Comments:
1) I think Argentina can win their group, assuming they beat South Korea (I haven't watched it yet), but I don't think they get much further than that. I would say they probably beat the 2nd place team in Group A, but I can't see them getting past the winner of Group D (sorry Sean, but there is no way USA is beating Germany). I say Argentina loses to Germany in the quarters. While Messi is an incredible player, he has never been able to replicate his club form with the national team (in 18 qualifying matches, he scored 4 goals), and unless he can manage to find "the spark", as Adidas loves to say, Argentina won't have as much firepower.
2) While the USA certainly didn't deserve the goal, I do agree they deserved the draw, but not in the way that you mean. After the 6th minute or so, neither team looked organized at all. Both teams looked relatively sluggish and unable to piece a whole lot together, and if they can't fix that, they're in for some surprises against Slovenia and Algeria.
3) North Korea looked fantastic in defense and at times even had Brazil on the ropes. I loved watching the little North Korean players muscle the gargantuan Brazilians off the ball and occasionally motor right through their defense (at one point Jong Tae-Se weaved through 4 Brazilian defenders and got a shot on goal). I would agree with the potential of a win against Portugal. Cristiano Ronaldo, other than his screamer off the post, was kept relatively in check, and Portugal was unable to get anything going against Ivory Coast. I don't think they'll be able to do that against North Korea, either, but the question lies more in the North Korean offense.
4) Despite the rankings, the group isn't nearly as easy as it seems for the defending World Cup Champions. Slovakia, lest we forget, won their qualifying group, one that included the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia. New Zealand stole a point out of that match against Slovakia, who were attacking the entirety of the second half and could easily have been up 2 or 3 to nil. Italy, on the other hand, looked exactly how people expected them to look this World Cup - sluggish. I would say Slovakia's offense is better than Paraguay's (at least Paraguay's offense without Cabanas). Italy needs to take care of business against a surprisingly plucky New Zealand team and get a win against Slovakia in order to maintain control of the group. I can see them doing the former, but the latter may prove to be a little tricky. I think there is a decent chance they don't make it out of the group stage, and if they do manage to scrape their way by, they'll need to do it in a winning fashion - if they don't, they'll probably be facing their exact opposites, a speedy and incredibly skillful team in the Netherlands. If that happens, their hope of winning a second straight Cup ends there.
5)South Africa has done a great job in the sense that they have kept the riff-raff out of the stadiums and kept the surrounding areas safe and secure. Keeping their goal safe hasn't been nearly as easy. They looked horrendous against Uruguay, and will need help and a win against France if they want a chance to get out of the group stage. I can't see either of those happening.
6) Say what you want about the Swiss getting lucky, or the Spanish slipping up yesterday. The one thing I took from the two group H matches yesterday is that Chile is a force to be reckoned with. It's not far-fetched to say that if they play their next two group stage matches like they played their first one against Honduras, they could come away with the full 9 points. They absolutely dominated possession, and looked fabulous both in attack and defense. The attack was definitely the highlight of the Chilean team, though, and let it be know that their attack was missing their top scoreer Humberto Suazo, who is not only Chile's top scorer, but was the top scorer in all of South American Qualifying. They could easily have beaten Honduras by 5 or 6 goals, and should really be kicking themselves because they didn't get control of the ever-important goal differential. They looked certainly more fluid than the Spanish team that prides itself on fluid, possessing football. Every Spanish chance was snapped up either by the Swiss defense or by their keeper Diego Benaglio. I think the Swiss lose to Chile, probably 1-0, but beat Honduras and take 6 points to the knockout rounds. As for Chile, if they play like they did yesterday, they will get all 9 points, leaving Spain unsatisfied with presumably only 3 points, those coming from the match against Honduras.
7)Agree completely about the Jabulani. Somehow Adidas has convinced themselves that they've created the best ball ever, but it's just odd. The ball seems to get dramatically less spin on it than a normal ball, and as a consequence, floats. I agree with you completely - the Jabulani sucks.
8) People who hate soccer can just keep to themselves. The truth of the matter is, soccer is the sport of choice for pretty much the entire world, and if you can't at least respect that, then there's no hope.
9) Refereeing for the most part has been fantastic, yes. And I agree that the Cahill red card was incredibly harsh. One note on Ronaldo, though. He deserved a yellow card at some point in that match. For one, you could clearly see him yelling obscenities at the referee in replays. The more important thing, though, is his uncanny ability to fall over every 3 minutes. I think the commentators put it very well when they said "I think just a gust of wind would be enough to make Ronaldo go to ground". I was incredibly disappointed in his constant diving, and I think that if he hadn't gotten a yellow earlier in the match, he would definitely have deserved one for all the obvious dives.
10) Incredible quote. Best of the tourney so far.
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