Well everyone has played now and the second round of games are well under way.  We are starting to see teams settle in and express themselves.  The last few games have also had a few odd decisions on the parts of the officials.  Last Thursday saw a few odd results, Nigeria were beaten by the 2004 European champions Greece, which was disappointing, we all want the African nations to excel in this, the first World Cup held in Africa.  That same day saw Mexico beat France, that result has to go down as a very poor one, especially when you consider the performance.  It was lackluster to say the very least.  They desperately needed a goal and the subs seemed to be having a chat behind the goal line, rather than warming up properly and trying to get on.  That implied there was disharmony in the camp, what happened over the weekend, however, speaks of a camp in total disarray, we shall come to that later.  Thursday also saw Argentina beat South Korea 4-1 in a game that had the first World Cup hat-trick in eight years, scored by Gonzalo Higuain.  I knew Argentina wouldn’t let me down.  This performance seemed to kick start the whole tournament as other teams began to be inspired and raise their game.

Friday was a great day for the finals.  Three really interesting encounters that didn’t disappoint.  Germany had started their campaign so well but came unstuck against Serbia, not only losing 1-0 but having Klose sent off and missing a penalty.  If that didn’t wake you up the game of Slovenia versus the USA must have.  The USA were favourites going into this and having already secured a draw against England they must have felt that their time had come.  However, Slovenia went 2-0 up by half time and the USA looked out of it, not only behind but being outplayed.  I don’t know what Bob Bradley said to his troops at half time but boy did it work.  Landon Donovan, who was at loan at Everton last season, scored two minutes after the break and that seemed to inject the USA with belief, they equalised through Michael Bradley with less than ten minutes remaining and should have won when a perfectly good goal was disallowed in injury time.  What a wonderful come back.  After those two matches I was all set up to see England take on Algeria, what a snore fest that turned out to be. England were as flat as a pancake, no ideas, no one willing to take control of the midfield, dreadful stuff.

Saturday opened with a 1-0 scoreline between the Netherlands and Japan.  Holland’s Wesley Sneijder proving the difference, as he so often does for Inter.  Holland were not up to their best in this one and will have to improve if they have any hopes of winning the Cup for the first time in their distinguished history.   After that Ghana drew 1-1 with Australia.  In this one Australia’s Harry Kewell, an ex-Liverpool man, was sent off for hand ball.  In my opinion this was more than a little harsh and the Ghanaians can consider themselves a little lucky to take a point.  The evening game saw Cameroon take on Denmark.  Denmark tried to help out their opponents by gifting them an opener but they managed to come from behind to win a World Cup game for the first time.  The equaliser came from a most beautiful 60 yards pass out of defence and a peach of a cross that Bentner put away.  This was the first Arsenal goal of the finals and what a goal it was too.  Unfortunately the winner means that the Cameroon became the first team to be knocked out of the competition.

Yesterday saw Paraguay beat Slovakia 2-0 in a decent game that kept your attention, it was however, totally out done by the two games that followed.  The holders, Italy, were held to a 1-1 draw by New Zealand, and I was pleased they did.  It’s great to see the form book turned inside out and having let Italy back level with a penalty the New Zealand players held on admirably, I was delighted for them.  At the end they celebrated as though they had won the whole thing.  Marvelous.  It was the evening game that caught the eye though.  The might of Brazil taking on Africa’s best team, in my opinion, the Ivory Coast.  This game had it all, wonderful Brazilian flair, bad refereeing decisions and a little Oscar winning performance to boot.

The game ended 3-1 to Brazil, however, although Brazil had their moments there is still room for improvement, which says a lot about how good they can play.  Luis Fabiano scored a brace, unfortunately upon replay, his second was more like basketball than football.  What looked like two pieces of wonderful skill turned out to be two handballs.  His first however, was a cracker.  Kaka was quiet all night but players of that caliber only need a moment to change things and with a little pass and go Kaka put Fabiano through on goal, the keeper never saw it till he turned to pick it out of his net, wonderful stuff.  Kaka was at it again in the second half, suddenly coming to life and putting Elano through.  Drogba got one back for the Africans but the scoreline wasn’t the headline.  Kaka saw red for two yellow cards.  The first was fair enough but the second as a travesty.  As far as I am concerned this yellow card (and hence red) shows up all that is wrong with the game and FIFA need to get involved with a serious ban.  Kaka did not foul Keita in any way shape or form.  Keita ran into him and Kaka just protected himself with his arm, Keita went down holding his face and one of the best players in the world was sent off and will miss at least one game, it was a disgrace on the sport.

Today’s fixtures are Portugal v North Korea, Chile v Switzerland and Spain v Honduras but before I leave you let’s have a little look back at the French, as promised.

I have already spoken about the France Mexico game during which the French squad seemed disinterested.  I am no fan of French coach Raymond Domenech, he is one of those international managers that insists on playing your top players for 90 minutes in some unimportant friendly game, with no concern for their clubs, who pay their wages.  This will be the last competition he manages the French team and I bet right now he wishes he had retired before the tournament rather than after.  It all began when Chelsea’s Anelka reportedly had a few choice words for the manager in the dressing room, Anelka was subsequently sent home by the French FA.  As if losing one of your best players wasn’t bad enough, it all went a little overboard yesterday when the French players arrived at the training ground only to hand their manager a letter and get back on their bus.  Domenech read the letter to the waiting media, it basically said that the players were going to boycott training that day in support of Anelka.  The main part of the statement read:

All the players in the French squad without exception wish to affirm their opposition to the decision taken by the French Football Federation to exclude Nicolas Anelka

It seems the players feel that the decision was based on media reports and not on any investigation into the incident.  As if that wasn’t enough, the plot thickens.  The team liaison officer, Jean-Louis Valentin quit his post saying:

I am ashamed, I am leaving immediately for Paris…..What has happened is a scandal for the federation, for the French team and for the whole country. They do not want to train, it is unacceptable

When we had our problems with Roy Keane in 2002 the team still trained and still put their all into the competition, the French supporters will be hoping that their current crop of players follow suit.  The whole thing is an embarrassment.  It will be interesting to see how they fair tomorrow against the hosts.

So the World Cup is hotting up, most of the big teams are starting to pick up the pace and we will have more teams joining the likes of Brazil and Holland in the last 16 soon enough.  I can’t wait to see how it all pans out.

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Update:  Portugal won 7-0 and Chile won 1-0

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