Posted on Monday, 19th July 2010 by Adam Jeffries
While the first few games of the World Cup bordered on the uneventful side, the games since then have been anything but boring. There has been a lot more goal scoring, beautiful teamwork and even controversial calls by the officials.
Portugal and Argentina have been the most impressive teams in my mind so far, but here are some assessments of the tournament.
The Vuvuzelas have grown on me. In the beginning of the tournament, it was the general consensus of Americans that the Vuvuzelas had to go. At this point, however, I have embraced the annoying horns as part of the game, and it is almost white noise to me.
The Ivory Coast got unlucky. Next to Ghana, the Ivory Coast was the only other team that had a chance of doing serious damage in this World Cup. Unfortunately, they were put in the “Group of Death” and could not place ahead of Portugal and Brazil.
A tie is considered a win to many. Did you see how the Algerian fans were crying when the US won on that last minute goal? Had it been 0 - 0, they would have actually rejoiced. Kind of weird.
The South American teams have come to play. Between Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and Argentina, the South American teams have done extremely well for themselves. Brazil has a very favorable draw on their side of the bracket, so don’t be surprised if you see them in the finals.
You don’t always need a superstar. While Kaka and his Brazilians, and Mesi and his fellow Argentinians march on, there are several teams that remain that do not have a superstar on their team (at least not to the average spectator). As far as I’m concerned the biggest names in this tournament are Kaka, Mesi, Christiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, and Wayne Rooney. Only two of the aforementioned players’ teams still remain in this World Cup, while teams like Paraguay and Uruguay without marquee players march on.
There have been some major upsets. Both Italy and France were sent home in the first round. Seeing as these were the last two World Cup champions, this comes as a shock to many. With England eliminated, it just has not been a good tournament for European teams.
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