World Cup 2006: Day 8

Argentina 6 – 0 Serbia & Montenegro
Holland 2 – 1 Ivory Coast
Mexico 0 – 0 Angola

Cutting swiftly to the chase, Holland were lucky to win their match, despite having started in fine form. Arjen Robben couldn’t match his impressive performance against S&M, and instead veered worryingly close to his diving, whinging Chelsea style. Instead it was Robin van Persie, over on the opposite wing, who steered the Dutch team to victory today, with a dazzling goal and some battling defensive work in the last ten minutes. Ivory Coast played well, never gave up and should be proud of their performance in the Group of Death. Holland face Argentina next, and I’m not sure that their centre-halves are up to the job.

Later, an uninspired Mexico were justifiably held to a goalless draw by Angola. Apart from the occasional fleeting hint of Mexico’s true passing ability and the fact that the result was such a massive and fully deserved achievement for little Angola, there wasn’t much to recommend the match. Do I sound like I’m rushing? Well, there’s a good reason…

Quite honestly, everything seemed like an anti-climax after Argentina’s display. We may well see harder-fought contests in this World Cup, and S&M really didn’t muster much of a fight, but that didn’t matter. Argentina were truly spectacular, performing a masterclass in fast, attacking football, where every team member performs his role perfectly and contributes to the system. The whole team was perfectly balanced, with none of the gaping holes (as demonstrated by England) necessitating long balls; everything flowed along the full length of the pitch. Hell, even the substitutions merged seamlessly into the overall plan. They didn’t dive, there were very few fouls and they even had a goal disallowed. I’ll wager there are several international coaches in their hotel rooms tonight, glued to their TVs with the video remote controls in their hands!

[I'm off to the Lake District tomorrow for a week. I'll still be watching all the football, but I'll probably have to write and send blog entries from my phone... apologies for lateness, brevity and typos!]