Quarter Final predictions
I correctly picked 5 winners to advance out of the 8 round of 16 matches, incorrectly choosing Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Australia (although they were robbed) to advance to the Quarter Finals. In this round there are 4 matches: Italy vs Ukraine, England vs Portugal, Brazil vs France, Germany vs Argentina. I believe there is only one clear favourite to advance into the Semi-Finals and that is Italy, who should dispose of Ukraine without much hassle. The remaining three matches could go either way and I had a tough time determining who I think will advance to the next round.
I have chosen England to defeat Portugal, based only on my belief before the tournament that England would win. England have not been impressive throughout the tournament, winning two close games through David Beckham free kicks. In spite of this, I believe that they will be too much for the Portugese, and realistically, they are due for a game where they play to the level that everyone was expecting them to play prior to the tournament starting. It’s a credit to them that they have played so poorly but have still made the final 8.
Brazil vs France has the potential to be a very exciting game. France were unlucky to have not scored more points in their group, and today they handily defeated a Spanish team that had not lost in their previous 25 matches. The French could surprise Brazil, who may underestimate the French. I have only chosen Brazil to make it through because they’re Brazil, but I wouldn’t be surprised if France pulled off the upset though.
That leaves Germany vs Argentina, which could prove to be the match of the tournament. Probably the two form teams of the competition, unfortunately they meet in the Quarter Finals in a game that could easily be mistaken for the Final. Up until their Round of 16 match against Mexico, I thought Argentina was the best team in the competition. The Mexicans really troubled an Argentina side that have the most impressive player in the tournament so far - Riquelme. In contrast, Germany dominated early against Sweden, scoring two goals in the first 12 minutes and then cruising through the rest of the match. Based on form alone, Germany should dispose of Argentina, but this game really is too close to call and I believe that the crowd support should see Germany through to the Semi-Finals.
One last thing, just in case you haven’t seen enough of the backlash from the Italian cheater…
You don’t even need the Oscar to know he was acting - look at the cheesy smile!
Nice photo you got there Paul. I am still spitting chips about the Spain vs France match…. I have to say, France gave Italy a run for their money in terms of faking it…. I dont know the guys name, it might have been Vieira, but late in the game he falls to the ground clutching his face when there was NO Spanish contact whatsoever as a result France get the free kick and then a goal is scored… all I can say is France PISSED ME OFF..! Brazil will hopefully humiliate them with some ridiculous scoreline and then the French will really be sorry…
We just watched some of the Spain vs France match and saw that nasty little fake….the ‘elbow to the face’ that Henry supposedly received is another Oscar-worthy performance!
As a trainee Geriatric, I have to confess to an earlier degree of myopia towards the game of the round ball, in that I always found it (soccer) a trifle boring and more than a little frustrating….to suddenly get all excited when a player eventually ‘worried’ the ball close enough to score a goal, only to have some nitwit on the other team kick it back all the way to the middle again to start the scrabble all over, annoyed the hell out of me and degraded my attention span beautifully. My myopia manifested itself in a cross between boredom and irritation at the futility of the ‘action’. So I didn’t like soccer…give me the ‘biff’ and grunt of ARL please…. However,,,comma,, this World Cup business aroused something akin to passion or at the least interest in me to the point where I almost admitted to seeing something useful in the whole thing and oops, started to like it. Alas, along comes catastrophe in the form of dopey, wall-eyed referees who suffer from capricious tendencies, and opposing players who are better thesbians than footballers. So I almost dropped the bundle and returned to the former myopian disinterest and frustration. But hang on, let’s not get too despondent…let’s look at this whole thing objectively….there are obvious deficiencies in design here. Two points niggle at me: A. Why couldn’t we look at the video refs concept, and B. Why shouldn’t any unfairly treated team that was clearly the victim of wrong on-field decisions have the right to seek redress?… maybe a rematch, or perhaps a ‘rescored’ adjusted result…say a drawn match decided by the governing judicial body…only in extreme cases of course, and with lashings of common sense applied. Difficult, yes, bloody difficult in fact, but achievable with a logical approach. OK, so the video process would slow the game down, probably a lot, but so long as it’s not overdone perhaps it might represent progress. In the meantime, I guess I’ll stick with ARL, or even cockroach racing (at least I can kill the slow ones….).
And another thing: after 80 odd minutes of gruelling duelling, how the hell can we justify this penalty goal shootout decider thingo at the close of a nil scored game? Hey, why don’t we just scrap the match and have the best of three goals scored at the start by putting the goalies up against a kicker on alternate shots? Would save all that 80 minute frustration, bad decision making by ‘vision-challenged’ refs, yellow/red cards circus bit and synchronised diving by dunces and ghecko watchers. Then we could all get stuck into the booze and go home. What a lot of nonsense the penalty goal shootout is..
I agree - I don’t like the penalty kick shootouts being a deciding factor either. Maybe they should go back to a golden goal or something. Paul made a good point to me about American football - they have a ‘first to score’ ending where most of the time, whoever wins the coin toss goes for a field goal to win, but at least in soccer, a golden goal is a little more fair in that possession can easily change and both teams could have a chance to do something with the ball.