Sunday’s World Cup Friendlies Rewind

There’s no rest for the weary with six World Cup teams taking part in some good, healthy, friendly competition on Sunday as they continue to sprint forward towards that month-long madness in Germany. Latvia and FYR Macedonia also decided not to rest on the seventh day even though you and I are more likely to play in the World Cup than either of those countries. If you were asleep or just need some help keeping up with it all, here’s the lowdown on what happened today.

Ukraine 4 – Costa Rica 0
Despite coach Oleg Blokhin’s proclamations that his team is not fit and that his players are worthless slackers (I’m paraphrasing here), Ukraine still managed to put a hurting on Costa Rica. Four different players scored for Ukraine and none of them were named Andriy Shevchenko. Costa Rica did not mount much of an attack as it continues to prepare for a whipping by Germany on June 9. Any Ticos fans out there care to tell all of us why we can expect them to beat the host country on opening night?

Croatia 2 – Iran 2
Thanks to the marvels of Chinese bootleg pirates (God bless you China, all one billion of you!), I watched a bit of this one. The game was more physical than you would expect for a friendly, but quite entertaining for a neutral observer. Iran took a 2-1 lead in the 83rd minute in part because of some horrific defense by Croatia. The hosts managed to salvage the tie thanks to a penalty converted by Marko Babic in the 90th minute. I still say Croatia is a dangerous team heading into the tournament. Their opener against Brazil should be a real cracker. I also maintain that Iran will go through to the second round despite all the comments and emails from Mexico fans telling me to stop smoking crack. I’ll continue to smoke my crack until Team Melli is eliminated, thank you.

FYR Macedonia 2 – Ecuador 1
With all due apologies to the part of Greece that is called Macedonia, having to type “FYR”, former Yugoslav Republic, in front of Macedonia every time there is a game involving the team is a bit of a drag. Nevertheless, the FYRers managed to knock off La Tri in a game played in Spain. For the life of me I can’t quite figure out Ecuador. I think if they were just a wee bit stronger they would be poised to advance out of a Group A that is increasingly looking like a very weak group.

United States 1 – Latvia 0
Brian McBride put his massive head on the ball and scored the game winner for the United States. The US controlled the run of play for most of the game in its final of three send off matches.

As always, check out the team blogs for analysis and to chime in with your opinions.

Saturday’s results

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