Do you get the feeling that several teams hadn’t read the script? Be honest now… did anyone predict *both* of those results?
Germany 4 – 2 Costa Rica
Poland 0 – 2 Ecuador
As Europe’s most successful World Cup performers, Germany were bound to win the opening game on home soil against a relative minnow in world football terms. What was surprising was that their squad appeared to have been kidnapped and replaced with the 1998 Japan squad… all “rabbit caught in headlights” defending and speculative long-range shots.
Of course, when those speculative shots come from sharpshooters like Torsten Frings and Philip Lahm, you’ve a fair chance of scoring, but had it not been for the more comprehensive footballing palette of Miroslav Klose, the match could easily have ended an impotent 2-2 draw. All the media attention has been on the Ballack bollocks, but to be honest, I’ve always found him rather overrated. Klose could be their best chance of avoiding embarrassment.
As it was, the 4-2 scoreline flatters Germany; while Costa Rica have a nice repertoire of passing moves (and skilful runs from Wanchope) they seriously lacked aggression, and should have done more to exploit some dodgy German passing. As the other supposed no-hopers in Group A, Ecuador had that aggression, using it to great effect against a lacklustre Polish team. I’d been so sure that Group A would simply be a Germany-Poland battle for the deciding match… lucky I’m not a gambling man!
[By the way, I'm going to link to BBC reports for all the results in these posts... no particular reason, other than the longevity of their microsites]
I watched both matches, and will watch as many as humanly possible for the next month.
I enjoyed both games as it goes, but was mightily impressed with Ecuador. They wanted it more, and it showed.
Lets hope Paraguay have read the script, eh.