3rd seed Novak Djokovic in his semi-final. Surprisingly, Djokovic didn't really show up and Berdych eventually ran away with it in straight sets which meant Andy Murray came out onto Centre Court around 4 o'clock right in the middle of the Holland-Brazil showdown hence why I didn't see most of the second half. The man who stood in his way?? Rafael Nadal. The man who won the French Open 4 years in a row and the current World number one. Some people were giving Muzza a chance as Nadal had been taken to 5 sets a couple of time's during the tournament whereas Murray had only lost one set and that had been in the previous round. As the match got underway, both men seemed to be on a par, although Murray was making much more of a fight of it on Nadal's serve than Nadal seemed to be making on Murray's service games. However, it was actually Nadal that made the first breakthrough and ended up taking the first set from his British opponent 6-4, putting Murray under some serious pressure early on during the match. Both men then held their serve all the way through the second set and during the tie-break, Murray had the chance to win the second set and push himself back into the match and give him a chance at getting through to the final and making himself the first Brit to reach a Wimbledon final since Buddy Austin 74 years ago. Unfortunately though, Murray missed his chance and Nadal clinched the second set to give him a 2-0 lead and to effectively end Murray's chances. Despite an early break in the 3rd set, Murray didn't manage to hold his way through to get back into the match at 2-1, and Nadal broke back and then managed to take the set 6-4 and put the brilliant Briton out. That 6-4, 7-6, 6-4 victory means Rafa sets up a final at the All England Club with Tomas Berdych. That match is due to start in about 10 minutes time so I'll get off and have a watch of that for you guys.
I am now struggling. I think I may have given you all of my World Cup rules, but I'm going to think of one as I right so forgive me if it's rubbish. Ok, so I may sort of have one, but this is very dependent on you ACTUALLY watching the game properly closely, but it's decent. This is the "Jabulani" rule. Anytime there is a goalkeeping error/error/the ball moves in a weird way, the last one to say some variation of "I blame the ball", or "Jabulani", essentially something ball related, must do the assigned punishment. I'm sorry it's rubbish, but let's be honest, we knew that they were actually going to get worse as we went on didn't we. That's your last World Cup rule. I'm sad about it, I bet you guys are back home aswell. How could you not be in all honesty??
Right then, off to watch a mixture of T4 On The Beach and Wimbledon. More Wimbledon to be honest as I want to cast my eye over that final to bring you some of my writing tomorrow. So I guess I'll see you all in a bit. I hope you've enjoyed this instalment and as always, thank you for reading and I'll see you soon for more blogging.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment