The political Crisis in Ivory Coast.
Why do these leaders try to hand on to power for such a long time?
First there was Kenyan, then Zimbabwe and now the Republic of Ivory Coast.In each of these countries we are seeing former leaders that have lost elections in the polls and do not want to relinquish power. In Zimbabwe and Kenya both of the former presidents, who clearly lost elections to their opponents succeeded in hanging on by relinquishing a little bit of their power. In the case of Zimbabwe, President Mugabe who was defeated in the elections is now complaining that the power sharing deal with Morgan Tsvangirai is not working out. He should step down, he lost the presidential elections there. The current political crisis is now the one in Ivory coast, where Laurent Gbagho who had been president for ten years lost a run off election to opposition candidate Allassane Ouattarra. The UN elections committee in place in Ivory Copast says that the election which to them was fair and transparent was won by the opposition leader. He got about 54 percent of the votes compared to 46 percent for the incumbent ruler. The question to be asked now is why do these leaders hang on to power after being around for such a long time?
To me the main reason has to be the fact that true democracy is not yet established in the continent. Before the Presidential elections in Ivory coast, President Laurent Gbagho was making promises to the military that if he wins they would benefit from his stay in office. Also that if he goes down, they go down with him. Thus victory for the individual is the focal point of the elections and the welfare of the country is secondary. In a truly democratic system, leaders come into power with a clear agenda and promises are made to the population in general and not to a special branch of the society.
The presence of a powerful military is also a major factor. Military coups are still taking place in the continent and the ruler who succeeds in getting the military behind him usually gets to stay around for a while.
The African Union seems to have learn from its mistake of backing the power sharing deals in both Kenya and Zimbabwe.In the current situation they have lined up with the rest of the world in agreement that Laurent Gbagho should go.The United Nations,the Europeans Union and other regional bodies such as ECOWAS are all bent on seeing the defeated leader step down from power. He though does not want to step down because in my opinion he is afraid of payback. That is what happens in a system in which leaders go into power for their personal benefit. While in power, those people that support him benefit to the detriment of the rest of the population. For him to step down means that his backers would go through a period of economic hardship. What is tricky in this Ivorian situation is that it is an internal issue. Elections are rigged in different parts of the world and all external bodies can do is call for the defeated person to step down. In other words whether the UN,AU,or Europeans forces go in to try and get Laurent Gbagho out of Ivory Coast would depend on his hold on the country. He has the military backing and that is a key strength for him. Does the rest of the world want to see Ivory Coast go back into another civil war?.It is a complicated issue. The Nigerian government has come out and say that they would provide the incumbent president with an exile home in their country .I doubt whether he would accept such a deal . Charles Taylor stepped down as President in a deal that included a safe haven for him in Nigeria. He is now in the Hague fighting charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
History suggest that President Gbagho is going to stay and fight for power because being President of Ivory Coast has become his livelihood. He does not intent to go live anywhere else after being in charge of Ivory Coast for ten years.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
हाउ जापान इस देअलिंग विथ थे इकनॉमिक Crisis
Japan has not been witnessing any major economic growth for a while now so when news come out last week that their economy shrunk by 12.70 percent for the last three quarters it took a lot of people by surprise. The nikkei is at around 7500 compare to its heyday when it hit 40000 in the late 1980s.The Japanese economy relies heavily on its export and with the global economic crisis a lot of countries are just not buying what is coming out of the Japanese factory. Their current crisis is like the worse since the second world war.From their auto industry to their electronic corporations the slowdown here is all over the place.This economy has witness a 12 percent shrink in the past two years which is amazing for an economy which is ranked second in the world.The prime minister of Japan was the first to visit President Barack Obama in the white house and both leaders vowed to avoid protectionism as a means to solve their economic problems.The Japanese economy shrank by 12.1 in the fourth quarter of the year 2008.The Japanese are taking the US approach to try and save some companies by bailing them out instead of letting the market decides who stays on in the playing field.Their bailout package was about 158trillion yen if I am not mistaking.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Some solutions
The technology for road construction is already out there and there is a lot of local companies that can get the job done. Give the local guys the chance to get the work done.One of the things that I find out once I got back is that there are people that are trained with all the knowledge to get things done, they are just not given the chance to get it done.
The Problems
The first one has to be the one of road infrastructure. There is a saying that build a good road and development would follow and that applies to the society here also. The roads would help to transport a lot of the raw materials that the country produces, getting them into the markets. The transportation problem gets serious especially during the periods when there is rainfall.
Corruption. This one is present in all societies and that is not any different in this one. I seems to be more pronounce here though. Personally I am going by just stories that I have heard. I have not personally being involved in any grand scale corruption activity. But from what people are saying it is the other of the day here. People get arrested after the act and some get thrown into jail but the money is never recovered. Just one example a lot of projects that are to be executed never get off the ground because somebody has ran away with the money or the projects are poorly executed because the funds that are allocated to the project are never used for the project at all.
Looking Outside for Solutions.
Third world countries have to start being less dependent on foreign aid. One of the saddening things to me is each time that I look on TV and see some third World leading happily shaking arms shaking hands after coming into an agreement to receive foreign aid. Technologically the third world is lagging behind but their are things that third world countries know how to do and they should concentrate on doing just that. If they are good in agriculture then they should concentrate to be the best in agriculture and move forward from there. If they are good in planting producing raw materials then that is what they should be doing. Raw materials might include things like oil, gas,copper and other mineral resources.
Bureaucracy is another of the problems facing meaning that to get a simple thing like getting paid once the government hires you, you have to go through a lot of ministries and wait for periods that run about a year before you receive your first paycheck. Also pensioners, people who have retired from work have to wait at times for periods of up to five years before that can start receiving their pensions. There is something called chasing your documents. It involves you actually going from one office to another to get work done that should have been done without your presence.
Corruption. This one is present in all societies and that is not any different in this one. I seems to be more pronounce here though. Personally I am going by just stories that I have heard. I have not personally being involved in any grand scale corruption activity. But from what people are saying it is the other of the day here. People get arrested after the act and some get thrown into jail but the money is never recovered. Just one example a lot of projects that are to be executed never get off the ground because somebody has ran away with the money or the projects are poorly executed because the funds that are allocated to the project are never used for the project at all.
Looking Outside for Solutions.
Third world countries have to start being less dependent on foreign aid. One of the saddening things to me is each time that I look on TV and see some third World leading happily shaking arms shaking hands after coming into an agreement to receive foreign aid. Technologically the third world is lagging behind but their are things that third world countries know how to do and they should concentrate on doing just that. If they are good in agriculture then they should concentrate to be the best in agriculture and move forward from there. If they are good in planting producing raw materials then that is what they should be doing. Raw materials might include things like oil, gas,copper and other mineral resources.
Bureaucracy is another of the problems facing meaning that to get a simple thing like getting paid once the government hires you, you have to go through a lot of ministries and wait for periods that run about a year before you receive your first paycheck. Also pensioners, people who have retired from work have to wait at times for periods of up to five years before that can start receiving their pensions. There is something called chasing your documents. It involves you actually going from one office to another to get work done that should have been done without your presence.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
स्पेन अरे वर्ल्ड Champions
How the 2010 South Africa World Cup played out.
The first round of the competition started with a few complains about the ball and the Vuvuzelas. The Vuvuzelas is an instrument that is blown as part of the entertainment during soccer matches in South Africa. Both the field players and the goal-keepers complained about the ball and we saw a few very strange ball bounces. For the Vuvuzelas, they were said to be very noisy by the players and they disturb during the game. Fifa though made a decision to keep the Vuvuzelas. It was part of the South African tradition and they were the people who were hosting the world cup.
When the preliminary round was over, one of the major news was that only one of the six African teams made it out of the first round. Major disappointment indeed, considering the fact that this was suppose to be their world cup. The other major news was that the defending world cup champions, Italy did not make it out of the first round. The South Americans did very well in the first round with all five teams from the continent advancing from the group stages. Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay advanced as group leaders.
From group A , Uruguay turned out to be the better of the four teams with their major victory coming when they defeated home side South Africa by 3 goals to nil in their second outing. The rest of their match results were 0-0 tie with France and a one nil victory over Mexico.
Mexico was the second qualifier from this group after securing a two nil victory over France in match day two. They tie their first game against South Africa, one nil and lost their last game to Uruguay.
France was the major disappointment from this group. They had a lot of problems before and during their brief stay in the competition. The first problem was with their coach, Raymond Domenech. The players complained about his team selection when he did not call up players like Benzema into the squad. There was talk about his lack of class in how he deals with the players in general. This came from some reputable past players in the French national team. There was distraction from the Sports Minister who complained about the choice of Hotel selected by the French team. Her complain was that whereas teams like Spain and the Dutch were staying in University dormitories, the French team selected a five star hotel. Personally, I did not see any problem with their hotel selection. The players make and generate a lot of money and a five star hotel is not out of their affordable range. I thought the French though could have made a coaching change after Euro 2008.This is the reasoning behind that decision. There was a time when the French national team was not a major force in world soccer and you could make an excuse about continuity in the coaching staff. That time had passed though. France won Euro 1984 and recently the 1998 world cup and Euro 2000. They thus stand as one of the favorite nations going into any major competition. What nations that have this status do when they fail to get out of the first round as the French did in Euro 2008 is make a coaching change. Raymond Domenech himself could have offered to resign in my opinion. He had taken the team as far as he could in making the world cup finals in 2006 in Germany. The team played poorly despite a number of talented players that they had in their squad. A 0-0 outing against Uruguay was followed by a two nil defeat by Mexico and a last match two to one defeat to host nation South Africa. They ended up scoring a total of one goal in their three matches in a group that they were suppose to come out of with ease.
Host nation South Africa, I thought was going to have a hard time coming out of this group and after a 1-1 tie with Mexico in their first game, they went down 3-0 to Uruguay and beat France by 2 goals to nil to save honor. They thus became the first host nation of a World cup to fail to get out of the preliminary round.
from group B, Argentina advanced with ease as I thought they would. They got all nine points in the round, beating Nigeria 1-0, South Korea 4-1 and Greece 2-0 in their last match of the round. They did all of this without getting a goal from their ace Fifa player of the year, Messi. They thus quickly got their status back as one of the favorites to win the competition.
South Korea emerged as the second qualifier of this group. They opened up with an impressive 2-0 victory over Greece and despite losing their next match by 4-1 to favorite Argentina; they bounced back with a 2-2 tie with Nigeria to advance with a total to four points.
Greece got a third place finish in the group, bouncing back from a 2-0 defeat to South Korea to surprise the Super Eagles with a 2-1 defeat. Despite losing their last match, the got rid of the tag of never winning a world cup game in the history of participating in the competition.
Nigeria was a disappointment to me in this group. I thought they should have advance just behind the South Americans. But this was the Super-Eagles and after a heroic 1-0 defeat to Argentina, they fail to beat Greece in a match in which they were the favorites. Their last match ended in a 2-2 tie with South Korea that left them with just one point out of a total of nine. The team, I thought lacked a play maker in the mid-field and they squandered a lot of scoring chances. They got rid of their local coach that got them qualification into the world cup after easing out Tunisia. The guy they choose to replace him though was a strange choice. They got a Norwegian coach that had not done a lot with his home team, thinking a foreign coach would get them far into the competition. I am always surprise when the African nations always go out and spend a lot of money on a foreign coach and dump their local coaches when it comes to major competitions. I strongly believe that the players are the ones that would win the African nations cup or the World cup for you. There are a lot of coaches out there in all the major sporting events. But very few of them are what you can call difference makers. That is having the ability to turn a team around in a hurry. Of all the six African teams that made it to this world cup, only Algeria stayed with a local coach and they got better results than the team from Cameroon. Ghana so far in the competition seems to be the exception.
From group C, England and the USA advanced. Those were my picks to get out of this group. There were some surprises though.
The USA ended up as head of the group. That was a surprise to me. I figured them as the runners-up team. They played great though and got their campaign into great gear with a 1-1 tie with group favorite England. They drew 2-2 with Slovenia in their next match in which they came from down 2-0 to tie the game and even won it with a third goal that the referee strangely refused with an outside call. Their third match was a tough one against a resilient Algerian side in which Donovan got an extra time lone goal to get the USA its qualification into the knockout stages and first place in the group.
England advanced as runners-up, which had to be a surprise to a lot of people. On paper they looked very impressive and a lot of people picked them as one of the teams with a great chance of winning this world cup. A 1-1 tie with the USA which they blamed on a goalkeeping error was followed by a 0-0 sleeper with Algeria. They had to beat Slovenia in their last match to advance, which they did 1-0.In finishing second from this group though, the English created a lot of problems for themselves. They got a knockout game date with the Germans in a show down which I thought was going to happen in the semi-finals stage of the competition. The English team in this competition reminds me of the Dutch team during the 1990 world cup. They got into the competition as one of the clear favorites and a slow start also got them a date with the Germans in the 8th finals.
Slovenia got knock out of the preliminary stage of the competition with a third place finish.
Algeria got a point out of the competition. Their team showed a lot of fighting spirit but lack ideas going up front.
From group D, Germany and Ghana advanced as I thought they would.
The Germans started with an impressive 4-0 thrashing of Australia. Then they surprise a lot of people by losing one nil to Serbia. Klose got a strange sending off in this match and they played a major part of the game with just ten men. They then had to beat Ghana to advance, which they did and ended up topping the group with six points. The Germans looked impressive and despite dropping three points to Serbia, is still one of the favorites to go deep into the competition.
Ghana got second place in this group but made tough work out of the event. They got a great opening game victory over Serbia in a game which I thought could have gone either way. Their second match against Australia though was the strange one. They went in as favorite and got a lucky break when one of the Australians was sends off. They failed to take advantage though, and ended up with a come from behind 1-1 tie. So instead of booking their qualification in the second game, the Ghanaians had to look for help from the Australian team and hope that they do not concede a lot of goals against the Germans. That is exactly what happened. Australia surprised Serbia and Ghana conceded just one goal in its defeat against the Germans. They become the lone African team to make it out of the group stages in this world cup. Looking forward, the Ghanaian team plays very organized, but they have a problem scoring goals.
Serbia, I think was the unlucky team in this group. They did the tough part of the work in the group by beating the mighty Germans,then unexpectedly fell 1-2 to Australia in a game in which a victory could have given them qualification.
Australia has their opening defeat to the Germans to blame for their early exit in the competition. They bounced back well to pick up four points that was not enough to see them through into the knock out stages of the competition.
From group E, it was Holland and Japan that qualified.
Holland was the class of the group as expected and they breeze through without dropping a point, beating Denmark 2-0, Japan 1-0 and Cameroon 2-1.
Japan was a surprise second in the group because of report of their poor form leading into the competition.They got their qualification though with an opening 1-0 victory over Cameroon,a one to zero setback to Holland and a convincing 3 to 1 victory over Denmark in their last outing.
Denmark, I thought would be the team competing with Cameroon for the second spot. They started with a 2-0 loss to Holland. Bounced back with a 2-1 victory over Cameroon and then surprising fell to Japan in the last match to get knocked out of the competition.
Cameroon was one of the African teams that were supposed to go far into the competition. I picked them to finish second in this group just behind Holland. The team had problems qualifying for the world cup in the first place picking up just one point out of a possible four to start their qualifying campaign. Coach Paul Le Guen was brought in from France and he did a wonderful job to get the team to qualify for the world cup. That did not solve the problems that the team had though. The African nation’s cup saw them go out in the quarter finals stage but there was high hopes going into the world cup. Those hopes were shattered though as the team fell 0-1 to Japan, 1-2 to Denmark and then 1-2 to Holland to exit the competition with a total of zero points. They became the first team to be eliminated in this world cup. French sports television channel “Infosport” must have repeated “le Cameroun est le premier pays a etre éliminé de ce mondiale” about a hundred times. The lions failed to pick up a point for the first time in their six world cup appearances. Who to blame? Back home people were blaming the coach. There was an awesome news conference just after the Lions lose their first game of the competition against Japan. One of the journalists asked Paul Le Guen what they Cameroonian people have to do to get a victory for his team. They said that he has secured a huge salary for himself, big bonuses for his players and excellent working conditions for his team. It was quite fun seeing the replay later on TV. I do not think that the coach is the problem though. The team needs some talented players. You look at the mid field position and there was no play maker there. The entire team consisted of players that are based overseas and there in lies some of the problem. Soome of the African players that play in teams overseas are forced to play out of their original positions. You have a talented offensive midfielder like Mbia who has been forced first to play as a holding midfielder and later on as a defense man. The team needs to grow some local talent but there is also a draw back in that because the local league is poorly run. No infrastructure, poorly paid players and an eroding fan base.
From group F, Paraguay and Slovakia advanced into the knock out stages of the competition.
Paraguay qualified well from the South American zone and after holding Italy in their opening match to a one all tie, went on to defeat Slovakia by 2 goals to nil and played a goalless tie with New Zealand to finish head of group.
Slovakia was the surprise second team to qualify. After an opening 1-1 draw with underdog New Zealand, they went on to draw one all with New Zealand and then pull the shocker of the competition by beating Italy 3-2 in a thriller that saw the defending world champions out of the competition.
New Zealand finish third in this group and that to me is a good overall result from this team. They picked up points against all three teams in their group and finished ahead of the Italians in a group in which people expected them to finish dead last.
The Italians got a lot of negative press at home before heading to South Africa and the press turned out to be right.The Italian press put it this way."You are going into a world cup final with no Del Piero, no Francesco Toti,and no Luca Toni".In their thinking those were too many nos. I thought the Italians were not going to repeat as world champions, but never in my wildest dreams did I see them being knocked out of the opening rounds and to finish dead last in their group. They started out slowly with a one all tie with Paraguay, then got another one all tie with New Zealand and then came the 2-3 shock lost to Slovakia. After the first two draws, I was not worried because the Italians are traditional slow starters in some of their world cup competitions,picking up steam as the competition rolls along. It was a shame to see them exist so soon though because they bring a lot of excitement into the world cup with their large fan base and combative style of play.
From group G, Brazil and Portugal advanced to the group stages.
The Brazilians are one of the favorites to carry home the main prize and everybody expected them to finish head of group which they did. An opening 2-1 victory over North Korea was followed by a 3-1 defeat of Ivory Coast and later on a goalless tie against Portugal,giving them 7 out of a possible 9 points. Their victory over Ivory Coast though was tainted with a controversial second goal that saw Luis Fabiano controlled the ball twice with his hands before hitting it to the back of the net. Play maker Kaka also got a red card in a very tensely contested match.
The Portuguese finished second in this group with an opening 0-0 tie with Ivory Coast. They put a lot of their problems behind them with a 7-0 thrashing of North Korea that saw Cristiano Ronaldo scored for the first time in two year for his country. They then pulled out a goalless tie with Brazil for their last match in this group of death.
Ivory Coast carried some of the African hopes going into the competition, but I thought they got a tough break being pulled into this group. A goalless tie with Portugal, a 1-3 defeat to Brazil and 3 goals to zero defeat of North Korea saw them exiting the competition with their heads held high but still falling short of expectations.
North Korea ended up last in this group falling 1-2 to Brazil, 0-7 to Portugal and then 0-3 to Ivory Coast.
From group H, Spain and Chili advanced into the next stage of the competition.
Spain headed the group with six points. The surprise here was that they drop three points to Switzerland in their opening game of the competition. A 2-0 victory over Honduras and a 2-1 victory over Chili saw them through.
Chili to me was the surprise of this group. They opened with two victories to head the group before falling to Spain in their last match to finish second. I thought that they lose a little bit of their cool in that game and that is what cost them first place in this group.
Switzerland pulled the big upset over Spain and raised all types of hope about qualifying. They then went on to lose 1-0 to Chili and finish their last game with a 0-0 tie with Honduras to finish third in this group.
Honduras had a decent competition despite their last place finish. Their high point was holding Switzerland to a goalless tie thus preventing them from advancing into the group stages.
Round of Sixteen
The break down of the teams that made it to the quarterfinals looked like this. Five teams out of a total of 13 from Europe, one team out of six from Africa, two teams out of three from the North American zone, a perfect five out of five teams from South America and two teams out of five teams from the Asian zone.
For this knockout stage of the competition,the results were as follows; Uruguay –South Korea:2-1,Ghana-USA:2-1,Germany-England:4-1,Argentina-Mexico:3-1,Holland-Slovakia2-1,Spain-Portugal:1-0,Brazil-Chili:3-0,Paraguay-Japan:0-0:5-3 penalty kicks,.
Uruguay got both of its goals from Suarez to see it through to the quarterfinals of the competition. South Korea gave them a tough battle, with a tie of the game in the second half at one all before the late Uruguay winner.
The Ghana-USA match-up was a much anticipated one especially in the African Continent were the Ghanaians happened to be the lone African team to make it into this stage of the competition. Boateng opened the scoring in the tenth minute in a beautiful goal that held up through the first half until late in the second half. Loudon Donovan equalized for the US and the match ended up in a one all tie during regulation. Thirty minutes of extra time was added and it is during the first 15 minutes that star player Gyan scored with a left foot strike to give the Ghanaians the victory. They thus became the third African team to advance into the quarterfinals of the World cup after Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002.
The Germany-England showdown turned out to be a thrashing by the Germans. England’s slow start in the preliminary rounds got them this match up that I though was going to happen maybe in the semi-finals stage of the competition. The Germans started fast with goals from Klose and Podolski in the early first half to put them up two nil. The English team came back though with a good header from Mathew Upson to cut the lead to 2-1. Then controversy set into the match. A great long distance strike from Frank Lampard hit the cross bar, then cross the line for what was to be the equalizer. Both the referee and the linesmen did not see the ball which television replay showed clearly crossed the line. The English would argue that with a 2-2 tie they could have return from the locker room with more confidence. There has been talk about introducing video replay into the game but for the next world cup, Fifa has opted to go with extra-linesmen instead. That to me would not solve the problem.
Anyway the Germans came into the second half and got two goals from Thomas Muller to put the game out of reach of the English. Final score 4-1.Overall, controversy aside the Germans were the better side. England with all their star players never did get into this world cup that they were favored to win. Disappointed, yes I am pretty sure that the England fans are disappointed.
Argentina got two goals from Carlos Tevez, the second one a long distance beauty to get up two nil in the first half. Higuan Gonzalez added a third in the second half to make it 3-0 before Mexico reduced the score-line to 3-1. Mexico put up a good show but I think they just got beat by a better team.
The Dutch got their goals from Ajen Robben in the first half and Wesley Sneijder in the second to go up two nil. A late Vittek penalty kick made it final score 2-1.I listened to this one over the radio. Going into the match, I thought that the Dutch were going to win it.
Spain got a lone goal from David Villa to give them a deserving one nil victory over Portugal. This game was dominated by Spain who monopolized possession of the ball. The Spaniards are going to be difficult to beat because of their style of play and this game was a clear example. The Portuguese did not see a lot of the ball and they had few scoring chances. The Portuguese team still has the same problem that it had going into Euro-2008 and that is their star player plays the role of a striker. The problem with this is that he needs other players to supply him with the ball and without seeing a lot of balls, the Portuguese were dead in this match. You look at the last generation of Portuguese players and their main star man was Luis Figo who played in the mid-field position. He thus could create goals for himself as well as create for his teammates which he did with all the attention that he was getting in the mid-field. Just look at the Spanish team and though David Villa has been the star player for the Spaniards, you cannot concentrate on him. Xavi Hernandez and Iniesta are the ones doing all of the damage from the mid-field position.
Brazil continued their world cup run with goals from Guan, Robinho and Luis Fabiano to beat Chili 3-0 in a match that they completely dominated. They showed speed, great ball possession and organization in advancing to the quarterfinals stage of the competition. After this display a lot of people were thinking about handing over the trophy to them. I happened to be one of those supporters.
The Paraguay-Chili game, I listened to this one over the radio. The game ended up in a 0-0 tie during regulation and extra-time still did not produce a goal. The dreaded penalty shoot-out separated the teams with Paraguay netting all their penalty kicks and Japan missing one out of the four that they took. 5 goals to 3 was the final score of the game after penalty shoot outs
Round of Eight
The teams that met for the quarterfinals were as follows, Holland versus Brazil, Uruguay versus Ghana, Argentina versus Germany and Spain versus Paraguay. So far into the competition we still have Ghana from Africa, Holland, Germany and Spain from Europe, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina from South America. The advantage has so far in the competition stayed with the South Americans with four teams, Europe has three remaining and Africa has one.
The first match up fitted the Dutch against Brazil.Going into this game I did not think that the Dutch team was going to be a problem for Brazil. Brazil was one of the super favorites and they had defeated the Dutch the last two times that they met in the knock out stages of the world cup. The Dutch got the victory though by 2 goals to one. They would move on to play Uruguay in a winnable semi-finals game on Tuesday the 7th of July that could see them make the finals of the competition for the first time since 1978.The best soccer playing nation never to have won the world cup. That might just be about to change. Getting into the game itself, for some reason the Brazilians seemed agitated during the start of the match. Robinho was angry at the referee during the early part of the first half and that continued during the second half. The Brazilians got an early goal ruled out for offside and then a Robinho opening goal in the 10 minute that beat the offside trap. Score line was one goal to nil in favor of Brazil. They continued to dominate the Dutch but there was something missing from the Brazilians. They were missing a lot of combination passes that they easily put together against Chili. They went into the break though still leading by a goal to nil. In the second half though, the Dutch woke up big time. Wesley Sneijder got in their first goal from a free kick which the Brazilians were giving away a lot. Bastos was very guilty in this department and even picked up a yellow card and Dunga their coach wisely substituted him though late into the second half before he could pick up a red card. This first goal by the Dutch saw the usually cool Julio Ceasar come out of his line and totally missed the in coming ball with a defender up his face. Things were to get worse. Sneijder added a second in the 63 minute of play and the Brazilian team started to panic, I think. In their past two world cup match ups in 1994 and 1998, it was the Dutch that had to play from behind to tie the game. In 1994 they came down from 2-0 to tie before losing 2-3 after a Branco winner. In 1998, Brazil went up 1-0 early in the first half and the Dutch did not get their equalizer until in the late 80 minutes of play in that game. The match went into a goal less extra time and then penalty shootout that the Brazilians won.
In this 2010 world cup game, after the Dutch went up 2-1, the Brazilians just seem to run out of ideas. Felipo Lopez made things worse for his side by committing a bad foul that got him thrown out of the game with 15 minutes left in regular play. Each time the Brazilians got the ball into the Dutch side of the field, there were at least five Dutch players surrounding the attacking player. During the dying minutes of this game, it even looked like the Dutch did not want to add on to their score-line. The place that I was watching the game had for some strange reason turned into a Dutch crowd. People complained that the Brazilians had already painted their streets ready for the winning parade.So did the Brazilians deserved their tag going into this competition as superfavorites.On paper yes,but they failed to show that during the match in which they were eliminated.If you are wondering how then should a superfavorite exict a world cup final look at the teams upset defeat to Italy in 1982 and to France in 1986.It took something extraordinary from the opposing team to get the Samba boys out of those world cup competitions.
For the Ghana versus Uruguay match up,the Ghanaians got the game going with a tenth minute goal from their Inter-Milan player, Mountari. The teams took turns dominating the match that went into the break with Ghana up 1-0.Uruguay equalized through a Diego Forlan beauty of a free kick. That got his tally to three goals in the competition. Play ended though at 1-1 after 90 minutes. The Ghanaians were headed for their second extra-time play to try and advance into the next stage of this world cup competition. The first part of the extra-time came and went with few scoring chances from both teams,but it was during the second part of the extra-time that the Ghanaians took control of the game. It was as if somebody had told them to avoid penalty shootouts. They dominated possession by a wide margin during this half and got the break that they needed to become the first African team to advance to the semi-finals of a world cup. It all happened during the last minute of the additional two minutes of added time. During a goal mouth struggle a Ghanaian header from close range was heading to the back of the net for what could have been their victory goal when star forward Luis Suarez from Uruguay used both of his hands to play the role of goalkeeper. Good new for the Ghanaians, right? WRONG. They were a number of ways in which Suarez action could have been good news for the Ghanaians. The first was if the game was in its earlier stages and the referee’s action of sending him off and awarding a penalty kick could have been great. Also I wonder whether earlier on in the game, Suarez does not let that ball go in. He gets to miss the semi-finals of the game and he could possibly get more suspension from Fifa. It could also have been good news for the Ghanaians if the penalty kick was converted. Star player Gyan, who had during earlier games converted twice from the penalty spot, step into this one and despite having the goal-keeper heading the wrong way, hit the crossbar with his kick. A lot of people thought that he hurried his kick. The game thus went into penalty shootouts. The out come of the penalty shootout justified why Ghana fought so had to win the game in extra time. They converted only two of the four penalty kicks that they took, while Uruguay converted on four out of the five kicks that they took. The final score was four goals to two in a game that would be remembered for a long time. Uruguay thus advances to the semi-finals stage of the world cup for the first time, I believe since 1970 in Mexico where they were eliminated by Brazil. Star man Gyan because of his youthful age of 24 I think does not for the moment realize what a great chance that he was presented with. There is a feeling when you are young to think that there would be more opportunities in the future but life does not work out that way. Moments like the one presented to this young man do not come often and I kind of feel bad for him. You look at the performances of Africans teams in the world cup and history is not on his side. Nigeria for example made it out of the world cup preliminary rounds in their first two outings in the finals but have struggled during their last two. Senegal, the second African team to make it to the quarterfinals stage of the competition, has not been to the world cup since. Cameroon, has been to the world cup finals,now for the six time. Their best performances though, came in their first two outings. Picking up three draws in 1982 and making the quarterfinals in their second outing in 1990. Since then, in their last four outings in the world cup, the lions have failed to advance past the group stages.
Ghana was making their second outing, a great one,after also making it out of the group stages in their first outing in 2006. It remains to be seen whether they ever get to repeat their performances in the past in another world cup final.
Germany beat Argentina by four goals to nil to advance to the semifinals and the Germans were one of my picks to make it this far. They got first half goals from klose and Muller and added two additional goals in the second half to complete the rout of Argentina. This score line is a little bit surprising to me considering the way that Argentina has been playing so far in the competition. Anyway the Germans completely dominated the match and they seem to be moving towards their fourth world cup title. In this match, I kind of felt bad for Argentina,with their proud legendary coach and admired the way that they held themselves throughout the match during the defeat. They did not resort to bad play or picking up silly red cards to try and disrupt the match.
Spain beat Paraguay one nil to advance to the semi finals where they would face Germany in what would be a rematch of their Euro-2008 meeting. The match itself was tough due to the manner in which the Paraguay team plays. Their philosophy seems to be to defend first and try to surprise the opponent on a counterattack. The match got some drama during the second period when Paraguay got a penalty kick in what could have given them the lead. Iker Casillas pull off a beauty of a save to keep the scores at 0-0. Moments later, it was Spain’s turn to get a penalty kick that Alonso converted initially but the penalty kick was refused because he came to a complete stop before converting it. His second attempt was stopped by the keeper. David Villa settled things though for Spain in the 83 minute of play, slotting in a rebound from an Iniesta attempt that had hit the goal post.
Semi-finals stage of the Competition.
The four teams that made it to the semi-finals were Germany, Holland, Uruguay and Spain.So for the break down into the various continents, Europe had three teams remaining while the South Americans had one left.The Europeans had thus turned around what in the quarterfinals stage of the competition seems like a South American show into a European show. For the South Americans, though they still had Uruguay left in the competition, the last round had to be a disaster to them. Favorites Brazil and Argentina had been humbled together with sleeper Paraguay.
The first semi-finals saw tournament surprise run team Uruguay going against a confident Dutch team. The Dutch open scoring early through Van Bronckhorst after 18 minutes of play through a long distance beauty of a goal that held until the 43rd minute when Uruguay star man Diego Forlan stroke in an equalizer from around 25 meters away from the goals post to tie the scoring. The Dutch stepped up pressure in the second half and got goals from Wesley Sneijder and Ajen Robben to go up 3 goals to one and put them in a good position to make it to the finals. Things got interesting though when Uruguay pull one back in extra-time to make the score 3 to 2. That is where it ended and the Dutch are heading to their third finals in the history of the world cup and their first since they were there in 1978 in Argentina.
The second semi-finals was a rematch of Europe 2008 finals that saw Germany play against the Republic of Spain. The score in that game was one goal to nil in favor of Spain and the score of the rematch ended in the same manner,one goal to nil also in favor of Spain. For some reason,it seems as if Spain does not bring out the best in the German national team.In this particular world cup semi-finals the German team did not come out firing as they did against Argentina in the quarterfinals. They created few scoring chances, like zero in the first half of play. Spain dominated possession of the ball as they have been doing throughout this competition and got their winning goal in the second half of play through a Puyol header in around the seventy minutes of play. They could have gotten a second, but Pedro opted to go for glory by himself instead of passing the ball to a wide open Fernando Torres. Fernando Torres has not been having a great time in this world cup and the coach brought him in later in the game as a sub. Anyway it is all set for an all European final between Holland and Spain. Both teams would be trying to get their first world cup triumph. This would be Hollands third final and Spains first in world cup play. So with Spain meeting Holland in the final a trend has been broken that was in place since 1966 when the winner of the world cup has alternated between a European and a South American team. This was suppose to be the year of the South Americans,but things did not work out quite well for them.Good thing that they get to host the next competition in four years time in Brazil.
Third place match
The third place game is the small finals and it fitted Germany against Uruguay. With the pressure of winning the world cup out of the way the teams produce some attractive play and the game ended in a 3 to 2 victory for Germany. Germany got goals from this world cup new find, Thomas Muller in the first half and from Jansen and Ghedira in the second half.Uruguay got its goals from Diego Forlan and Giovanni for their 2 goal scoreline.
The Final Match
The final turned out to be a tense affair. Part of that was due to the fact that the game went into extra time before a winner could be decided. Spain ended up winning the game in extra time, through a 116 minute strike from man of the match Andres Iniesta. Holland had to adjust their style of play in this match, because the Spaniard refuse you access to the ball. They resorted to some hard fouls and they paid for that when John Heitinga was sent off in the second period of extra time. Holland,I think, had some chances to win the game in regulation. Two misses from Arjen Robben, one of them really unbelievable that could have given the Dutch the lead. They thus returned home as runners up for the third time in the history of the competition.
Spain are world champions and rightly so in this competition. They too had chances to win the game in regulation and missed them. They did step up their game though during the extra period of play and they deserve the goal that they got to win the match.
How do the Spaniards compare though to recent world cup champions?I would put them in the same category like the Italians four years earlier in 2006.They were very solid in defense, conceding just two goals through the course of the competition.They won though without scoring a lot of goals or doing something extraordinary for which they would be remembered,managing just 8 goals in winning the competition. So their shortcoming has to be lack of explosiveness. The team though plays very attractive soccer, moving forward all the time. They did not resort to any type of negative play throughout all their matches and totally dominated possession of the ball. That was their trademark.
The Awards
Best young player of the tournament went to German forward, Thomas Muller. He also got the golden boots award for his five goals scored. He was tied in this category with Diego Forlan, David Villa and Wesley Sneijder, but he had a better assist rate compared to his rivals. Diego Forlan got best player of the tournament. I for one think that Iniesta of Spain should have gotten it for delivering the trophy for his country. Forlan had a wonderful tournament, taking his underdog team all the way to the semi-finals. But he missed out of the finals though, and except in a case were somebody has an extraordinary tournament; I think that the best player of the competition should go to a player who participates in the final match of the competition.
The first round of the competition started with a few complains about the ball and the Vuvuzelas. The Vuvuzelas is an instrument that is blown as part of the entertainment during soccer matches in South Africa. Both the field players and the goal-keepers complained about the ball and we saw a few very strange ball bounces. For the Vuvuzelas, they were said to be very noisy by the players and they disturb during the game. Fifa though made a decision to keep the Vuvuzelas. It was part of the South African tradition and they were the people who were hosting the world cup.
When the preliminary round was over, one of the major news was that only one of the six African teams made it out of the first round. Major disappointment indeed, considering the fact that this was suppose to be their world cup. The other major news was that the defending world cup champions, Italy did not make it out of the first round. The South Americans did very well in the first round with all five teams from the continent advancing from the group stages. Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay advanced as group leaders.
From group A , Uruguay turned out to be the better of the four teams with their major victory coming when they defeated home side South Africa by 3 goals to nil in their second outing. The rest of their match results were 0-0 tie with France and a one nil victory over Mexico.
Mexico was the second qualifier from this group after securing a two nil victory over France in match day two. They tie their first game against South Africa, one nil and lost their last game to Uruguay.
France was the major disappointment from this group. They had a lot of problems before and during their brief stay in the competition. The first problem was with their coach, Raymond Domenech. The players complained about his team selection when he did not call up players like Benzema into the squad. There was talk about his lack of class in how he deals with the players in general. This came from some reputable past players in the French national team. There was distraction from the Sports Minister who complained about the choice of Hotel selected by the French team. Her complain was that whereas teams like Spain and the Dutch were staying in University dormitories, the French team selected a five star hotel. Personally, I did not see any problem with their hotel selection. The players make and generate a lot of money and a five star hotel is not out of their affordable range. I thought the French though could have made a coaching change after Euro 2008.This is the reasoning behind that decision. There was a time when the French national team was not a major force in world soccer and you could make an excuse about continuity in the coaching staff. That time had passed though. France won Euro 1984 and recently the 1998 world cup and Euro 2000. They thus stand as one of the favorite nations going into any major competition. What nations that have this status do when they fail to get out of the first round as the French did in Euro 2008 is make a coaching change. Raymond Domenech himself could have offered to resign in my opinion. He had taken the team as far as he could in making the world cup finals in 2006 in Germany. The team played poorly despite a number of talented players that they had in their squad. A 0-0 outing against Uruguay was followed by a two nil defeat by Mexico and a last match two to one defeat to host nation South Africa. They ended up scoring a total of one goal in their three matches in a group that they were suppose to come out of with ease.
Host nation South Africa, I thought was going to have a hard time coming out of this group and after a 1-1 tie with Mexico in their first game, they went down 3-0 to Uruguay and beat France by 2 goals to nil to save honor. They thus became the first host nation of a World cup to fail to get out of the preliminary round.
from group B, Argentina advanced with ease as I thought they would. They got all nine points in the round, beating Nigeria 1-0, South Korea 4-1 and Greece 2-0 in their last match of the round. They did all of this without getting a goal from their ace Fifa player of the year, Messi. They thus quickly got their status back as one of the favorites to win the competition.
South Korea emerged as the second qualifier of this group. They opened up with an impressive 2-0 victory over Greece and despite losing their next match by 4-1 to favorite Argentina; they bounced back with a 2-2 tie with Nigeria to advance with a total to four points.
Greece got a third place finish in the group, bouncing back from a 2-0 defeat to South Korea to surprise the Super Eagles with a 2-1 defeat. Despite losing their last match, the got rid of the tag of never winning a world cup game in the history of participating in the competition.
Nigeria was a disappointment to me in this group. I thought they should have advance just behind the South Americans. But this was the Super-Eagles and after a heroic 1-0 defeat to Argentina, they fail to beat Greece in a match in which they were the favorites. Their last match ended in a 2-2 tie with South Korea that left them with just one point out of a total of nine. The team, I thought lacked a play maker in the mid-field and they squandered a lot of scoring chances. They got rid of their local coach that got them qualification into the world cup after easing out Tunisia. The guy they choose to replace him though was a strange choice. They got a Norwegian coach that had not done a lot with his home team, thinking a foreign coach would get them far into the competition. I am always surprise when the African nations always go out and spend a lot of money on a foreign coach and dump their local coaches when it comes to major competitions. I strongly believe that the players are the ones that would win the African nations cup or the World cup for you. There are a lot of coaches out there in all the major sporting events. But very few of them are what you can call difference makers. That is having the ability to turn a team around in a hurry. Of all the six African teams that made it to this world cup, only Algeria stayed with a local coach and they got better results than the team from Cameroon. Ghana so far in the competition seems to be the exception.
From group C, England and the USA advanced. Those were my picks to get out of this group. There were some surprises though.
The USA ended up as head of the group. That was a surprise to me. I figured them as the runners-up team. They played great though and got their campaign into great gear with a 1-1 tie with group favorite England. They drew 2-2 with Slovenia in their next match in which they came from down 2-0 to tie the game and even won it with a third goal that the referee strangely refused with an outside call. Their third match was a tough one against a resilient Algerian side in which Donovan got an extra time lone goal to get the USA its qualification into the knockout stages and first place in the group.
England advanced as runners-up, which had to be a surprise to a lot of people. On paper they looked very impressive and a lot of people picked them as one of the teams with a great chance of winning this world cup. A 1-1 tie with the USA which they blamed on a goalkeeping error was followed by a 0-0 sleeper with Algeria. They had to beat Slovenia in their last match to advance, which they did 1-0.In finishing second from this group though, the English created a lot of problems for themselves. They got a knockout game date with the Germans in a show down which I thought was going to happen in the semi-finals stage of the competition. The English team in this competition reminds me of the Dutch team during the 1990 world cup. They got into the competition as one of the clear favorites and a slow start also got them a date with the Germans in the 8th finals.
Slovenia got knock out of the preliminary stage of the competition with a third place finish.
Algeria got a point out of the competition. Their team showed a lot of fighting spirit but lack ideas going up front.
From group D, Germany and Ghana advanced as I thought they would.
The Germans started with an impressive 4-0 thrashing of Australia. Then they surprise a lot of people by losing one nil to Serbia. Klose got a strange sending off in this match and they played a major part of the game with just ten men. They then had to beat Ghana to advance, which they did and ended up topping the group with six points. The Germans looked impressive and despite dropping three points to Serbia, is still one of the favorites to go deep into the competition.
Ghana got second place in this group but made tough work out of the event. They got a great opening game victory over Serbia in a game which I thought could have gone either way. Their second match against Australia though was the strange one. They went in as favorite and got a lucky break when one of the Australians was sends off. They failed to take advantage though, and ended up with a come from behind 1-1 tie. So instead of booking their qualification in the second game, the Ghanaians had to look for help from the Australian team and hope that they do not concede a lot of goals against the Germans. That is exactly what happened. Australia surprised Serbia and Ghana conceded just one goal in its defeat against the Germans. They become the lone African team to make it out of the group stages in this world cup. Looking forward, the Ghanaian team plays very organized, but they have a problem scoring goals.
Serbia, I think was the unlucky team in this group. They did the tough part of the work in the group by beating the mighty Germans,then unexpectedly fell 1-2 to Australia in a game in which a victory could have given them qualification.
Australia has their opening defeat to the Germans to blame for their early exit in the competition. They bounced back well to pick up four points that was not enough to see them through into the knock out stages of the competition.
From group E, it was Holland and Japan that qualified.
Holland was the class of the group as expected and they breeze through without dropping a point, beating Denmark 2-0, Japan 1-0 and Cameroon 2-1.
Japan was a surprise second in the group because of report of their poor form leading into the competition.They got their qualification though with an opening 1-0 victory over Cameroon,a one to zero setback to Holland and a convincing 3 to 1 victory over Denmark in their last outing.
Denmark, I thought would be the team competing with Cameroon for the second spot. They started with a 2-0 loss to Holland. Bounced back with a 2-1 victory over Cameroon and then surprising fell to Japan in the last match to get knocked out of the competition.
Cameroon was one of the African teams that were supposed to go far into the competition. I picked them to finish second in this group just behind Holland. The team had problems qualifying for the world cup in the first place picking up just one point out of a possible four to start their qualifying campaign. Coach Paul Le Guen was brought in from France and he did a wonderful job to get the team to qualify for the world cup. That did not solve the problems that the team had though. The African nation’s cup saw them go out in the quarter finals stage but there was high hopes going into the world cup. Those hopes were shattered though as the team fell 0-1 to Japan, 1-2 to Denmark and then 1-2 to Holland to exit the competition with a total of zero points. They became the first team to be eliminated in this world cup. French sports television channel “Infosport” must have repeated “le Cameroun est le premier pays a etre éliminé de ce mondiale” about a hundred times. The lions failed to pick up a point for the first time in their six world cup appearances. Who to blame? Back home people were blaming the coach. There was an awesome news conference just after the Lions lose their first game of the competition against Japan. One of the journalists asked Paul Le Guen what they Cameroonian people have to do to get a victory for his team. They said that he has secured a huge salary for himself, big bonuses for his players and excellent working conditions for his team. It was quite fun seeing the replay later on TV. I do not think that the coach is the problem though. The team needs some talented players. You look at the mid field position and there was no play maker there. The entire team consisted of players that are based overseas and there in lies some of the problem. Soome of the African players that play in teams overseas are forced to play out of their original positions. You have a talented offensive midfielder like Mbia who has been forced first to play as a holding midfielder and later on as a defense man. The team needs to grow some local talent but there is also a draw back in that because the local league is poorly run. No infrastructure, poorly paid players and an eroding fan base.
From group F, Paraguay and Slovakia advanced into the knock out stages of the competition.
Paraguay qualified well from the South American zone and after holding Italy in their opening match to a one all tie, went on to defeat Slovakia by 2 goals to nil and played a goalless tie with New Zealand to finish head of group.
Slovakia was the surprise second team to qualify. After an opening 1-1 draw with underdog New Zealand, they went on to draw one all with New Zealand and then pull the shocker of the competition by beating Italy 3-2 in a thriller that saw the defending world champions out of the competition.
New Zealand finish third in this group and that to me is a good overall result from this team. They picked up points against all three teams in their group and finished ahead of the Italians in a group in which people expected them to finish dead last.
The Italians got a lot of negative press at home before heading to South Africa and the press turned out to be right.The Italian press put it this way."You are going into a world cup final with no Del Piero, no Francesco Toti,and no Luca Toni".In their thinking those were too many nos. I thought the Italians were not going to repeat as world champions, but never in my wildest dreams did I see them being knocked out of the opening rounds and to finish dead last in their group. They started out slowly with a one all tie with Paraguay, then got another one all tie with New Zealand and then came the 2-3 shock lost to Slovakia. After the first two draws, I was not worried because the Italians are traditional slow starters in some of their world cup competitions,picking up steam as the competition rolls along. It was a shame to see them exist so soon though because they bring a lot of excitement into the world cup with their large fan base and combative style of play.
From group G, Brazil and Portugal advanced to the group stages.
The Brazilians are one of the favorites to carry home the main prize and everybody expected them to finish head of group which they did. An opening 2-1 victory over North Korea was followed by a 3-1 defeat of Ivory Coast and later on a goalless tie against Portugal,giving them 7 out of a possible 9 points. Their victory over Ivory Coast though was tainted with a controversial second goal that saw Luis Fabiano controlled the ball twice with his hands before hitting it to the back of the net. Play maker Kaka also got a red card in a very tensely contested match.
The Portuguese finished second in this group with an opening 0-0 tie with Ivory Coast. They put a lot of their problems behind them with a 7-0 thrashing of North Korea that saw Cristiano Ronaldo scored for the first time in two year for his country. They then pulled out a goalless tie with Brazil for their last match in this group of death.
Ivory Coast carried some of the African hopes going into the competition, but I thought they got a tough break being pulled into this group. A goalless tie with Portugal, a 1-3 defeat to Brazil and 3 goals to zero defeat of North Korea saw them exiting the competition with their heads held high but still falling short of expectations.
North Korea ended up last in this group falling 1-2 to Brazil, 0-7 to Portugal and then 0-3 to Ivory Coast.
From group H, Spain and Chili advanced into the next stage of the competition.
Spain headed the group with six points. The surprise here was that they drop three points to Switzerland in their opening game of the competition. A 2-0 victory over Honduras and a 2-1 victory over Chili saw them through.
Chili to me was the surprise of this group. They opened with two victories to head the group before falling to Spain in their last match to finish second. I thought that they lose a little bit of their cool in that game and that is what cost them first place in this group.
Switzerland pulled the big upset over Spain and raised all types of hope about qualifying. They then went on to lose 1-0 to Chili and finish their last game with a 0-0 tie with Honduras to finish third in this group.
Honduras had a decent competition despite their last place finish. Their high point was holding Switzerland to a goalless tie thus preventing them from advancing into the group stages.
Round of Sixteen
The break down of the teams that made it to the quarterfinals looked like this. Five teams out of a total of 13 from Europe, one team out of six from Africa, two teams out of three from the North American zone, a perfect five out of five teams from South America and two teams out of five teams from the Asian zone.
For this knockout stage of the competition,the results were as follows; Uruguay –South Korea:2-1,Ghana-USA:2-1,Germany-England:4-1,Argentina-Mexico:3-1,Holland-Slovakia2-1,Spain-Portugal:1-0,Brazil-Chili:3-0,Paraguay-Japan:0-0:5-3 penalty kicks,.
Uruguay got both of its goals from Suarez to see it through to the quarterfinals of the competition. South Korea gave them a tough battle, with a tie of the game in the second half at one all before the late Uruguay winner.
The Ghana-USA match-up was a much anticipated one especially in the African Continent were the Ghanaians happened to be the lone African team to make it into this stage of the competition. Boateng opened the scoring in the tenth minute in a beautiful goal that held up through the first half until late in the second half. Loudon Donovan equalized for the US and the match ended up in a one all tie during regulation. Thirty minutes of extra time was added and it is during the first 15 minutes that star player Gyan scored with a left foot strike to give the Ghanaians the victory. They thus became the third African team to advance into the quarterfinals of the World cup after Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002.
The Germany-England showdown turned out to be a thrashing by the Germans. England’s slow start in the preliminary rounds got them this match up that I though was going to happen maybe in the semi-finals stage of the competition. The Germans started fast with goals from Klose and Podolski in the early first half to put them up two nil. The English team came back though with a good header from Mathew Upson to cut the lead to 2-1. Then controversy set into the match. A great long distance strike from Frank Lampard hit the cross bar, then cross the line for what was to be the equalizer. Both the referee and the linesmen did not see the ball which television replay showed clearly crossed the line. The English would argue that with a 2-2 tie they could have return from the locker room with more confidence. There has been talk about introducing video replay into the game but for the next world cup, Fifa has opted to go with extra-linesmen instead. That to me would not solve the problem.
Anyway the Germans came into the second half and got two goals from Thomas Muller to put the game out of reach of the English. Final score 4-1.Overall, controversy aside the Germans were the better side. England with all their star players never did get into this world cup that they were favored to win. Disappointed, yes I am pretty sure that the England fans are disappointed.
Argentina got two goals from Carlos Tevez, the second one a long distance beauty to get up two nil in the first half. Higuan Gonzalez added a third in the second half to make it 3-0 before Mexico reduced the score-line to 3-1. Mexico put up a good show but I think they just got beat by a better team.
The Dutch got their goals from Ajen Robben in the first half and Wesley Sneijder in the second to go up two nil. A late Vittek penalty kick made it final score 2-1.I listened to this one over the radio. Going into the match, I thought that the Dutch were going to win it.
Spain got a lone goal from David Villa to give them a deserving one nil victory over Portugal. This game was dominated by Spain who monopolized possession of the ball. The Spaniards are going to be difficult to beat because of their style of play and this game was a clear example. The Portuguese did not see a lot of the ball and they had few scoring chances. The Portuguese team still has the same problem that it had going into Euro-2008 and that is their star player plays the role of a striker. The problem with this is that he needs other players to supply him with the ball and without seeing a lot of balls, the Portuguese were dead in this match. You look at the last generation of Portuguese players and their main star man was Luis Figo who played in the mid-field position. He thus could create goals for himself as well as create for his teammates which he did with all the attention that he was getting in the mid-field. Just look at the Spanish team and though David Villa has been the star player for the Spaniards, you cannot concentrate on him. Xavi Hernandez and Iniesta are the ones doing all of the damage from the mid-field position.
Brazil continued their world cup run with goals from Guan, Robinho and Luis Fabiano to beat Chili 3-0 in a match that they completely dominated. They showed speed, great ball possession and organization in advancing to the quarterfinals stage of the competition. After this display a lot of people were thinking about handing over the trophy to them. I happened to be one of those supporters.
The Paraguay-Chili game, I listened to this one over the radio. The game ended up in a 0-0 tie during regulation and extra-time still did not produce a goal. The dreaded penalty shoot-out separated the teams with Paraguay netting all their penalty kicks and Japan missing one out of the four that they took. 5 goals to 3 was the final score of the game after penalty shoot outs
Round of Eight
The teams that met for the quarterfinals were as follows, Holland versus Brazil, Uruguay versus Ghana, Argentina versus Germany and Spain versus Paraguay. So far into the competition we still have Ghana from Africa, Holland, Germany and Spain from Europe, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina from South America. The advantage has so far in the competition stayed with the South Americans with four teams, Europe has three remaining and Africa has one.
The first match up fitted the Dutch against Brazil.Going into this game I did not think that the Dutch team was going to be a problem for Brazil. Brazil was one of the super favorites and they had defeated the Dutch the last two times that they met in the knock out stages of the world cup. The Dutch got the victory though by 2 goals to one. They would move on to play Uruguay in a winnable semi-finals game on Tuesday the 7th of July that could see them make the finals of the competition for the first time since 1978.The best soccer playing nation never to have won the world cup. That might just be about to change. Getting into the game itself, for some reason the Brazilians seemed agitated during the start of the match. Robinho was angry at the referee during the early part of the first half and that continued during the second half. The Brazilians got an early goal ruled out for offside and then a Robinho opening goal in the 10 minute that beat the offside trap. Score line was one goal to nil in favor of Brazil. They continued to dominate the Dutch but there was something missing from the Brazilians. They were missing a lot of combination passes that they easily put together against Chili. They went into the break though still leading by a goal to nil. In the second half though, the Dutch woke up big time. Wesley Sneijder got in their first goal from a free kick which the Brazilians were giving away a lot. Bastos was very guilty in this department and even picked up a yellow card and Dunga their coach wisely substituted him though late into the second half before he could pick up a red card. This first goal by the Dutch saw the usually cool Julio Ceasar come out of his line and totally missed the in coming ball with a defender up his face. Things were to get worse. Sneijder added a second in the 63 minute of play and the Brazilian team started to panic, I think. In their past two world cup match ups in 1994 and 1998, it was the Dutch that had to play from behind to tie the game. In 1994 they came down from 2-0 to tie before losing 2-3 after a Branco winner. In 1998, Brazil went up 1-0 early in the first half and the Dutch did not get their equalizer until in the late 80 minutes of play in that game. The match went into a goal less extra time and then penalty shootout that the Brazilians won.
In this 2010 world cup game, after the Dutch went up 2-1, the Brazilians just seem to run out of ideas. Felipo Lopez made things worse for his side by committing a bad foul that got him thrown out of the game with 15 minutes left in regular play. Each time the Brazilians got the ball into the Dutch side of the field, there were at least five Dutch players surrounding the attacking player. During the dying minutes of this game, it even looked like the Dutch did not want to add on to their score-line. The place that I was watching the game had for some strange reason turned into a Dutch crowd. People complained that the Brazilians had already painted their streets ready for the winning parade.So did the Brazilians deserved their tag going into this competition as superfavorites.On paper yes,but they failed to show that during the match in which they were eliminated.If you are wondering how then should a superfavorite exict a world cup final look at the teams upset defeat to Italy in 1982 and to France in 1986.It took something extraordinary from the opposing team to get the Samba boys out of those world cup competitions.
For the Ghana versus Uruguay match up,the Ghanaians got the game going with a tenth minute goal from their Inter-Milan player, Mountari. The teams took turns dominating the match that went into the break with Ghana up 1-0.Uruguay equalized through a Diego Forlan beauty of a free kick. That got his tally to three goals in the competition. Play ended though at 1-1 after 90 minutes. The Ghanaians were headed for their second extra-time play to try and advance into the next stage of this world cup competition. The first part of the extra-time came and went with few scoring chances from both teams,but it was during the second part of the extra-time that the Ghanaians took control of the game. It was as if somebody had told them to avoid penalty shootouts. They dominated possession by a wide margin during this half and got the break that they needed to become the first African team to advance to the semi-finals of a world cup. It all happened during the last minute of the additional two minutes of added time. During a goal mouth struggle a Ghanaian header from close range was heading to the back of the net for what could have been their victory goal when star forward Luis Suarez from Uruguay used both of his hands to play the role of goalkeeper. Good new for the Ghanaians, right? WRONG. They were a number of ways in which Suarez action could have been good news for the Ghanaians. The first was if the game was in its earlier stages and the referee’s action of sending him off and awarding a penalty kick could have been great. Also I wonder whether earlier on in the game, Suarez does not let that ball go in. He gets to miss the semi-finals of the game and he could possibly get more suspension from Fifa. It could also have been good news for the Ghanaians if the penalty kick was converted. Star player Gyan, who had during earlier games converted twice from the penalty spot, step into this one and despite having the goal-keeper heading the wrong way, hit the crossbar with his kick. A lot of people thought that he hurried his kick. The game thus went into penalty shootouts. The out come of the penalty shootout justified why Ghana fought so had to win the game in extra time. They converted only two of the four penalty kicks that they took, while Uruguay converted on four out of the five kicks that they took. The final score was four goals to two in a game that would be remembered for a long time. Uruguay thus advances to the semi-finals stage of the world cup for the first time, I believe since 1970 in Mexico where they were eliminated by Brazil. Star man Gyan because of his youthful age of 24 I think does not for the moment realize what a great chance that he was presented with. There is a feeling when you are young to think that there would be more opportunities in the future but life does not work out that way. Moments like the one presented to this young man do not come often and I kind of feel bad for him. You look at the performances of Africans teams in the world cup and history is not on his side. Nigeria for example made it out of the world cup preliminary rounds in their first two outings in the finals but have struggled during their last two. Senegal, the second African team to make it to the quarterfinals stage of the competition, has not been to the world cup since. Cameroon, has been to the world cup finals,now for the six time. Their best performances though, came in their first two outings. Picking up three draws in 1982 and making the quarterfinals in their second outing in 1990. Since then, in their last four outings in the world cup, the lions have failed to advance past the group stages.
Ghana was making their second outing, a great one,after also making it out of the group stages in their first outing in 2006. It remains to be seen whether they ever get to repeat their performances in the past in another world cup final.
Germany beat Argentina by four goals to nil to advance to the semifinals and the Germans were one of my picks to make it this far. They got first half goals from klose and Muller and added two additional goals in the second half to complete the rout of Argentina. This score line is a little bit surprising to me considering the way that Argentina has been playing so far in the competition. Anyway the Germans completely dominated the match and they seem to be moving towards their fourth world cup title. In this match, I kind of felt bad for Argentina,with their proud legendary coach and admired the way that they held themselves throughout the match during the defeat. They did not resort to bad play or picking up silly red cards to try and disrupt the match.
Spain beat Paraguay one nil to advance to the semi finals where they would face Germany in what would be a rematch of their Euro-2008 meeting. The match itself was tough due to the manner in which the Paraguay team plays. Their philosophy seems to be to defend first and try to surprise the opponent on a counterattack. The match got some drama during the second period when Paraguay got a penalty kick in what could have given them the lead. Iker Casillas pull off a beauty of a save to keep the scores at 0-0. Moments later, it was Spain’s turn to get a penalty kick that Alonso converted initially but the penalty kick was refused because he came to a complete stop before converting it. His second attempt was stopped by the keeper. David Villa settled things though for Spain in the 83 minute of play, slotting in a rebound from an Iniesta attempt that had hit the goal post.
Semi-finals stage of the Competition.
The four teams that made it to the semi-finals were Germany, Holland, Uruguay and Spain.So for the break down into the various continents, Europe had three teams remaining while the South Americans had one left.The Europeans had thus turned around what in the quarterfinals stage of the competition seems like a South American show into a European show. For the South Americans, though they still had Uruguay left in the competition, the last round had to be a disaster to them. Favorites Brazil and Argentina had been humbled together with sleeper Paraguay.
The first semi-finals saw tournament surprise run team Uruguay going against a confident Dutch team. The Dutch open scoring early through Van Bronckhorst after 18 minutes of play through a long distance beauty of a goal that held until the 43rd minute when Uruguay star man Diego Forlan stroke in an equalizer from around 25 meters away from the goals post to tie the scoring. The Dutch stepped up pressure in the second half and got goals from Wesley Sneijder and Ajen Robben to go up 3 goals to one and put them in a good position to make it to the finals. Things got interesting though when Uruguay pull one back in extra-time to make the score 3 to 2. That is where it ended and the Dutch are heading to their third finals in the history of the world cup and their first since they were there in 1978 in Argentina.
The second semi-finals was a rematch of Europe 2008 finals that saw Germany play against the Republic of Spain. The score in that game was one goal to nil in favor of Spain and the score of the rematch ended in the same manner,one goal to nil also in favor of Spain. For some reason,it seems as if Spain does not bring out the best in the German national team.In this particular world cup semi-finals the German team did not come out firing as they did against Argentina in the quarterfinals. They created few scoring chances, like zero in the first half of play. Spain dominated possession of the ball as they have been doing throughout this competition and got their winning goal in the second half of play through a Puyol header in around the seventy minutes of play. They could have gotten a second, but Pedro opted to go for glory by himself instead of passing the ball to a wide open Fernando Torres. Fernando Torres has not been having a great time in this world cup and the coach brought him in later in the game as a sub. Anyway it is all set for an all European final between Holland and Spain. Both teams would be trying to get their first world cup triumph. This would be Hollands third final and Spains first in world cup play. So with Spain meeting Holland in the final a trend has been broken that was in place since 1966 when the winner of the world cup has alternated between a European and a South American team. This was suppose to be the year of the South Americans,but things did not work out quite well for them.Good thing that they get to host the next competition in four years time in Brazil.
Third place match
The third place game is the small finals and it fitted Germany against Uruguay. With the pressure of winning the world cup out of the way the teams produce some attractive play and the game ended in a 3 to 2 victory for Germany. Germany got goals from this world cup new find, Thomas Muller in the first half and from Jansen and Ghedira in the second half.Uruguay got its goals from Diego Forlan and Giovanni for their 2 goal scoreline.
The Final Match
The final turned out to be a tense affair. Part of that was due to the fact that the game went into extra time before a winner could be decided. Spain ended up winning the game in extra time, through a 116 minute strike from man of the match Andres Iniesta. Holland had to adjust their style of play in this match, because the Spaniard refuse you access to the ball. They resorted to some hard fouls and they paid for that when John Heitinga was sent off in the second period of extra time. Holland,I think, had some chances to win the game in regulation. Two misses from Arjen Robben, one of them really unbelievable that could have given the Dutch the lead. They thus returned home as runners up for the third time in the history of the competition.
Spain are world champions and rightly so in this competition. They too had chances to win the game in regulation and missed them. They did step up their game though during the extra period of play and they deserve the goal that they got to win the match.
How do the Spaniards compare though to recent world cup champions?I would put them in the same category like the Italians four years earlier in 2006.They were very solid in defense, conceding just two goals through the course of the competition.They won though without scoring a lot of goals or doing something extraordinary for which they would be remembered,managing just 8 goals in winning the competition. So their shortcoming has to be lack of explosiveness. The team though plays very attractive soccer, moving forward all the time. They did not resort to any type of negative play throughout all their matches and totally dominated possession of the ball. That was their trademark.
The Awards
Best young player of the tournament went to German forward, Thomas Muller. He also got the golden boots award for his five goals scored. He was tied in this category with Diego Forlan, David Villa and Wesley Sneijder, but he had a better assist rate compared to his rivals. Diego Forlan got best player of the tournament. I for one think that Iniesta of Spain should have gotten it for delivering the trophy for his country. Forlan had a wonderful tournament, taking his underdog team all the way to the semi-finals. But he missed out of the finals though, and except in a case were somebody has an extraordinary tournament; I think that the best player of the competition should go to a player who participates in the final match of the competition.
Friday, May 14, 2010
South Africa 2010
The competition runs from the 11 of June 2010 through the 11 of July 2010 and it is the first time that it is being hosted on the African continent, in the Republic of South Africa. There are 32 teams in total and they are divided into eight groups made up of four teams each,group A through H.
Group A is made up of host country South Africa,Mexico,France and Uruguay.
France is one of my favorite teams.Everybody that follows the game would remember the controversial way in which they got into the final 32 with the infamous hand assist pass by star player Thierry Henry,but they got in anyway after a tough playoff against the Republic of Ireland.France had their break through year in the World cup in 1998 when they won the cup though they have been a good side for a long period of time. They won the European Cup of Nations in grand style in 1984 and twice made it to the semi finals of the World cup in 1982 and 1986.If you are looking for a great soccer video to purchase, head to a soccer store and demand their 1982 classic match with West Germany.The French team is in a transitional period right now in my opinion and I would be surprise if they make a great run deep into the competition. Their most current major trophy was the 2000 European Nations cup,known as the "Euro" which they won away in the Netherlands.
Mexico qualified just behind the USA.If you looking for some attractive soccer, watch the team from Mexico. They have never won the world cup, but they are a fun team to watch with a lot of passionate fans from this Latin American Nation.They usually are a safe bet to make it out of the preliminary rounds.
South Africa first hosted a major competition in 1996 and won it ,but that was the African Cup of nations. As host country they got an automatic bid and the International Football Federation,generally referred to as "Fifa" made them head of Group A. They are not particularly in great form of late, having failed to qualify for the African cup of nations that was played in Angola early this year. But with the home crowd behind them,they could pull out a couple of surprises.
Uruguay were the fifth team from the South American confederation to qualify for the world cup after a playoff win over Costa Rica. They have been World champions at two different occasions,first in 1930 and later on in 1950. Since then they have been a force in the South American continent,but not so strong at the World cup stage. It would be hard press for them to get out of this group.
So my picks to get out of this group are France and Mexico.
Group B has as head of group Argentina,then Nigeria,Greece and South Korea.
Argentina are two times world champions, first when they hosted the competition in 1978 winning it with players like Mario Kempes, Daniel Passarella and then they won the trophy again in 1986 with Diego Maradona carrying the team.So their most recent World cup triumph came when the tournament was hosted in Mexico.Argentina for some unknown reason struggled through qualification in a zone which they normally go through with relative ease. Diego Maradona is their coach and though a legend, a lot of people think that he was part of the problem in the qualification run.The team never had a steady set of players and some veterans who had retired from the national team had to be called in to help in the qualification process. The team has a lot of talent including world 2010 player of the year Lionel Messi.They play very attractive soccer and I am looking for them to pick up the slack of winning this world cup should their South American brother, the "Samba boys" from Brazil fail to do so.
Greece had that magical run in Euro-2004 during which they won it as a very long shot. Though they have not been able to match that magical performance, they are a tough out in any major competition. Their style of play does not attract a lot of fans, but they do get the results with some great defensive effort.
Nigeria is the African nation that I think would be the first to win a World cup if an African nation gets to win one.They have the character and the talent to do it. They have had great success in winning world championships at the under 20 age group, though the success has not translated into the senior team in the World cup stage. They won the soccer Olympic gold medal in Atlanta in 1996 and their best team to ever play in the world cup in my opinion was the Super Eagles that arrived the US in 1994.Two times champions of Africa,this would be their fourth World cup appearance and only once have they fail to make it out of the group stages. That was in 2002 when they were pulled in a very tough group that included Argentina,England and Sweden.The most recent outing of the Super-Eagles was during the African Cup of nations in January and they ended up third in a competition in which they were picked as one of the favorites to win the trophy. The fact that they failed to measure up well against eventual African Cup of nations winner, Egypt means that the super-eagles need to do a lot of work if they are going to make a great run at the first World cup to be hosted in the continent.
South Korea had their best run in the 2002 competition which they co-hosted with the Japanese,making it all the way to the semi-finals. My greatest memory of them is when they had a memorable game in Chicago stadium with the German side in the 1994 World cup competition. Down three goals to nil, they made a great comeback falling just short at 2goals to three.But they showed a lot of fight in that game and left the competition with a lot of respect from the soccer viewing world.
My picks to get out of this evenly matched teams are the Super-Eagles and Argentina.
Group C has England,USA,Algeria and Slovenia.
England is the nation that invented the game.I take that back,I believe it is Scots that invented the game. The English team last won a major trophy in 1966 which is a very long time ago. They made it to the world cup semi-finals in 1990 and recently it has been the quarterfinals at World cup competitions and home they go. Their most recent team that I like was the one in 1998 that lost to Argentina in penalty shootouts. That team I believe was unlucky and very talented. The recent team is very good in my opinion and they are going to be very dangerous in this world cup. Their Italian coach Fabio Capello brings in a lot of winning tradition from a European brother.The depth of this team is what I believe would take them a long way in this championship. They eased through qualifications and only lost to Croatia when they had their place in South Africa already booked.A lot of opinion both within the English community and outside of England belief that the current generation of players in this team have a chance of achieving what their counterparts in 1966 did and that if they fail to do so in this World cup final, it would be a very long time before they get such a great opportunity. This is how talented the current squad is.
Algeria would be making an appearance for the first time since 1982 in which they had that memorable victory over super favorite West Germany. They did not make it to the next round but they were only one of two African nations at the time that qualify for the world cup. The country went through a period of internal unrest and it is good to see them back on the international football scene. The internal unrest is behind them now and it seems as if they are getting their talent pool back together.We recently saw the Algerian team in the African cup of nations that took place in January in Angola and though they got a passing grade in the competition, finishing in fourth place, they have a lot of work to do. They are a disciplined side in the way they play, except when they are playing the Egyptian side against whom they completely unravel during that competition. The team needs some strike force up front in my opinion and would have to play very hard to get out of the preliminary stages of the world cup.
In the USA, soccer is not the primary sporting event but they have learn very well how to play the game. They qualified easily from the "Concacaf" zone in which Mexico seem to be their only real challenge.Their recent great run in a world cup final came in 2002 when they beat a talented Portuguese side on their way to making it out of the preliminary rounds.They play great when they have their backs to the wall. Look at their performance during the 2009 Confederations cup, when they came from losing their first two games to making it all the way to the semi-finals of that competition.
Slovenia got in after winning a tough home and away playoff with the Russians in which they were two goals down in the first leg and manage an away goal. All they needed to do then was to secure a one nil victory at home to qualify and that is exactly what they did.
From this group I would say that the USA and England would be making it out of the preliminary rounds.
Group D has Germany,Australia,Ghana and Serbia.
Germany are three times world champions in 1954,1974 and 1990.They also have been champions of Europe at three different occasion,1972,1980 and most recently in Euro-1996.That is six major competition triumph. You throw in their world cup runners-up in 1982,1986 and 2002 and "voila", you get quite an impressive resume. They come into most major competitions as one of the favorites to win it all and this one is no different. They have continuity in their coaching staff and the right blend of players to lift the trophy. Their main problem could be in the defensive area.
Australia made it out of the preliminary round in the last world cup competition, so they are not a light weight by any standard.They qualify from the Oceanic Zone.
Ghana made it out of the preliminary round in their World cup debut in 2006 and they are four times African Champions. I look for them to make it out of the preliminary rounds this time around also. They could even make a lot of noise if their key players can stay healthy going into the competition.They are current under twenty world champions and they have won at the under 17 level also, so it is a matter of transferring that talent to the senior level. Their current side is made up of quite a few players from the under 20 side that lifted the trophy that they hosted.In their most recent outing in a major competition, in January this year, they made it all the way to the finals with the youngest team in the competition. They fall just short of lifting the African Cup of nations for the fifth time in the history of that competition and their run in that competition would help them in this world cup final competition.
Serbia qualified in a group that had France in it,as head of the group.So unlike the French they did not have to go through a two game playoff to make it into the competition.
I like the Ghana team and the Germans to get out of this group.
Group E has the Netherlands, Denmark,the Republic of Cameroon and Japan.Apart from Holland, the group looks pretty balanced.
Holland are the best soccer playing nation in my opinion in the world never to have won the world cup. They came close in 1974 and 1978 as runners-up to the Republic of Germany and Argentina respectively. They also get to about the semi finals or quarterfinals before being knocked out in the years that they are in form. Look for them to be there around the semi finals nations.They have won a major trophy though, in 1988 with Van Basten, Raud Gaulit and co,that was hosted by the Germans.They are an attractive side to watch and have a lot of talented players. Their main problem going into major competitions has been infighting.When that is absent, the team is scary good. They breezed through qualifications without dropping a single point. Only the Spanish team matched that record in qualification.
Denmark won "Euro" 1992 when they did not even qualify for the competition.They came in as a replacement for then Yugoslavia that was going through sanctions from the international body.In the years that the Danes are in the World cup finals they seem to do pretty well. One of their most exciting teams showed up in Mexico in 1986 and dazzled a lot of fans before being knock out in the quarterfinals by Spain.
Cameroon is making their African record sixth appearance in the world cup stage and their best performance came in 1990 when they had that great run into the quarterfinals stage of the competition and they were responsible for Fifa increasing the number of teams from the continent to five teams from the start of the 1994 world cup competition. Their star man is current Inter forward Samuel Eto'o Fils.Though the team has made the most appearance from the African continent into the World cup finals, they have only once made it out of the group stages.The problems lie in different areas ranging from arguments over the payment of bonuses to not having the organization skill to match their talent on the playing field. Their current outing was in Angola during the African cup of nations this past January and they get out in the quarterfinals. A lot of fans back home were disappointed and the team seems to me to be still in transition right now. They have quite a few veteran players that the public had been screaming for the coaches to replace. The public got its wish in their recent outing with mixed results.They team show some improvement in the energy
department but some of the errors that the veteran players were committing, were duplicated by the younger replacements, whom the African Cup of nations showed needed some games under their belt to be able to fill in well for the veteran players. The coach, Paul Le Guen did some explanations after the African Cup of nations, and his ambition is to take this current set of lions to at least the quarterfinals of the competition. The indomitable lions are in a tough group and though they have some talented players in their team, it is going to be a tough world cup outing come June.
Japan was one of the first teams that qualified for the current world cup finals and they did well in 2002 when they co-hosted the World cup finals with South Korea. They have the ability to stay around with most teams and that is what makes them a very difficult opponent to deal with.
From this evenly matched group I like Holland and the Lions(with all their problems)to get out of the preliminary stage of the competition.
Group F has Italy,New-Zealand,Paraguay and Slovakia.
Italy are the defending world champions and they are four times winners of the World cup trophy.Their first three triumphs came in 1934,1938 and 1982 respectively.Though they won it the last time around, I think their most memorable side has to be the one in 1982.They came in as outsiders to super-favorites Brazil and Germany and won the trophy in grand style,getting better as the competition moved from one stage to the other.That has been the tradition of the Italian side. Get out of the preliminary rounds with a bit of a struggle and then turn into one of the tougher outs of the event. If you are looking for a classic video tape from their 1982 triumphant, there are two that you can get, the first one would be their final victory game over Germany. The second one though, their victory over Brazil that got them into the semi finals of the competition, is the real classic soccer video of the competition. One of the best of all times. This current Italian side,in my opinion is in transition.Their break though could come in the fact they got a very good draw from Fifa and though they might lack some attacking punch up front, their defense is good to see them through deep into the competition.
Slovakia would be making their first appearance in a major soccer tournament.They did qualify from a tough European qualification group.
Paraguay does not have any problem qualifying for the world cup competition. Their problem has been once they get into the World stage, they just do not perform as well as their other South American counterparts.This time around though they qualified well from their South American group and they have a very good chance in group F.
New Zealand are making a comeback into world cup play since their last appearance in the year 1982.I remember that team because they had quite an exciting head coach.
My picks to get out of this group would be Italy and Paraguay.
Group G is the group of death and it is made up of Brazil,Portugal,Ivory Coast and North Korea.
Brazil are five times world champions and for the moment I think this year they would make it their six world cup victory.This is my logic as to why they would be the winners this time around. The world cup is coming to Africa for the first time and each time that the competition has moved to a completely new venue this South American nation has won it. They did that in 1994 when the competition was played in the US for the fist time and they did it again in 2002 when the competition moved to South Korea and Japan. Also since 1966 the winner of this trophy has rotated between a South American team and a European team. England in 1966,Brazil in 1970,West Germany in 1974,Argentina in 1978,Italy in 1982,Argentina in 1986,Germany in 1990,Brazil in 1994,France in 1998,Brazil in 2002 and Italy in 2006.So look for a South American team this time around. Uruguay is the third South American team that has won the competition but they did it way back in 1930 and 1950. Recently it has been Brazil and Argentina doing it for the South Americans.I would say go with Brazil first and if they fail Argentina would pick up the slack.The Brazilian team won the 2009 Confederations cup in South Africa and though one might have a few complains about the talent pull not being as deep as some of their great teams in the pass,I think they have enough players and the right mental strength to get it done. They did not breeze through qualifications as say Spain or the Netherlands, but they got the
job done and that is the kind of the them that this current set of Samba boys is. Their coach is Dunga and he won the competition as team captain in 1994 and I think there is enough talent and fight in this side to see them all the way through. They also have a lot of fans in the African continent. Their fan base in the continent eclipse even that of the popular English and Spanish sides with leagues that are watch weekly through out the continent.
North Korea qualified from the oceanic zone and it is remarkable that they did considering all the problems that the country in going through both internally and with the international community. I think that they are the weaker team is this otherwise all around top to bottom tough group. I am not looking for them to get out of this group.
Ivory Coast is making their second straight world cup appearance and it is too bad that they had to be drawn into such a tough group.This happened to them in their last world cup appearance in 2006 in Germany in which they were grouped with Holland and Argentina and they failed to make it out of the group stages.The team with the most talent of the six African teams in the competition, their problem has been the right mental strength during major competitions. Champions of Africa in 1992,they have just come of age during this decade and they would have a lot of fight in their hands to get out of this group.In their most recent outing in a major competition, this January, they failed to live up to expectation, falling short of their second African cup of nations triumph in a 3-2 defeat to under-dog side Algeria. They have the talent on paper but would the current disappointments and being drawn in a tough world cup group,it could be a tough June 2010 for the team from Ivory Coast. If they needed motivation, they have it going into this competition, because they are not going in as favorites to win it and also because their disappointing outing at the African cup of nations outing this past January should be enough motivation for them.
Portugal started their world cup qualifying campaign really slow and had to go through a playoff to make the final 32.They are a very talented team with 2008 Fifa player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo in the squad.They would be battling in out
with Ivory Coast in my opinion for that second qualification spot behind Brazil.
When it is all played out, I would say that Portugal and Brazil would be getting out of this group of death.
Group H has Spain,Honduras, Switzerland and Chile.
Spain are the defending European champions and the team that they used to lift the European trophy in 2008 is pretty much intact. Look for them to make a pretty big run into the competition. I would not say they are going to lift the trophy just because they have not done so in the past. But they have to be one of the favorites. They would get support from the African continent where they have a lot of people tracking their star players.They breezed through qualification, picking up all the available points and they happen to be in the bottom half of the pairing with the other super-favorite of this competition, Brazil. Currently placed second on the Fifa world ranking, they are the most creative of all the teams present in this competition. That creativity is in their mid-fielders. The Spanish team is loaded with forward moving mid-fielders and those are the type of players that you need to win big competitions. The only problem that I have with the side is that if they get behind like they did in the Confederations cup against the US, a game they ended up losing, they tend to get down on themselves. They said, anything short of a semi-finals place would be a major disappointment for this talented side.
Switzerland are a crafty team, their last outing was in Euro 2008 when they co-hosted and failed to get out of the preliminary rounds, but this is the world cup,so look for some positive results from them.
Chile can play some attractive soccer. They qualified third out of the tough South American qualifying zone.
Honduras qualified third in the North American group behind the USA and Mexico.They have been in the world cup before though they did not make it out of the preliminary rounds.
My teams to get out of this group would be defending European Champions Spain and Chile.
Conclusion
The competition is a little bit loaded with more talented teams in the bottom half of the draw which is from group E through group H in my opinion.The reason I say that is because in this pairing you have top rank powerhouse Holland,defending world champions Italy,five times world champions Brazil and defending European champions Spain.You throw in Ivory Coast,Cameroon,Denmark and Portugal and you get a collection of teams from which this world cup winner would be coming from.The competition is being played in the African continent for the first time and people would be wondering how far an African team can progress into this world cup.Cameroon and Ivory are pretty good teams but they happen to be in the tougher part of the draw,so a quarterfinals place would be the extend of their run. Teams Nigeria,Ghana,South African and Algeria might not be the the top ranking teams from the continent,but they pulled a good break on the draw. So I would be looking for one of these teams to break through the quarterfinals stage of the competition. I am not so sure whether one of these teams would take the trophy, but a semi-finals or a finals place in the competition is possible.
So from the tough bottom part of the draw, when it is all played out, I would be looking at Spain and Brazil battling it out for a spot in the finals on July 11 2010.
In the top half of the draw, England and the Germany should be the teams standing
when it is all played out. If England wanted to make a great run into a world cup competition, this would be the one.The draw is favorable, the team is talented, they have a great coach and they have a great fan base in the African continent, where all eyes are glued each weekend on the television sets to watch the English premier league competition.
My winner though when it is all played out would be the Samba Boys from Brazil who would be crowned as World Champions for the Sixth time.
Group A is made up of host country South Africa,Mexico,France and Uruguay.
France is one of my favorite teams.Everybody that follows the game would remember the controversial way in which they got into the final 32 with the infamous hand assist pass by star player Thierry Henry,but they got in anyway after a tough playoff against the Republic of Ireland.France had their break through year in the World cup in 1998 when they won the cup though they have been a good side for a long period of time. They won the European Cup of Nations in grand style in 1984 and twice made it to the semi finals of the World cup in 1982 and 1986.If you are looking for a great soccer video to purchase, head to a soccer store and demand their 1982 classic match with West Germany.The French team is in a transitional period right now in my opinion and I would be surprise if they make a great run deep into the competition. Their most current major trophy was the 2000 European Nations cup,known as the "Euro" which they won away in the Netherlands.
Mexico qualified just behind the USA.If you looking for some attractive soccer, watch the team from Mexico. They have never won the world cup, but they are a fun team to watch with a lot of passionate fans from this Latin American Nation.They usually are a safe bet to make it out of the preliminary rounds.
South Africa first hosted a major competition in 1996 and won it ,but that was the African Cup of nations. As host country they got an automatic bid and the International Football Federation,generally referred to as "Fifa" made them head of Group A. They are not particularly in great form of late, having failed to qualify for the African cup of nations that was played in Angola early this year. But with the home crowd behind them,they could pull out a couple of surprises.
Uruguay were the fifth team from the South American confederation to qualify for the world cup after a playoff win over Costa Rica. They have been World champions at two different occasions,first in 1930 and later on in 1950. Since then they have been a force in the South American continent,but not so strong at the World cup stage. It would be hard press for them to get out of this group.
So my picks to get out of this group are France and Mexico.
Group B has as head of group Argentina,then Nigeria,Greece and South Korea.
Argentina are two times world champions, first when they hosted the competition in 1978 winning it with players like Mario Kempes, Daniel Passarella and then they won the trophy again in 1986 with Diego Maradona carrying the team.So their most recent World cup triumph came when the tournament was hosted in Mexico.Argentina for some unknown reason struggled through qualification in a zone which they normally go through with relative ease. Diego Maradona is their coach and though a legend, a lot of people think that he was part of the problem in the qualification run.The team never had a steady set of players and some veterans who had retired from the national team had to be called in to help in the qualification process. The team has a lot of talent including world 2010 player of the year Lionel Messi.They play very attractive soccer and I am looking for them to pick up the slack of winning this world cup should their South American brother, the "Samba boys" from Brazil fail to do so.
Greece had that magical run in Euro-2004 during which they won it as a very long shot. Though they have not been able to match that magical performance, they are a tough out in any major competition. Their style of play does not attract a lot of fans, but they do get the results with some great defensive effort.
Nigeria is the African nation that I think would be the first to win a World cup if an African nation gets to win one.They have the character and the talent to do it. They have had great success in winning world championships at the under 20 age group, though the success has not translated into the senior team in the World cup stage. They won the soccer Olympic gold medal in Atlanta in 1996 and their best team to ever play in the world cup in my opinion was the Super Eagles that arrived the US in 1994.Two times champions of Africa,this would be their fourth World cup appearance and only once have they fail to make it out of the group stages. That was in 2002 when they were pulled in a very tough group that included Argentina,England and Sweden.The most recent outing of the Super-Eagles was during the African Cup of nations in January and they ended up third in a competition in which they were picked as one of the favorites to win the trophy. The fact that they failed to measure up well against eventual African Cup of nations winner, Egypt means that the super-eagles need to do a lot of work if they are going to make a great run at the first World cup to be hosted in the continent.
South Korea had their best run in the 2002 competition which they co-hosted with the Japanese,making it all the way to the semi-finals. My greatest memory of them is when they had a memorable game in Chicago stadium with the German side in the 1994 World cup competition. Down three goals to nil, they made a great comeback falling just short at 2goals to three.But they showed a lot of fight in that game and left the competition with a lot of respect from the soccer viewing world.
My picks to get out of this evenly matched teams are the Super-Eagles and Argentina.
Group C has England,USA,Algeria and Slovenia.
England is the nation that invented the game.I take that back,I believe it is Scots that invented the game. The English team last won a major trophy in 1966 which is a very long time ago. They made it to the world cup semi-finals in 1990 and recently it has been the quarterfinals at World cup competitions and home they go. Their most recent team that I like was the one in 1998 that lost to Argentina in penalty shootouts. That team I believe was unlucky and very talented. The recent team is very good in my opinion and they are going to be very dangerous in this world cup. Their Italian coach Fabio Capello brings in a lot of winning tradition from a European brother.The depth of this team is what I believe would take them a long way in this championship. They eased through qualifications and only lost to Croatia when they had their place in South Africa already booked.A lot of opinion both within the English community and outside of England belief that the current generation of players in this team have a chance of achieving what their counterparts in 1966 did and that if they fail to do so in this World cup final, it would be a very long time before they get such a great opportunity. This is how talented the current squad is.
Algeria would be making an appearance for the first time since 1982 in which they had that memorable victory over super favorite West Germany. They did not make it to the next round but they were only one of two African nations at the time that qualify for the world cup. The country went through a period of internal unrest and it is good to see them back on the international football scene. The internal unrest is behind them now and it seems as if they are getting their talent pool back together.We recently saw the Algerian team in the African cup of nations that took place in January in Angola and though they got a passing grade in the competition, finishing in fourth place, they have a lot of work to do. They are a disciplined side in the way they play, except when they are playing the Egyptian side against whom they completely unravel during that competition. The team needs some strike force up front in my opinion and would have to play very hard to get out of the preliminary stages of the world cup.
In the USA, soccer is not the primary sporting event but they have learn very well how to play the game. They qualified easily from the "Concacaf" zone in which Mexico seem to be their only real challenge.Their recent great run in a world cup final came in 2002 when they beat a talented Portuguese side on their way to making it out of the preliminary rounds.They play great when they have their backs to the wall. Look at their performance during the 2009 Confederations cup, when they came from losing their first two games to making it all the way to the semi-finals of that competition.
Slovenia got in after winning a tough home and away playoff with the Russians in which they were two goals down in the first leg and manage an away goal. All they needed to do then was to secure a one nil victory at home to qualify and that is exactly what they did.
From this group I would say that the USA and England would be making it out of the preliminary rounds.
Group D has Germany,Australia,Ghana and Serbia.
Germany are three times world champions in 1954,1974 and 1990.They also have been champions of Europe at three different occasion,1972,1980 and most recently in Euro-1996.That is six major competition triumph. You throw in their world cup runners-up in 1982,1986 and 2002 and "voila", you get quite an impressive resume. They come into most major competitions as one of the favorites to win it all and this one is no different. They have continuity in their coaching staff and the right blend of players to lift the trophy. Their main problem could be in the defensive area.
Australia made it out of the preliminary round in the last world cup competition, so they are not a light weight by any standard.They qualify from the Oceanic Zone.
Ghana made it out of the preliminary round in their World cup debut in 2006 and they are four times African Champions. I look for them to make it out of the preliminary rounds this time around also. They could even make a lot of noise if their key players can stay healthy going into the competition.They are current under twenty world champions and they have won at the under 17 level also, so it is a matter of transferring that talent to the senior level. Their current side is made up of quite a few players from the under 20 side that lifted the trophy that they hosted.In their most recent outing in a major competition, in January this year, they made it all the way to the finals with the youngest team in the competition. They fall just short of lifting the African Cup of nations for the fifth time in the history of that competition and their run in that competition would help them in this world cup final competition.
Serbia qualified in a group that had France in it,as head of the group.So unlike the French they did not have to go through a two game playoff to make it into the competition.
I like the Ghana team and the Germans to get out of this group.
Group E has the Netherlands, Denmark,the Republic of Cameroon and Japan.Apart from Holland, the group looks pretty balanced.
Holland are the best soccer playing nation in my opinion in the world never to have won the world cup. They came close in 1974 and 1978 as runners-up to the Republic of Germany and Argentina respectively. They also get to about the semi finals or quarterfinals before being knocked out in the years that they are in form. Look for them to be there around the semi finals nations.They have won a major trophy though, in 1988 with Van Basten, Raud Gaulit and co,that was hosted by the Germans.They are an attractive side to watch and have a lot of talented players. Their main problem going into major competitions has been infighting.When that is absent, the team is scary good. They breezed through qualifications without dropping a single point. Only the Spanish team matched that record in qualification.
Denmark won "Euro" 1992 when they did not even qualify for the competition.They came in as a replacement for then Yugoslavia that was going through sanctions from the international body.In the years that the Danes are in the World cup finals they seem to do pretty well. One of their most exciting teams showed up in Mexico in 1986 and dazzled a lot of fans before being knock out in the quarterfinals by Spain.
Cameroon is making their African record sixth appearance in the world cup stage and their best performance came in 1990 when they had that great run into the quarterfinals stage of the competition and they were responsible for Fifa increasing the number of teams from the continent to five teams from the start of the 1994 world cup competition. Their star man is current Inter forward Samuel Eto'o Fils.Though the team has made the most appearance from the African continent into the World cup finals, they have only once made it out of the group stages.The problems lie in different areas ranging from arguments over the payment of bonuses to not having the organization skill to match their talent on the playing field. Their current outing was in Angola during the African cup of nations this past January and they get out in the quarterfinals. A lot of fans back home were disappointed and the team seems to me to be still in transition right now. They have quite a few veteran players that the public had been screaming for the coaches to replace. The public got its wish in their recent outing with mixed results.They team show some improvement in the energy
department but some of the errors that the veteran players were committing, were duplicated by the younger replacements, whom the African Cup of nations showed needed some games under their belt to be able to fill in well for the veteran players. The coach, Paul Le Guen did some explanations after the African Cup of nations, and his ambition is to take this current set of lions to at least the quarterfinals of the competition. The indomitable lions are in a tough group and though they have some talented players in their team, it is going to be a tough world cup outing come June.
Japan was one of the first teams that qualified for the current world cup finals and they did well in 2002 when they co-hosted the World cup finals with South Korea. They have the ability to stay around with most teams and that is what makes them a very difficult opponent to deal with.
From this evenly matched group I like Holland and the Lions(with all their problems)to get out of the preliminary stage of the competition.
Group F has Italy,New-Zealand,Paraguay and Slovakia.
Italy are the defending world champions and they are four times winners of the World cup trophy.Their first three triumphs came in 1934,1938 and 1982 respectively.Though they won it the last time around, I think their most memorable side has to be the one in 1982.They came in as outsiders to super-favorites Brazil and Germany and won the trophy in grand style,getting better as the competition moved from one stage to the other.That has been the tradition of the Italian side. Get out of the preliminary rounds with a bit of a struggle and then turn into one of the tougher outs of the event. If you are looking for a classic video tape from their 1982 triumphant, there are two that you can get, the first one would be their final victory game over Germany. The second one though, their victory over Brazil that got them into the semi finals of the competition, is the real classic soccer video of the competition. One of the best of all times. This current Italian side,in my opinion is in transition.Their break though could come in the fact they got a very good draw from Fifa and though they might lack some attacking punch up front, their defense is good to see them through deep into the competition.
Slovakia would be making their first appearance in a major soccer tournament.They did qualify from a tough European qualification group.
Paraguay does not have any problem qualifying for the world cup competition. Their problem has been once they get into the World stage, they just do not perform as well as their other South American counterparts.This time around though they qualified well from their South American group and they have a very good chance in group F.
New Zealand are making a comeback into world cup play since their last appearance in the year 1982.I remember that team because they had quite an exciting head coach.
My picks to get out of this group would be Italy and Paraguay.
Group G is the group of death and it is made up of Brazil,Portugal,Ivory Coast and North Korea.
Brazil are five times world champions and for the moment I think this year they would make it their six world cup victory.This is my logic as to why they would be the winners this time around. The world cup is coming to Africa for the first time and each time that the competition has moved to a completely new venue this South American nation has won it. They did that in 1994 when the competition was played in the US for the fist time and they did it again in 2002 when the competition moved to South Korea and Japan. Also since 1966 the winner of this trophy has rotated between a South American team and a European team. England in 1966,Brazil in 1970,West Germany in 1974,Argentina in 1978,Italy in 1982,Argentina in 1986,Germany in 1990,Brazil in 1994,France in 1998,Brazil in 2002 and Italy in 2006.So look for a South American team this time around. Uruguay is the third South American team that has won the competition but they did it way back in 1930 and 1950. Recently it has been Brazil and Argentina doing it for the South Americans.I would say go with Brazil first and if they fail Argentina would pick up the slack.The Brazilian team won the 2009 Confederations cup in South Africa and though one might have a few complains about the talent pull not being as deep as some of their great teams in the pass,I think they have enough players and the right mental strength to get it done. They did not breeze through qualifications as say Spain or the Netherlands, but they got the
job done and that is the kind of the them that this current set of Samba boys is. Their coach is Dunga and he won the competition as team captain in 1994 and I think there is enough talent and fight in this side to see them all the way through. They also have a lot of fans in the African continent. Their fan base in the continent eclipse even that of the popular English and Spanish sides with leagues that are watch weekly through out the continent.
North Korea qualified from the oceanic zone and it is remarkable that they did considering all the problems that the country in going through both internally and with the international community. I think that they are the weaker team is this otherwise all around top to bottom tough group. I am not looking for them to get out of this group.
Ivory Coast is making their second straight world cup appearance and it is too bad that they had to be drawn into such a tough group.This happened to them in their last world cup appearance in 2006 in Germany in which they were grouped with Holland and Argentina and they failed to make it out of the group stages.The team with the most talent of the six African teams in the competition, their problem has been the right mental strength during major competitions. Champions of Africa in 1992,they have just come of age during this decade and they would have a lot of fight in their hands to get out of this group.In their most recent outing in a major competition, this January, they failed to live up to expectation, falling short of their second African cup of nations triumph in a 3-2 defeat to under-dog side Algeria. They have the talent on paper but would the current disappointments and being drawn in a tough world cup group,it could be a tough June 2010 for the team from Ivory Coast. If they needed motivation, they have it going into this competition, because they are not going in as favorites to win it and also because their disappointing outing at the African cup of nations outing this past January should be enough motivation for them.
Portugal started their world cup qualifying campaign really slow and had to go through a playoff to make the final 32.They are a very talented team with 2008 Fifa player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo in the squad.They would be battling in out
with Ivory Coast in my opinion for that second qualification spot behind Brazil.
When it is all played out, I would say that Portugal and Brazil would be getting out of this group of death.
Group H has Spain,Honduras, Switzerland and Chile.
Spain are the defending European champions and the team that they used to lift the European trophy in 2008 is pretty much intact. Look for them to make a pretty big run into the competition. I would not say they are going to lift the trophy just because they have not done so in the past. But they have to be one of the favorites. They would get support from the African continent where they have a lot of people tracking their star players.They breezed through qualification, picking up all the available points and they happen to be in the bottom half of the pairing with the other super-favorite of this competition, Brazil. Currently placed second on the Fifa world ranking, they are the most creative of all the teams present in this competition. That creativity is in their mid-fielders. The Spanish team is loaded with forward moving mid-fielders and those are the type of players that you need to win big competitions. The only problem that I have with the side is that if they get behind like they did in the Confederations cup against the US, a game they ended up losing, they tend to get down on themselves. They said, anything short of a semi-finals place would be a major disappointment for this talented side.
Switzerland are a crafty team, their last outing was in Euro 2008 when they co-hosted and failed to get out of the preliminary rounds, but this is the world cup,so look for some positive results from them.
Chile can play some attractive soccer. They qualified third out of the tough South American qualifying zone.
Honduras qualified third in the North American group behind the USA and Mexico.They have been in the world cup before though they did not make it out of the preliminary rounds.
My teams to get out of this group would be defending European Champions Spain and Chile.
Conclusion
The competition is a little bit loaded with more talented teams in the bottom half of the draw which is from group E through group H in my opinion.The reason I say that is because in this pairing you have top rank powerhouse Holland,defending world champions Italy,five times world champions Brazil and defending European champions Spain.You throw in Ivory Coast,Cameroon,Denmark and Portugal and you get a collection of teams from which this world cup winner would be coming from.The competition is being played in the African continent for the first time and people would be wondering how far an African team can progress into this world cup.Cameroon and Ivory are pretty good teams but they happen to be in the tougher part of the draw,so a quarterfinals place would be the extend of their run. Teams Nigeria,Ghana,South African and Algeria might not be the the top ranking teams from the continent,but they pulled a good break on the draw. So I would be looking for one of these teams to break through the quarterfinals stage of the competition. I am not so sure whether one of these teams would take the trophy, but a semi-finals or a finals place in the competition is possible.
So from the tough bottom part of the draw, when it is all played out, I would be looking at Spain and Brazil battling it out for a spot in the finals on July 11 2010.
In the top half of the draw, England and the Germany should be the teams standing
when it is all played out. If England wanted to make a great run into a world cup competition, this would be the one.The draw is favorable, the team is talented, they have a great coach and they have a great fan base in the African continent, where all eyes are glued each weekend on the television sets to watch the English premier league competition.
My winner though when it is all played out would be the Samba Boys from Brazil who would be crowned as World Champions for the Sixth time.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
थे फर्स्ट १०० days
Once he was sworn in on the 20th of January 2009,the very next day he signed into law a bill for the closing down of the Guantanamo Bay,Cuba prison center. I would have to say that was a positive achievement. There was a problem with getting some of the newly appointed members into the government confirmed by the Senate.About three of them had to withdraw during the process mainly due to minor tax problems. This should go down under the negative column. The President himself admitted that some mistakes were made.
The economic stimulus package was passed despite great opposition from the republicans in both houses of congress. The bill with a price tag of 787 billion dollars though was signed into law and despite the opposition this for the moment has to go as a positive. The president is working on the 75 billion dollar rescue package for home owners. This has to go on the positive column.
Troops totally initially about 17000 were order to go to Afghanistan to continue the war on terror. The number would be increase to about 30000 troops which is the target. War has been on going in Afghanistan for about the past 30years.The Soviets were there in 1979 and started the nightmare.They did not leave until after about ten years of continuous fighting.
More American troops will help bring some stability into the area but the fact remains that the Afghan people have not seen peace since the Soviet Union invaded the area in 1979.
President Obama announced plans to cut by half the federal deficit which will be at 1.3trillion dollars by the end of his first term of office.He plans on doing it by getting rid of tax cuts that were giving to the rich in the previous administration and on cutting back on health care.Also money will be saved by ending the war in Iraq.
On the 27 of February the President gave a timetable for the troops to be pull out of Iraq.It is going to take 18months instead of the 16 promised during the presidential campaign and the reduction is going to be from 140000 troops down to 50000 troops. The remaining troops are to provide some stability in the region. Some critics are saying that this is a partial keeping of his campaign promise.
The President is taking a different approach to some countries that were considered by the former administration as very evil and not to be negotiated with at all.There is some type of friendship extension towards Cuba, a country that has been under US embargo since 1962.The current administration is also taking with Iran despite the fact that the former is going ahead with its nuclear built up.
Overall a passing grade for the first 100days in office.
The economic stimulus package was passed despite great opposition from the republicans in both houses of congress. The bill with a price tag of 787 billion dollars though was signed into law and despite the opposition this for the moment has to go as a positive. The president is working on the 75 billion dollar rescue package for home owners. This has to go on the positive column.
Troops totally initially about 17000 were order to go to Afghanistan to continue the war on terror. The number would be increase to about 30000 troops which is the target. War has been on going in Afghanistan for about the past 30years.The Soviets were there in 1979 and started the nightmare.They did not leave until after about ten years of continuous fighting.
More American troops will help bring some stability into the area but the fact remains that the Afghan people have not seen peace since the Soviet Union invaded the area in 1979.
President Obama announced plans to cut by half the federal deficit which will be at 1.3trillion dollars by the end of his first term of office.He plans on doing it by getting rid of tax cuts that were giving to the rich in the previous administration and on cutting back on health care.Also money will be saved by ending the war in Iraq.
On the 27 of February the President gave a timetable for the troops to be pull out of Iraq.It is going to take 18months instead of the 16 promised during the presidential campaign and the reduction is going to be from 140000 troops down to 50000 troops. The remaining troops are to provide some stability in the region. Some critics are saying that this is a partial keeping of his campaign promise.
The President is taking a different approach to some countries that were considered by the former administration as very evil and not to be negotiated with at all.There is some type of friendship extension towards Cuba, a country that has been under US embargo since 1962.The current administration is also taking with Iran despite the fact that the former is going ahead with its nuclear built up.
Overall a passing grade for the first 100days in office.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
African Cup of Nations Round-up
The competition started with tragedy as the Togolese team traveling from the Republic of Congo was attacked by gunmen, leaving a couple of players injured and three members from the delegation dead. There were a lot of questions asked, including why the Angolan host were not informed before the Togolese team started the bus trip. Togo ended up pulling out of the competition, which was understandable considering the shock that some of the individuals involved must have gone through.
The Group stages started with what turned out to be an exciting encounter between host nation Angola and Mali in group A. Down 4 goals to nil, the Malian team used the last quarter hour of the game to make their comeback and tied the game at 4-4 just after regular time. The was another surprise game from this group A where World cup bound Algeria were shocked 3-0 by Malawi. Angola next beat Malawi by 2-0 and tied Algeria in a controversial last match that both team just needed a draw to advance.Algeria made a nice come back in their next match beating Mali 1-0 and finished the group as runners-up to Angola. Mali was the disappointment in this group with a star packed line-up that saw them fail to rise to the occasion against Algeria in their second outing.They ended up beating Malawi 3-1 in their last match but headed home third in their group just ahead of Malawi. Final group standings Angola-7points,Algeria-4points,Mali-4points and Malawi-3points.Algeria advanced over Mali because of their head to head victory over the Malian team.
In Group B, the first encounter saw a dull encounter between tournament favorite Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso that ended in a goalless tie.Ghana had to sit out the first day in this group play because the Togolese delegation had pulled out of the competition. The Ivory Coast team bunched back well in match day two, beating Ghana by 3goals to one to become the first team to qualify for the quarter finals. The had to wait for Ghana to beat Burkina Faso by 1-0 to know that they qualify as head of the group. The team from Ghana,though missing quite a few of their star players including Micheal Essien still made it through as second of this group. Standings. Ivory Coast-4points, Ghana-3points and Burkina Faso-1 point.
In Group C, the Egyptians came in as back to back champions and somehow did not get a much press as the Ivorian national team as one of the super-favorites. Their opening match was against the Super Eagles of Nigeria and after a three to one victory over the Super-Eagles, you just knew that the Egyptians run in the past three African cup of nations is far from over. Boy, did they look good taking down the super-eagles. They would go on to beat Benin and Mozambique by a like 2goals to nil score to finish as head of this group and they were the second team to qualify for the quarter finals. The super-eagles bound back beating Benin one goal to nil and Mozambique by three goals to nil to book their place in the quarterfinals as runners-up to Egypt.The final standings on this group were Egypt-9points, Nigeria-6points-Benin-1 point and Mozambique-1 point.
Group D turned out to be the most wide opened of the groups. A couple of thriller encounters took place here, including a three to two Cameroon victory over Zambia and a 2-2 tie between Tunisia and Cameroon.The final standings on this group were Zambia-4points,Cameroon-4points,Gabon-4poinnts,Tunisia-three points. As you can see the first three teams ended up with 4points each. Zambia and Cameroon both scored and conceded five goals each. Gabon scored 2 goals and conceded 2 goals and ended up third in the group because of scoring fewer goals.
The big controversy though was who ends up as head of this group between Cameroon and Zambia. Immediately after the encounter the stations carrying the game announced that Cameroon is head of group and would play Nigeria in their quarter-finals clash. Zambia as runners-up would then get to play against Egypt. About two hours later though news started filtering that Zambia is the head of group and not Cameroon as earlier announced. The reason for the change did not become clear until the next day and this is how the error came about. According to Fifa regulations, Cameroon would have been head of group because with similar goals statistics, they beat Zambia in head to head play. It turned out though that CAF, the confederations of African football has their own rules in this situation and only the goals scored between the three teams involved in the tie are considered. So you through out the two goals that Cameroon scored against Tunisia and Zambia's lone goal against Tunisia and you get Zambia with 4goals to Cameroons 3.Zambia thus went through as head of group and Cameroon as runners-up.Cameroon would then take on Egypt in the quarterfinals, while Zambia would play against the Super-Eagles of Nigeria.
The Quarterfinals of the competition kicked off with Angola playing against a very young Ghana side. The final score was one goal to nil in a match that I would say was okay.
The next quarterfinals was between world cup bound Ivory Coast and Algeria. Ivory Coast was the super-favorite to life the trophy and Algeria had a not so convincing first round of play. The match was a thriller though that ended at 2-2 a piece after 90 minutes of regulation play. Ivory Coast scored what everybody thought was the winning goal with a minute left in regulation only to watch a resilient Algerian team pull even in added-time when the celebrations had started in the Ivorian camp. Extra time saw a fresh looking Algeria side scoring in the first part of extra time to win the game by 3-2. Disappointment for the Ivory Coast team. oh yes, with all their star players, this is the third African Cup of Nations that they have failed to win , coming in as one of the favorite teams. If you ask me I would say this talented set of Elephants from the Ivory Coast are running out of time to pick up a nations cup victory. The team from Algeria though is beginning to leave their mark. A lot of people were wondering whether their victory over Egypt to qualify for the world cup in South Africa was for real. After this encounter, the was no more doubting the desert fox from the north of Africa. They are back as a force in African football.
The next quarterfinals saw Egypt beat Cameroon 3-1 in extra time to advance and the super-eagles needing penalty shootout to beat Zambia 5-4 after a goalless 120 minutes. Cameroon put up a good fight against Egypt, but the Lions are still a team in transition. The Semi-finals were thus set. Egypt-Algerian and Ghana-Nigeria. It looks like the football powers of the continent are now found in West and North Africa.
The first semi-finals of the competition saw the black stars of Ghana beat the super-eagles of Nigeria by one goal to nil. The Ghana team got their goal in around the 21 minute of play through veteran forward A.Gyan and spend the rest of the game defending the lone goal. Once again the super-eagles failed to live up to expectation. The game itself was exciting, but nothing close to what you got in the next semi-finals.
This second semi-finals had the Egyptians beat Algeria but 4 goals to nil. The Algerians totally unravel in this game.The first goal from Egypt came in the first half of play through a penalty kick that was controversially transformed. The complain is that Egyptian mid-fielder Hosny totally came to a stop before proceeding to transform the penalty kick. In the second half thought, the Egyptians totally took control of the match, scoring a second goal through forward player Mohammed Zidane and adding two more goals, one coming in additional time to complete the rout. I would say that in this game we saw a completely different Algerian team. Maybe because they were playing against fierce rival Egypt, they came completely apart, reduced to 8 men on the field before the end of the game. There was a lot of complaining after the game for the officiating which I thought was stiff but right on the money. The Algerians of cause did most of the complaining, from their head coach all the way down to the players.
The small final of the game is usually the play for who ends up in the third and fourth position in the classifications. The game is usually a tough one for the teams because of the fact that they are coming off disappointing loses in the semi-finals of the competition. The Super-Eagles won by a goal to nil in a match that was not bad at all for a third place game. There was good sportsmanship from both of the teams and for the day, I think that the better team won.
The finals started at 5pm local time here in Cameroon, were I was for the day and going into it, most people said that the Egyptians are going to carrying the day. The case for the Egyptians was not a very tough one considering the fact that they had so far in the competition conceded just 1 goal while scoring 11 goals. The Ghana team on the order hand is a relatively young team with most of their star players missing because of injury. In the competition, they have conceded 3 goals so far before the finals while scoring 4 goals in total.
The final game itself was exciting with the team from Ghana having a little bit of an edge in terms of ball possession.The Egyptians ended up winning by a 1 goal to 0 and they scored their goal in the only clear scoring chance that they had in the game.A.Gyan has carried the Ghana team throughout the competition and he had a clear scoring chance in the game in around the 75 minute of play and hit the ball over the cross bar. Gedo had the only clear chance for the Egyptians in the 84th minute of play and buried the ball in the back of the net to give his team the third African cup of nations trophy in three years running.
That has been the difference between the Egyptian team and the rest of the teams in this African cup of Nations. They, the Egyptians have not wasted many scoring chances and it seems as if each time that they had a scoring opportunity in their games, they have gone ahead and scored. They thus become the first team to win three African cup of nations in a row,making it their 7th championship in the African continental competition.
The competition started with tragedy as the Togolese team traveling from the Republic of Congo was attacked by gunmen, leaving a couple of players injured and three members from the delegation dead. There were a lot of questions asked, including why the Angolan host were not informed before the Togolese team started the bus trip. Togo ended up pulling out of the competition, which was understandable considering the shock that some of the individuals involved must have gone through.
The Group stages started with what turned out to be an exciting encounter between host nation Angola and Mali in group A. Down 4 goals to nil, the Malian team used the last quarter hour of the game to make their comeback and tied the game at 4-4 just after regular time. The was another surprise game from this group A where World cup bound Algeria were shocked 3-0 by Malawi. Angola next beat Malawi by 2-0 and tied Algeria in a controversial last match that both team just needed a draw to advance.Algeria made a nice come back in their next match beating Mali 1-0 and finished the group as runners-up to Angola. Mali was the disappointment in this group with a star packed line-up that saw them fail to rise to the occasion against Algeria in their second outing.They ended up beating Malawi 3-1 in their last match but headed home third in their group just ahead of Malawi. Final group standings Angola-7points,Algeria-4points,Mali-4points and Malawi-3points.Algeria advanced over Mali because of their head to head victory over the Malian team.
In Group B, the first encounter saw a dull encounter between tournament favorite Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso that ended in a goalless tie.Ghana had to sit out the first day in this group play because the Togolese delegation had pulled out of the competition. The Ivory Coast team bunched back well in match day two, beating Ghana by 3goals to one to become the first team to qualify for the quarter finals. The had to wait for Ghana to beat Burkina Faso by 1-0 to know that they qualify as head of the group. The team from Ghana,though missing quite a few of their star players including Micheal Essien still made it through as second of this group. Standings. Ivory Coast-4points, Ghana-3points and Burkina Faso-1 point.
In Group C, the Egyptians came in as back to back champions and somehow did not get a much press as the Ivorian national team as one of the super-favorites. Their opening match was against the Super Eagles of Nigeria and after a three to one victory over the Super-Eagles, you just knew that the Egyptians run in the past three African cup of nations is far from over. Boy, did they look good taking down the super-eagles. They would go on to beat Benin and Mozambique by a like 2goals to nil score to finish as head of this group and they were the second team to qualify for the quarter finals. The super-eagles bound back beating Benin one goal to nil and Mozambique by three goals to nil to book their place in the quarterfinals as runners-up to Egypt.The final standings on this group were Egypt-9points, Nigeria-6points-Benin-1 point and Mozambique-1 point.
Group D turned out to be the most wide opened of the groups. A couple of thriller encounters took place here, including a three to two Cameroon victory over Zambia and a 2-2 tie between Tunisia and Cameroon.The final standings on this group were Zambia-4points,Cameroon-4points,Gabon-4poinnts,Tunisia-three points. As you can see the first three teams ended up with 4points each. Zambia and Cameroon both scored and conceded five goals each. Gabon scored 2 goals and conceded 2 goals and ended up third in the group because of scoring fewer goals.
The big controversy though was who ends up as head of this group between Cameroon and Zambia. Immediately after the encounter the stations carrying the game announced that Cameroon is head of group and would play Nigeria in their quarter-finals clash. Zambia as runners-up would then get to play against Egypt. About two hours later though news started filtering that Zambia is the head of group and not Cameroon as earlier announced. The reason for the change did not become clear until the next day and this is how the error came about. According to Fifa regulations, Cameroon would have been head of group because with similar goals statistics, they beat Zambia in head to head play. It turned out though that CAF, the confederations of African football has their own rules in this situation and only the goals scored between the three teams involved in the tie are considered. So you through out the two goals that Cameroon scored against Tunisia and Zambia's lone goal against Tunisia and you get Zambia with 4goals to Cameroons 3.Zambia thus went through as head of group and Cameroon as runners-up.Cameroon would then take on Egypt in the quarterfinals, while Zambia would play against the Super-Eagles of Nigeria.
The Quarterfinals of the competition kicked off with Angola playing against a very young Ghana side. The final score was one goal to nil in a match that I would say was okay.
The next quarterfinals was between world cup bound Ivory Coast and Algeria. Ivory Coast was the super-favorite to life the trophy and Algeria had a not so convincing first round of play. The match was a thriller though that ended at 2-2 a piece after 90 minutes of regulation play. Ivory Coast scored what everybody thought was the winning goal with a minute left in regulation only to watch a resilient Algerian team pull even in added-time when the celebrations had started in the Ivorian camp. Extra time saw a fresh looking Algeria side scoring in the first part of extra time to win the game by 3-2. Disappointment for the Ivory Coast team. oh yes, with all their star players, this is the third African Cup of Nations that they have failed to win , coming in as one of the favorite teams. If you ask me I would say this talented set of Elephants from the Ivory Coast are running out of time to pick up a nations cup victory. The team from Algeria though is beginning to leave their mark. A lot of people were wondering whether their victory over Egypt to qualify for the world cup in South Africa was for real. After this encounter, the was no more doubting the desert fox from the north of Africa. They are back as a force in African football.
The next quarterfinals saw Egypt beat Cameroon 3-1 in extra time to advance and the super-eagles needing penalty shootout to beat Zambia 5-4 after a goalless 120 minutes. Cameroon put up a good fight against Egypt, but the Lions are still a team in transition. The Semi-finals were thus set. Egypt-Algerian and Ghana-Nigeria. It looks like the football powers of the continent are now found in West and North Africa.
The first semi-finals of the competition saw the black stars of Ghana beat the super-eagles of Nigeria by one goal to nil. The Ghana team got their goal in around the 21 minute of play through veteran forward A.Gyan and spend the rest of the game defending the lone goal. Once again the super-eagles failed to live up to expectation. The game itself was exciting, but nothing close to what you got in the next semi-finals.
This second semi-finals had the Egyptians beat Algeria but 4 goals to nil. The Algerians totally unravel in this game.The first goal from Egypt came in the first half of play through a penalty kick that was controversially transformed. The complain is that Egyptian mid-fielder Hosny totally came to a stop before proceeding to transform the penalty kick. In the second half thought, the Egyptians totally took control of the match, scoring a second goal through forward player Mohammed Zidane and adding two more goals, one coming in additional time to complete the rout. I would say that in this game we saw a completely different Algerian team. Maybe because they were playing against fierce rival Egypt, they came completely apart, reduced to 8 men on the field before the end of the game. There was a lot of complaining after the game for the officiating which I thought was stiff but right on the money. The Algerians of cause did most of the complaining, from their head coach all the way down to the players.
The small final of the game is usually the play for who ends up in the third and fourth position in the classifications. The game is usually a tough one for the teams because of the fact that they are coming off disappointing loses in the semi-finals of the competition. The Super-Eagles won by a goal to nil in a match that was not bad at all for a third place game. There was good sportsmanship from both of the teams and for the day, I think that the better team won.
The finals started at 5pm local time here in Cameroon, were I was for the day and going into it, most people said that the Egyptians are going to carrying the day. The case for the Egyptians was not a very tough one considering the fact that they had so far in the competition conceded just 1 goal while scoring 11 goals. The Ghana team on the order hand is a relatively young team with most of their star players missing because of injury. In the competition, they have conceded 3 goals so far before the finals while scoring 4 goals in total.
The final game itself was exciting with the team from Ghana having a little bit of an edge in terms of ball possession.The Egyptians ended up winning by a 1 goal to 0 and they scored their goal in the only clear scoring chance that they had in the game.A.Gyan has carried the Ghana team throughout the competition and he had a clear scoring chance in the game in around the 75 minute of play and hit the ball over the cross bar. Gedo had the only clear chance for the Egyptians in the 84th minute of play and buried the ball in the back of the net to give his team the third African cup of nations trophy in three years running.
That has been the difference between the Egyptian team and the rest of the teams in this African cup of Nations. They, the Egyptians have not wasted many scoring chances and it seems as if each time that they had a scoring opportunity in their games, they have gone ahead and scored. They thus become the first team to win three African cup of nations in a row,making it their 7th championship in the African continental competition.
Friday, January 1, 2010
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African Cup of Nations 2010
Group A
The host nation is Angola and they are grouped with the Republic of Mali,Algeria and Malawi. I like Angola as the host nation and Algeria to come out of the group. Angola has a couple of talented players up front that should see them through into the knock out stages of the competition.
Algeria is making a comeback into a major competition after being involved in a lot of internal conflict that saw the country drift into a civil war. They had their heydays in the early eighties, when they won this competition and qualified for the 1982 world cup in Spain. They took everybody by surprise in edging
out Egypt in the combined 2010 World cup-African cup of nations qualifiers. In case you missed it they had to play a third game, a tie-breaker against their north African foe in Sudan which they won by one goal to nil. The diplomatic relationship between the two countries went downhill after the game. Having being out of the big stage for a long time, the cup of nations would be a place for the team to show the rest of the continent if they are really good.
Group B has tournament favorites Ivory Coast, Ghana, then Togo and Burkina Faso. Ivory Coast has the most talented team in the continent and they top the list of favorites to win it all. That said, they have a habit of falling just short of the trophy and it would not come as a surprise if they end up losing in the finals or semi-finals of the competition.Runners up in the competition in 2006, that host nation
Egypt won, they started out great in the 2008 campaign in Ghana, but just flat out disappeared against Egypt in the semi-finals. They bring back just about all of their players from the 2008 competition and they should be looking at winning it all this time around.
Ghana is four times African champions and they also qualified for their second world cup campaign in a row.Their most recent continental trophy though last came in
1982, so it has been a long time since they won the competition. They had a great chance to win the last one that they hosted but fall short to Cameroon in the semi-finals. They should come out of the group stages though I do not see them going pass the semi-finals.
Group C has Egypt, Nigeria,Benin and Mozambique. Egypt and Nigeria should get out of the group stages in group C. Egypt are coming out of a disappointment on losing out to Algeria in the world cup qualifiers.They have won the last two trophies of this competition though and they adapt very well in playing throughout the continent, having won away in Burkina Faso in 1998 and in Ghana in 2008. Winning a third African Cup of nations in a row would be asking a little bit too much from them, especially with the fact that they have a couple of key injuries.
Nigeria did not have any problems qualifying for the Cup of Nations.Their problem was in qualifying for the World cup, which they did with some help from Tunisia. The country with the most talent over the years in the continent, they have two trophies to show for it. The team is deep, but judging on their current form,semi-finals is where I see them maxing out.
Group D has Tunisia,Cameroon, Gabon and Zambia.
Gabon started out their world cup qualifiers in style by beating out Morocco in Rabat and Togo in their home soil and a
lot of people though they would qualify ahead of the Republic of Cameroon. They never
did though and Cameroon ended up picking up the qualifying ticket ahead of them.Their coach is looking for some revenge against Cameroon in this group, though I do not see them going much. Cameroon and Tunisia should get out of the group.
Tunisia won the trophy in 2004 when they hosted and they have themselves to blame for losing out to Nigeria in the world cup qualifiers. They would be looking to make amends in the competition, though apart from Egypt, the countries from North Africa do not have a history of winning this competition out of their home soil. I see them making it to the quarterfinals stage of the competition.
Cameroon started out slow in their world cup qualifiers and they had to make some changes in the middle of the qualifying campaign to get themselves going. They brought in French man Paul Le Guen who worked some miracles and the team did not miss out on a second world cup. This is the African cup of nations thought and Cameroon has a very good record in the competition, having won four times and being runners-up twice. The team has some talent up front, plays good defense. They have a good goalkeeper, though not in the tradition of some great ones that they have hard in the past. In the years that the team has won this competition , they have had great talent in defense, midfield, and attack. Creativity in the midfield is missing in this team and the defense goes into lapse at times that cost them goals.It would not come as a surprise if they win the competition,but I do not feel going in that they have the current form and confidence to win their fifth trophy.Semi-finals or finals would not be out of the question.
So for the semi-finals, I am looking at Ivory Coast, Angola, Cameroon and Nigeria. And for the champions, my money is on Ivory Coast.
Group A
The host nation is Angola and they are grouped with the Republic of Mali,Algeria and Malawi. I like Angola as the host nation and Algeria to come out of the group. Angola has a couple of talented players up front that should see them through into the knock out stages of the competition.
Algeria is making a comeback into a major competition after being involved in a lot of internal conflict that saw the country drift into a civil war. They had their heydays in the early eighties, when they won this competition and qualified for the 1982 world cup in Spain. They took everybody by surprise in edging
out Egypt in the combined 2010 World cup-African cup of nations qualifiers. In case you missed it they had to play a third game, a tie-breaker against their north African foe in Sudan which they won by one goal to nil. The diplomatic relationship between the two countries went downhill after the game. Having being out of the big stage for a long time, the cup of nations would be a place for the team to show the rest of the continent if they are really good.
Group B has tournament favorites Ivory Coast, Ghana, then Togo and Burkina Faso. Ivory Coast has the most talented team in the continent and they top the list of favorites to win it all. That said, they have a habit of falling just short of the trophy and it would not come as a surprise if they end up losing in the finals or semi-finals of the competition.Runners up in the competition in 2006, that host nation
Egypt won, they started out great in the 2008 campaign in Ghana, but just flat out disappeared against Egypt in the semi-finals. They bring back just about all of their players from the 2008 competition and they should be looking at winning it all this time around.
Ghana is four times African champions and they also qualified for their second world cup campaign in a row.Their most recent continental trophy though last came in
1982, so it has been a long time since they won the competition. They had a great chance to win the last one that they hosted but fall short to Cameroon in the semi-finals. They should come out of the group stages though I do not see them going pass the semi-finals.
Group C has Egypt, Nigeria,Benin and Mozambique. Egypt and Nigeria should get out of the group stages in group C. Egypt are coming out of a disappointment on losing out to Algeria in the world cup qualifiers.They have won the last two trophies of this competition though and they adapt very well in playing throughout the continent, having won away in Burkina Faso in 1998 and in Ghana in 2008. Winning a third African Cup of nations in a row would be asking a little bit too much from them, especially with the fact that they have a couple of key injuries.
Nigeria did not have any problems qualifying for the Cup of Nations.Their problem was in qualifying for the World cup, which they did with some help from Tunisia. The country with the most talent over the years in the continent, they have two trophies to show for it. The team is deep, but judging on their current form,semi-finals is where I see them maxing out.
Group D has Tunisia,Cameroon, Gabon and Zambia.
Gabon started out their world cup qualifiers in style by beating out Morocco in Rabat and Togo in their home soil and a
lot of people though they would qualify ahead of the Republic of Cameroon. They never
did though and Cameroon ended up picking up the qualifying ticket ahead of them.Their coach is looking for some revenge against Cameroon in this group, though I do not see them going much. Cameroon and Tunisia should get out of the group.
Tunisia won the trophy in 2004 when they hosted and they have themselves to blame for losing out to Nigeria in the world cup qualifiers. They would be looking to make amends in the competition, though apart from Egypt, the countries from North Africa do not have a history of winning this competition out of their home soil. I see them making it to the quarterfinals stage of the competition.
Cameroon started out slow in their world cup qualifiers and they had to make some changes in the middle of the qualifying campaign to get themselves going. They brought in French man Paul Le Guen who worked some miracles and the team did not miss out on a second world cup. This is the African cup of nations thought and Cameroon has a very good record in the competition, having won four times and being runners-up twice. The team has some talent up front, plays good defense. They have a good goalkeeper, though not in the tradition of some great ones that they have hard in the past. In the years that the team has won this competition , they have had great talent in defense, midfield, and attack. Creativity in the midfield is missing in this team and the defense goes into lapse at times that cost them goals.It would not come as a surprise if they win the competition,but I do not feel going in that they have the current form and confidence to win their fifth trophy.Semi-finals or finals would not be out of the question.
So for the semi-finals, I am looking at Ivory Coast, Angola, Cameroon and Nigeria. And for the champions, my money is on Ivory Coast.
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