June 11: The Daily World Cup Wrap
June 11 was all about individuals. The brilliance of Arjen Robben delighted neutrals and was enough to see off Serbia & Montenegro, but not everyone was impressed. His Dutch team mates did a passable impression of Michael J. Fox’s “Teen Wolf” basketball buddies, complaining that he can’t do it all alone. Elsewhere, Ebrahim Mirzapour’s mistake with a goal kick condemned Iran to defeat, while Figo rolled back the clock to orchestrate a Portuguese win over Angola.
Holland vs Serbia & Montenegro | LiveBlog
Holland 1 (Robben 18)
Serbia & Montenegro 0
Holland put on an aggressive display of attacking football in the first 45, and then deliberatley slowed things down for the second. Serbia & Montenegro game out strong early in the second half, abandoning the long balls and looking to play some good football. Substitute Ognjen Koroman looked a class act on the ball, but not so much when he was asking the ref to book Dutch players. But this game was all about Arjen Robben. The Chelsea wide man scored the first after a nice Robin van Persie lob put him through on goal, and looked capable of beating any number of defenders with his pace and balance.
Fans of the Nederlands should be happy enough with this Oranje display, while S&M shouldn’t be too downhearted, and can look forward to the return of top defender Nemanja Vidic, who was suspended today.
Go here for Arjen Robben heavy highlights.
Fan Photos of the day:
Follow the links for more World Cup Blog photos and video, or submit your own to enter our photo and video contest. Thank-you to Umbro and Subside Sports for providing the prizes.
Did we get it Right? Bad start to the day for the WCB prediction panel. Chris was closest with a 2-1 Dutch victory, Nick was in the right ball park with a 2-0 Dutch victory, but everyone else was just wrong.
Go to the Nederlands home page to worship at the alter of Arjen Robben, or the Serbia & Montenegro page, where things should be optimistic, despite the result.
Mexico vs Iran | LiveBlog
Mexico 3 (Bravo 28,76 Zinha 79)
Iran 1 (Golmohammadi 36)
Iran might have thought they’d secured a point here, as Mexico looked lost after all time top scorer Jared Borgetti limped out just after half time. Without his aerial threat they seemed unsure of themselves and content to take the 1-1 draw. But then Iranian keeper Ebrahim Mirzapour fluffed a goal kick, causing panic in his defence. Zinha pounced and found Bravo, who scored. 3 minutes later Zinha dribbled, passed wide and head home the cross to make things certain.
Iran didn’t produce the upset some had predicted, but they were no pushovers either. Unfortunately for Team Melli they learnt that simple mistakes like Mirzapour’s rarely go unpunished in the World Cup.
FIFA’s official match highlights can be seen by clicking here .
Fan Photos of the day:
Follow the links for more World Cup Blog photos and video, or submit your own to enter our photo and video contest. Thank-you to Umbro and Subside Sports for
providing the prizes.
Did we get it Right? The prediction panel’s bad day continues. Nick was close again, being only a goal out with 2-1. But no one else was close. Bob looked into his increasingly suspect crystal ball and came up with 17-16 to Iran.
To discuss this game further head over to the Mexico and Iran pages.
Portugal vs Angola | LiveBlog
Portugal 1 (Pauleta 4)
Angola 0
With Angola taking on their former colonial overlords, some expected a repeat of their last encounter where four Angolans were sent off and the game was abandoned with 20 minutes to go. To the credit of both sides, this was a very gentlemanly encounter. Like England yesterday, Portugal scored early, then failed to capitalise. Figo, the senior citizen of the Golden Generation, showed a burst of pace that he must have been saving up for the last five years to beat a defender, then showed his class by pulling it back perfectly for Pauleta’s goal.
Portugal were unable to increase their lead, more to do with Angola’s never say die attitude than any failing on Portugal’s part. For Angola, Loco put in a few good crosses, despite being an early contender for worst World Cup haircut (shaven head with fringe if you missed it) and Akwa, to his eternal credit, seemed determined to score an overhead kick if it was the last thing he ever did. Matteus was especially impressive on the left, hopefully he’ll show us more of the same against Iran and Mexico.
For highlights (including a brief glimpse of Loco’s hair) go here.
Fan Photo of the day:
Follow the links for more World Cup Blog photos and video, or submit your own to the site.
Did we get it Right? Without getting into it too much, let’s just say no. The prediction panel will be glad June 11 is over.
To discuss this game further head over to the Portugal and Angola team pages.
Have a look what today’s results have done to the group tables.
Related Posts
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share        |
Comments
By Cerebral Wanderer | June 12th, 2006 at 5:14 am 
A dull day compared to the first two days. Iran Vs Mexico turned out to be the best match. Asains fans must have been disappointed to see Iran go down. A lot of them were expecting an upset. Iran lost the game in last 15 mins.
Posted from 
India
By McCabe H. | June 12th, 2006 at 5:58 am I am appreciating the world cup much more this time around. None of the stops and commercials of the U.S. sports. And things can swing so quickly it’s very exciting.
But I am wondering though, what’s the deal with faking injuries? I understand why players take dives to try to get calls. But what’s the point of rolling around on the ground for a good while every time you get knocked down? Maybe you do it to waste time or help your team get back, but it happens far more than that. The referee’s already made his decision by that point, and it’s not like it’s going to change anything. It’s especially irritating when play stops. I’ve even seen times where the player was not yet out of the play entirely and could have done some good if they had gotten up quickly instead of writhing in simulated pain. It’s especially ridiculous because when athletes do suffer leg injuries, they never, ever roll around like that, as it would put them in much more pain.
I think this is something that Americans have a really hard time understanding, because you never want to show that you may be pain or hurt in any of the main sports, particularly (american) football. You don’t want to look like a wimp, but you also don’t want to give your opponent the satisfaction or psychological advantage of knowing that you’re in a lot of pain. If you get knocked down and even if you can’t see straight or have a concussion, in football you try to get up as fast as possible to show your opponent that he can’t hurt you (even if you go puke 10 times on the sideline on your knees). For example, Terrell Owens fractured his leg and broke his ankle, damaging ligaments in it, and limped off the field and tried to walk it off on the sideline. Or in basketball, if Dwyane Wade gets fouled hard on a dunk attempt and lands on his hip or shoulder, he’s going to try not to show how much it hurts. Partly because if he does, he can bet on getting elbowed in that spot for the rest of the game. Also because then his opponent says, “Damn I can’t stop him from scoring or slow him down even if I knock him on his hip from 5 feet in the air. How am I going to stop this guy?”
Soccer players are brilliantly gifted and undoubtebly very tough athletes who I’m sure play hurt as much as the athletes in American sports do, so the thing of faking injury is very hard for me to understand. Maybe someone can enlighten me though as to the advantage this provides. My latest theory is that it’s a way for players to rest, because just laying calmly on the ground to rest looks sort of bad.
Posted from 
United States
By Volkswagen | June 12th, 2006 at 8:53 am Hey, McCabe, they have to simulate pain in attempt to avoid booking for diving. This way they pretend that the clash was real.
Posted from United States
Comments are closed
