Watching Soccer So You Don't Have To

One weekend and 8 games done. Here, game by game is a brief review for all you non soccer fans out there.


Friday

South Africa 1 – Mexico 1
My mother, who only knew the World Cup was starting because the Mexican workers fixing her basement asked if they could hook up the TV, summed it up best. “It was a good score. South Aftica avoided the ignomininiy…ignomity…ingno…embarrassment of being the first host team to lose its first match, and I didn’t have a bunch of angry Mexicans in my basement.” Mom always has a way of getting to what’s important.

France 0 – Uruguay 0
This game was awful. It was everything that American people who don’t like soccer think soccer is. To make an American football comparison; Uruguay’s offense was as if a team decided to punt on first down every time they got the ball, so that their defense could stop France. Then when France punted Uruguay could attempt to return it for a touchdown. So for those of you keeping score at home, Uruguay are the Chicago Bears of the World Cup.


Saturday

South Korea 2 – Greece 0
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Literally. The game started at 5:30 in the morning our time. South Korea scored in the first ten minutes, and Greece didn’t get a shot on goal for over an hour. This was not a game you woul call competitive, or interesting. It got a lot of fast forward treatment on the DVR.

Argentina 1 – Nigeria 0
Lionel Messi is the best player in the world. He had more shots on goal for Argentina in the first half than any other team in the tournament up to that point. The fact that none of them went in is because the Nigerian goalie by his own admission had the game of his life. Of course you don’t get extra points for game of your life when you still lose. On the flip side Argentina tried really hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the second half. With Argentine hero, and certified madman Maradona on the bench (think of him like “the most interesting man in the world” if the most interesting man in the world were a raving egotistical psychopath) Argentina has the delicate mix of talent and insanity to make them a prime rubbernecking candidate.

England 1 – USA 1
The main event of the day. Soccer really can be a cruel sport. American fans had been waiting six months for the match, ever since the World Cup schedules were made. And after six months and five minutes it seemed that it would all be for nothing as England ruthlessly cut out American hearts with a goal before you could blink. For the next 85 minutes though the US was every bit the equal of one of the legitimate contenders for the World Cup crown. And when you add to that England’s goalie pulling his very own Bill Buckner and letting a beyond routine save bounce off his hands and in and you have a well earned draw for the U.S. Americans often have a problem with the idea of a tie, so let’s adopt the New York Post’s stance. As the back page headline read “U.S. beats England 1-1.” Amen.


Sunday

Slovenia 1 – Algeria 0
The smallest country in the tournament pitted against the weakest of the six African sides in the tournament. Unsurprisingly this led to a real snoozefest of a game. It did, however, begin Sunday’s trend of players getting red carded and sent off. Algeria began playing a man down with about twenty minutes left, and their goalie apparently thought he was from England as he also let in a routine save to give the LFYTC (that would be the Little Former Yugolsavian Team that Could…I may need to work on my anagramming skills a little) the victory.

Ghana 1 – Serbia 0
On their fourth try a team from Africa finally comes up with a victory. The Black Stars (I’m not being racist, that’s really Ghana’s nickname. Luckily they will probably not play the All Whites of New Zealand this tournament. The All Whites versus the Black Stars in formerly apartheid South Africa would probably make everybody just a bit squeamish) looked like the better ream from the start. But it took a red card to Serbia, and then a penalty shot with ten minutes left, thanks to an idiotic Serbian handball to give them the win.

Germany 4 – Australia 0
The first truly dominant performance of the tournament. Germany rolled through Australia like they were Poland (WWII joke, too soon?). It was 2-0 at halftime, and the surprisingly not all that blonde and blue Germans could have been up 3 or 4 at that point. And in the 2nd half when Australia’s best player Tim Cahill got sent off with a red card (in what was the first questionable refereeing decision of the tournament) the rout was officially on. Germany has been in 4 of the last 7 World Cup finals, so they are always contenders, but this was supposed to be a down year for them. Right. And they were going to stop at Czechoslovakia too.