World Cup Update

Greetings, gentle readers.

So last night's footy was interesting.  First, the Italians went down 2-0 to Slovakia, only for a frenzied finish to wind it up with the Slovakians on the winning side of a heated affair, 3-2.  World champions Italy have now been bounced out of the first round of the World Cup for the first time in 36 years.  Good riddance, I says.  They started with their doddering old guard, and changed gears to their untested new blood too late in the tournament.  They were conservative even in their use of conservatism.  This also means that Martin Skrtel is still a going concern, keeping Liverpool participation healthy.
Simultaneously, the Super-Kiwis or All-Whites of New Zealand battled to a nil-nil draw against Paraguay, meaning that they finish the group phase undefeated, but without enough points to progress.  Regardless, this was the greatest World Cup result that that nation has ever accomplished.  How did they manage this?  I put it down to three factors: first, they left it all on the field.  This means that after every game, there was nothing left in reserve; nothing in the tank.  All of them ran their guts out and threw themselves into every tackle, from captain Ryan Nelsen to athletic but talentless sub Chris Wood.  Second, Mark Paston was superb as a shot-stopper.  Not the best at dealing with crosses or smothering rebounds, but his reflex saves were nothing short of astonishingly miraculous.  He would have been made to look foolish a number of times had reason number one not also been contributing — his defence was rugged and mobile, and the long, counter-attacking ball always made the opposition's midfield hedge their bets on going forward.  Third, there was the "oh, what the hell, nobody expects anything from us, so let's just try some schoolboy sh*t" factor.  Behind-the-back volley flick passes, chest-trap-side-foot-volleys, half-rainbow forward flicks, all sorts of nonsense that you never see at international level... New Zealand pulled out all the stops, and more than once left superstars like Fabio Cannavaro blinking and scratching their heads.  If your coaching staff prepares you for a pack of turtling muppets, and they suddenly triple give-and-go around you with knee volleys, you've got to rethink your strategy.  Sure, 50% of the time, the fancy-dan crap didn't work at all, but again, what did the Kiwis have to lose?  They rolled the dice and helped bring down the world champions.  Well done to them and coach Ricki Herbert.
Then, my father, aunt, and I toodled off to The Boardwalk, which is like a permanent fairground, complete with rides, arcades, casino, and amphitheatre.  After some indecision, I walked into a Greek restaurant and waited for everyone else to either join me or go somewhere else.  Either way, I was going to get some food and watch the Denmark-Japan match.  The marinated steak with feta and saffron rice was lovely, though I was a bit disappointed by the results of the game.

Japan scored two pin-point accurate direct free-kicks, and despite Jon-Dahl Tomasson getting a penalty consolation, the Japanese comfortably ran out 3-1 winners.  Daniel Agger became Liverpool's second World Cup casualty, after the elimination of Greece terminated Sotirios Kyrgiakos' run in the world championships.
As the Danes meekly bowed out, the Dutch barely broke a sweat as they swatted aside already-eliminated Cameroon.  The Netherlands take Liverpool's offensive midfielder Durk Kuyt with them into the round of 16.  Samuel Eto'o ended his World Cup campaign much as he began it... marked out of the play and marginalized from possession.  At least he managed a penalty in this final match, a minor victory in an otherwise dismaying series of performances.  African commentators on SABC had many assessments, frequently punctuated by sighs.
Today's matches feature North Korea facing off against Côte d'Ivoire in what should be a meaningless match.  Because of Portugal's earlier 7-0 triumph over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Ivorians can only progress if they run up the score against the world's last hold-out Stalinists, and Brazil kicks merry hell out of the Portuguese.  Essentially, this means that there will only be one African representative in the last 16.
Spain, contrary to the expectations of many pundits, has yet to confirm qualification for the next round.  The Swiss managed to derail what most expected to be a thunderous and monotonous charge to the semi-finals. Former Liverpool winger Mark Gonzalez (born in Durban, South Africa), then defeated the Swiss with his goal as a second-half substitute, leaving a very muddled crystal ball for most prognosticators.
The Swiss have already won the award for the most linguistically adept, with Philippe Senderos answering press questions in six different languages at his last conference.  I despise the Hondurans, so I hope the Swiss stuff them.  The Swiss aren't an offensive juggernaut by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm probably looking at a 1-0 win, all things being equal.

Spain were supposed to win this group at a trot, and now face group leaders Chile.  The neat thing about this group is that  a team with six points could conceivably fail to reach the next round.  If it happens, I'm fairly sure that it would be the first time ever.  One scenario that would see that eventuality realized would be for Spain and Switzerland to win their games 2-0.  The pair of them would go through, and Chile would stumble out after winning both opening matches.  I reckon Switzerland misses out by one goal-for, so let's call Spain to win 2-0.
As for Portugal v. Brazil, I reckon that this is the anti-colonial games, so despite the fact that the throne of Portugal was relocated to Brazil for a while, which makes for a confused colonialist argument, I reckon Brazil does them no favours.  3-1 seems like an appropriate score to me.  North Korea will run about like Billy Whiz and the White Tornadoes on crack, meth, gunpowder, PCP, and cajun tarantula jelly.  The match should be fun as all dickens, as the last bastion of purist, post-Trotskyite communism makes a last stand.  That being said, I call Côte d'Ivoire to salvage some pride by knocking two past them.  I reckon the Red Robots of Pyongyang get one by playing on the Ivorian tendency to lose a bit of dicipline in the face of adversity.  2-1 Ivory Coast.
Just as a point of interest, a lot of the womenfolk 'round these parts have been pronouncing the Français bits as "Coat Deev Wow" most likely in reference to the abnormally large and well-defined pectoral muscles of the whole squad.
Comfortably ensconced in Cape St. Francis at the moment... lunch is on the braai, the beach is 100 yards away, the tide is coming in, and the surf is amazing, so I'm off to eat, splash around for a bit, and take some more snaps.
Cheers,
—mARKUS