believe me good will come

poor old England…

Doomed manager Sven-Goran Eriksson faces a striker crisis. England expects 20-year-old super freak Wayne Rooney to recover from a broken foot and blast them to glory. He will recover, but won’t have played for six weeks by the time he gets a start in the latter, harder stages of the competition. Left up front is bored prima donna Michael Owen returning from injury and a journeyman, Peter Crouch, on the verge of being found out. The stunning call-up of 17-year-old striker Theo Walcott, who has never played a premiership game and who displaces fit and in-form options, is surely mad Swede Sven-Goran’s revenge on the English. – Listener, 10/06/2006, pp. 27-8.

Saturday morning (New Zealand time). I met up with some Argentinian friends and we headed to the Sportscafe for the biggest game of the World Cup so far. Argentina vs Germany. We arrived just before 2:00am and joined the 150-or-so people already queuing to get in. The national anthems were under way when we finally got through the doors. The crowd in the Sportscafe was split roughly 60:40 in favour of Argentinian supporters. And the first half of the game followed that ratio – Argentina dominated, with at least 60% of the possession. Argentina scored shortly into the second half. Argentinian chants echoed around the Sportscafe and there were Argentinians jumping and dancing all around me. The German supporters sat there stone-faced.

And then it all went horribly wrong [for Argentina]. They subbed off midfielder Riquelme and striker Crespo and started playing more defensively. Around the same time, Abbondanzieri, Argentina’s first-choice goalkeeper, went off injured. Germany equalised and came alive. At fulltime it was 1-1. Germany kept playing well as the game went into extra time. Nobody scored and it came down to penalties. Argentina had to rely on their second-choice goalkeeper. Lehmann, Germany’s keeper, pulled off two brilliant saves. Germany won. I walked home with a bunch of very depressed Argentinians.

[although it's a pity there won't be an Argentina-Brazil final, it's good that Germany are still in it, seeing as they're hosting the tournament...]

The Czech Republic should be there. As should Spain, who managed to self-destruct again. I was hoping one of the African or small South American teams would make the final eight, but it was not to be.

The quarterfinals take place this weekend:

Germany vs Argentina at 5:00pm on Friday (3:00am Saturday New Zealand time)
Italy vs Ukraine 9:00pm on Friday (7:00am Saturday NZT)

England vs Portugal at 5:00pm on Saturday (3:00am Sunday NZT)
Brazil vs France at 9:00pm on Saturday (7:00am Sunday NZT)

The Germany-Argentina and Brazil-France games will be massive. It’s likely that the winners of those quarterfinals will meet in the final (although nothing’s ever likely at the World Cup…).

The second day of the World Cup went off without any of the fan violence some had feared.

German riot police with dogs converged on Frankfurt’s Roemerberg square on Sunday as drinking fans grew rowdy, but no major incidents of violence were reported. Far-right extremists, chanting “Foreigners out”, marched in the World Cup host city Gelsenkirchen, but they were outnumbered by opposing demonstrators, who pelted them with fruit.  - The Dominion Post, 12/06/2006, p. D10.

My first World Cup memory was seeing Italy’s Roberto Baggio send the ball soaring over the bar in the penalty shootout of the 1994 final:

I watched the 1998 final, in which Zinedine Zidane tore the Brazilians apart. I saw a lot more of the 2002 World Cup, due to the more beneficial time difference between New Zealand and Japan/South Korea.

But I think I’ve already seen more of this World Cup than any of the previous ones. And there have been some great games. Two big upsets have been Ecuador beating Poland 2-0, and Ghana (ranked 50th in the world) beating the Czech Republic (ranked 2nd) 2-0. The USA held Italy to a 1-1 draw. Argentina destroyed Serbia-Montenegro 6-0.

Here’s who I think should make the final four, based on the games played so far:

- Ecuador
- Germany
- Argentina
- Brazil
(Spain is also looking good)

And the ideal final would be Argentina vs. Brazil

[New Zealand are presently ranked 120th in the world, ahead of Lebanon, but behind Turkmenistan...]

Last Saturday evening, the All Black’s season got underway as they played Ireland. I’m guessing around a million, maybe two million people tuned in to see the game. Meanwhile, in the early hours of Saturday morning (New Zealand time; Friday evening German time) I was one of over 1.5 billion people around the world who watched the opening game of the 2006 Football World Cup (that’s more than 20% of the world’s population).

The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. Television coverage of the 2006 tournament will reach more than 200 countries with a projected cumulative viewing audience of 32.5 billion.