Two featherweight Sumo wrestlers evaluated each other for the better part of two halves until Slovene midfield schemer Robert Koren forced the hotheaded Algerian goalkeeper Chaouchi to immitate Robert Green for entertainment. His well placed but relativelly weak, shot-pass saw Chaouchi (badly) mimick the England keeper's already-famous mistake of the night before and try to scoop it from the side before it rolled into the Algerian goal.
Meanwhile, for what looked like a World Cup of Red Carded attackers saw important Algerian forward Ghazzal sent of for a late tackle and handball.
Slovenian goalkeeper looked very solid except for one lapse of concentration due to having reached his boredom capacity. The teams were very similiar, but the Slovenes were the slightly cleaner, calmer team and this worked.
This slow pace, and lack of precision of this match left me worried about the quality of football during this World Cup..... None of the performances except South Korea a bit had been really solid. I was certain the next one would be much more
Slovenia now leads the Group with Enlgand and USA. Their surprises and luck just keep on piling up! Or is it hard work and a great coach?
A revolution happened today, going almost unnoticed. An African team managed to apply European-style defensive football and control an actual European team, and a good one with several key advantages at that, and not only stop them but look more dangerous and score a winner.
Ghana harrassed and limited the impact of the Serbian offense, an attack that had managed to make Serbia one of the best teams in European qualifying. The Ghanaians had already used this approach to get to the Final of the African Nations Cup in January, but at the World Cup the worry was that the absence of Michael Essien would hamper their chances of defense.
I expected this game to very very entertaining, but because of the anti-football it ended up being a closed 1-0 affair. Interesting but slow until the end of the game.
Now its not a lie that many Africans from all over the continent are uniting in their support of the Black Stars as the best candidate to actually achieve something this World Cup. Outstanding defensive performances from Ghana's backline especially Vorsah, Mensah and Sarpei meant that Annan could link the offense with defense and Kwadweh Asamoah created frequent danger to the Serbian defense. Krasic, Jovanovic, and Zigic were frustrated many times and thrown off balance by close marking and only Zigic's height ever really looked dangerous.
The Serbians, expecting to be a surprise team of this championship eventually lost their head. First Lukovic lost his mind and got a just second yellow for holding back Annan a second time. Then in a moment of insanity the talented Kuzmanovic used his hands to clear a great cross into the penalty box, and despite his attempted cover up the Ghanaians were awarded a very deserved penalty.
By that time Ghana had been on the attack for the better part of fifteen minutes, and the penalty as completely in the run of play.
Gyan Asamoah calmly powered the ball in, and Ghana continued to defend even more solidly.
Knowing Ghana, I consider them the only team capable of maintaing their current ru of form for this World Cup. But their real test will be Germany.
Young and inexperienced, but ferocious, fasts and technically skilled. This generation of Germans is capable of doing a lot more than just changing the image of German anti-football.
With fast runs, quick passes and interesting technique the likes of Thomas Mueller, who was unknown until the beginning of last season when he broke into Bayern's first team, or Sami Khedira, who was only three years ago a fringe player with struggling Stuttgart outclassed a physical and defensive Australian side 4-0.
Pim Verbeek, the Dutch coach of Australia, line up basically 9 defensive players, omitting most of Austalia's attacking talent, probably with the hopes of containing Germany. The plan backfired hopelessly, as the Aussies proved incapable of keeping up with the speed of Ozil, Mueller, or Podolski who ran through the middle and channels constantly creating danger to the Australians.
Rudby team sounds mean perhaps, but the Aussies can do a lot better if they try and play up to their strengths of combining physique with good attacking play. The likes of Harry Kewell and Mark Bresciano were left on the bench for strong, physical players with Verbeek hoping to break the young German team physically.
Podolski hammered, Mueller placed, Klose headed and Cacau finished. 4 goals and it could have been more.
Worse than the four goals though, was the red card to Australia's most important player Tim Cahill of Everton, who got a straight red for tackling Schweinsteiger from behind.. Another victim of the relaxes refereeing in the Premiership comparing to other leagues, Cahill is used to not even getting fouls whistled when lunging at a player from behind with two legs, here he was covered in Red by the Mexican referee, and rightly so.
Australia are bottom of the group without their most effective player, Germany have established themselves as favourites to do impressive things this World Cup.
And perhaps for the first time in the history of German football, the results are as important as the entertaining and fast playing style. Too early to say, but lets hope so.
The Ball is it a Problem?
Buffon, Casillas, Pirlo and other have expressed concern that the experimental ball produced by Adidas will make goalkeeping nearly impossible and passing very difficult.
Stars whining? Well I am looking for an explanation to why so many direct freekicks have been off target, most except for Gourcuff's against Uruguay on June 11th and why so many headed balls sail over the cross bar (like most of Serbia's shots today). This is unusual for these capable teams. Germany's performance however was slightly reassuring, especially after Klose scored with his head. Let's wait and see.
Ghana is a New Breed of "Small" Team
An African team that can defend as well as attack? Perhaps. Either their Serbian coach knew exactly how to dismantle the Serbian team, or he knows even more. Anyways, if this is the case Ghana will certainly have what it takes to go far in this tournament.
Unlike Previous 2 World Cups Refereeing Standard Excellent So Far
Excellent performances from the referees so far. The red cards, penalties, and offsides have been exceptional this World Cup. FIFA really made an effort to select the refereeing teams early, gather them ahead of the cup, and prepare them for an excellent job this tournament.
It seems to have worked. Off course the biggest test will be Brazil, Italy, and Portugal for any referee but the signs are very optimistic so far.
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