World Cup Update 3

So my predictions were OK, I got 13 out of 16 correct. I wished I’d trusted myself and gone with Japan over Denmark and of course no one could have predicted Italy failing as bad as they did.  Another 16 games and 33 goals which isn’t bad.  England are through, France and Italy managed to get as many points combined as New Zealand (Who were unbeaten BTW), North Korea conceded 11 without response.

The group stage is over and only 6 European teams are still in, here are the “Awards of the week”

Best Goal

Keisuke Honda and Yasuhito Endo – Japan

The goalkeeping wasn’t the best but it’s nice to see some free kicks going in.  Both were good in their own.

Best Team

South Africa

Beating France alone should get this but they did it well against a French team that was trying to win. There won’t have been bigger celebrations in Dublin over a French sporting defeat outside the 6 Nations.

Best Player

Robert Vittek – Serbia

Scored twice to knock out Italy, played really well in what was the best game of the tournament so far.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

M Rodriguez – Mexico (Referee)

Although Estrada for Chile should have had 4 yellows, his second official yellow came when Torres tripped over his legs as they were running off the ball.  Unintentional and not worthy of a booking at any point.  He then allowed the teams to play out the result for the last 5 minutes which we were told would not be tolerated.  Boring.

Best Moment

Italy and France

Italy cheated in the second round of the 2006 World Cup against Australia, barely qualified for the World CUP 2010 out an easy group then went on to fail pathetically, good.  They’re boring to watch and roll around far too much.  France on the other hand were poor with the infighting and players going home.  They took Ireland’s chance a blew it, like having the Playboy Mansion for a weekend and spending it in front of the TV.

I’m going for it on my predictions, let’s see how these go…

Korea
Ghana
England
Mexico
Holland
Brazil
Japan
Portugal

I’ll be back on the full time whistle on Tuesday to see how these pretty bold predictions went.

@jestatharogue