Tuesday 22nd June
13st 8lbs
12 cans of Beer left
1 day to go before England's crunch game.
The start of the final round of Group matches, and groups play at the same time to avoid the Austrian & West German farce of 1982.
Ready for these matches Mexico & Uruguay had 4 points each & France & South Africa a point each, all 4 could qualify. Going into the match the mess that had been France's World Cup had seen Anelka sent home, the team refuse to train & some players saying they wouldn't play against South Africa...
Match 1 - Mexico vrs Uruguay, knowing a draw between the 2 would mean they both finished on 5 points & qualified, all to play for was winning the group and avoiding a potential clash with a good looking Argentina. Uruguay won this with a simple 1-0 win, then means they won the group and later we found they play South Korea. Mexico who look a decent fast team will play Argentina, and that should be a decent match as Argentina haven't been tested @ the back really.
Match 2 - France vrs South Africa, the mess that was France and the pressure of being the first hosts to not qualify past the 1st round of games, meant you'd expect a 0-0 draw. Instead we got a 2-0 scoreline to South Africa @ half time, maybe just maybe South Africa could get the 4 clear goals to leapfrog past Mexico to finish second. But alas they tired in the 2nd half and France got a goal back, South Africa failed to qualify on goal difference, and another African team left the competition & we were down to 29. Less said about France the better.
Going into this match Argentina had 6 points, Greece & South Korea 3, with South Korea having a better goal difference and Nigeria 0, ironically if results went there way any of the 4 could still qualify.
Match 3 - Nigeria vrs South Korea, this ended in a 2-2 draw, which with other results meant South Korea qualified for the last 16. It was a shame for Nigeria as Yakuba missed a clear open goal that would have made it 3-2 and the way the table was they would have made it to the last 16 themselves. This means that Nigeria along with South Africa & Cameroon left the World Cup & we were down to 28, with no African team looking like they may qualify.
Match 4 - Argentina vrs Greece, final game of the day and we saw Argentina battle against a 8 man defence of Greece for 80 minutes. Before 2 late goals meant they knocked Greece out of the competition which a lot of pundits are happy about as defending & scoring from set pieces is all Greece can do & it's a little dull (ala 2004). We are now down to 27 teams left in the World Cup, with Argentina joint favourites with Brazil @ 4/1, and both teams are looking good, the draw means they can stay apart until the final.
Drank just 3 cans today, it's a pattern that emerging, down to 9, they go so quickly....
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