World Cup Update
9:11 PM
Mornin' folks! Tis the 11th of June, and we're back for another update. I have loads of things to do, in less than one hour before Japan Hour starts (the only show I watch faithfully) but well, the World Cup is important.And I figure people actually read this thing for this.
1) England vs. Paraguay: 1 - 0
This is pretty significant, being the first match I watched in the World Cup. How the heck was I to know my dad had actually subscribed?? But on a whim I popped in and yeah, he had!! So that means I have access to all .... 61 matches? (minus the first 3) Actually 6 have passed. Ah, who cares.
Anyway, by the time I had popped in, it was already 1 - 0 to England, by an own goal from Paraguay by the Captain Gamarra, no less. I thought to myself that the worst thing that could happen to a football player in a World Cup was to score an own goal. Really must suck. I pitied the man immensely. It was a corner from Beckham.
Beckham took most of the corners (all, I think). Gerrard had a yellow, Crouch let off a million free kicks and also a yellow (I didn't watch Gerrard's yellow though. It came in the first half, I popped in the second.) Lampard had 2 typical Lampard shots on goal whizzing straight for the goalkeeper. Goalies are very brave people to be able to throw body and soul into chucking themselves in the line of fire.
I was a goalie once. Well, I always offered to be goalie when I played football in school. But that was 'cos my team always kept the ball at the other side of the field.
Lampard was named Man of the Match, according to today's Straits Times. Oh, the Paraguayian goalie made a real good save on Lampard's first on-goal attempt. I would call it Save of the Match. I think it'll probably be the Save of this WC.
Robinson has also earned a nickname, Mighty Robinson, from the commentator for kicking the ball a good height...I heard it was what, 70 metres? I wasn't sure, but I think the ball landed eventually. The commentator said it made it to the roof. Funny man, the commentator.
Gerrard was great, as usual, but I had the feeling that he just lacked support. Beckham has awesome corner kicks. It's like, his specialty. You can feel the tension going up all the time. Gary Neville has always been in the World Cup since I watched it back in '98. Like a permanent fixture. He's alright. Crouch is amusing, and cute. And everyone complained it was too hot. Including Eriksson. They were boring though, as everybody complains. Really seemed as if they were off form. I think everybody thinks they could have done better. They're probably right.
Paraguay put up an okay fight. They were using the fact that England was feeling the heat to try and get in coupla' of jabbers but England always managed to scrape through.
2) TnT vs Sweden : 0 - 0
Didn't watch this one. But the first red card was given by our own Shamsul Maideen (Singaporean newspapers had to make a huge deal outa this) in this match. I didn't know he was refereeing or I would have watched. I figure that's the only reason Dad watched it, but even he gave up before 1.
Surprising. People were banking on TnT being whooped.
3) Argentina vs Ivory Coast: 2 - 1
Pretty predictable. Ivory Coast did good though, getting one off Argentina. Musta been a great blow. I hate all this spanky big-assed arrogant European teams / South American teams. I love the underdogs.
Additional: I caught a rerun of the opening match in the hopes of watching for myself how bad Germany's defense was said to have been. I fell asleep sometime in the second half, which could have been the clincher but I thought the defense was alright. I think they just wanted to make up the sorry excuse that it was their defense that was poor, and Costa Rica could never have been good enough to score. I don't think so, I think CR is not that bad. Could give you a run for your money, if I may say so. They don't suck, they definitely don't. Germany's not as strong as you might have expected from the previous WC but I didn't find their defense a shame either.
Klose's hair is terrible. He was a lot cuter before.
Ballack of course has no sense of style. He looks the same as he always did.
More updates tomorrow. Till then.