Worst Games of 2006 World Cup

July 7th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

Yesterday I offered up my thoughts on the five best games of this year’s World Cup. Today I have gone back through the parts of my brain that are dark and scary to try to recall the five worst matches of the tournament. These are the games where I started questioning my life midway through and could only rejoice once they were over. Below are my selections. You are welcome to convince me of other games that deserve to be on this list.

5. Spain vs. Saudi Arabia, First Round
Spain was already through to the next round. Saudi Arabia was all but eliminated. Instead of sparing us all 90 minutes of uninteresting action, the two sides played it out. Spain fielded a reserve team. Saudi Arabia was, well, Saudi Arabia. If there ever was a game that should have been cancelled at halftime it was this one.

4. France 0 Switzerland 0, First Round
There are some scoreless football matches that are a joy to watch. This one was not. Long before France started playing well and long before they remembered how to score, they played a Swiss team that was most effective at playing anything but a beautiful game.

3. Ukraine 1 Tunisia 0, First Round
The mission was clear to both sides. If they won, they advanced. If they lost, they would go home. Even with the stakes so high, both teams played lifeless football. A questionable call in the box led to the only goal of the match, helping Ukraine to advance to play an even more painful game to watch.

2.England 1 Paraguay 0, First Round
This one was like a migraine headache. No matter what you did you couldn’t make it go away. England’s lone goal came on an own goal in the first few minutes of the game. From there, the only real drama was whether any players would collapse from heat exhaustion. No one died, but the game felt like death.

1. Ukraine 0 Switzerland 0, Round of 16
The elimination stage of the tournament usually brings out the best in teams and there is usually a sense of urgency to win. That was not the case when these two teams kicked the ball around in the midfield for 120 minutes. Even the penalty shoot out lacked drama thanks to Switzerland’s inability to grasp the concept that the object is to put the ball in the goal, not the opposing keeper’s hands.

Those were my least favorite matches. Your turn.

International Football News – World Cup Blog RSS Feed

Anton

Ukraine 1 Tunisia 0, First Round

“The mission was clear to both sides. If they won, they advanced.”

Ukraine only needed a tie.
John

I think you’re forgetting Portugal & Netherlands. Thanks to the referee this was definitely one game that you couldn’t wait to see the end of!!
http://www.SoccerBriefs.com Joe

I thought I was the only one that thought that Switzerland was trying to knock the Ukrainian keeper into the goal by pelting him with the ball.

Also, I would be hard pressed to disagree with your list of the worst games and there may be an argument for going back to 24 or 16 teams for the final tournament as Switzerland, Ukraine and England appear on the list twice each. It looks like some teams just don’t come to play.

I still think that Italy and Germany should get to play again for the Cup and that France and Portugal should both have lost the other semi-final, but I am not sure how you would work that out.

Looking forward to Sunday,

Joe Bellanti
Editor
http://www.SoccerBriefs.com
human

Whenever Ukraine played, I fell asleep. Seriously. Every time. Maybe it was just that I happened to be tired on those particular days…
Karl

Argentina 0 – 0 Netherlands
Highly anticipated great match up but both teams decided to sit the match out as they were both through to the round of 16.

What is worse, ivory coast and S&M, who supposedly had “nothing” to play for, were playing at the same time and their match turned out to be one of the best of the Cup.
Sam

Joe: Good thinking. Germany-Italy would have been a great game for the final, and the France-Portugal game was pretty bad, though not quite at the level of the worse five mentioned here.

Maybe future cup finalists should be decided by a phone-in vote…
Anton

Maybe future cup finalists should be decided by a phone-in vote…

*Sarcasm*
Great idea!!! Let’s turn it into “World Idol”. I can see it now… China is the “World Idol” Champion with over 1 billion calls!!! OMEG!!
*Sarcasm*

Can you please just stop and think for a second before pressing the “Submit Comment” button?
Tony

Hey Sam,
I guess some people just don’t appreciate the humour you tried to convey!
http://www.SoccerBriefs.com Joe

Hey Anton,

Please see Sam’s first post for an example of internet humor and sarcasm without the need to use the *sarcasm* indicator.

Although…I like the “World Idol” idea…I just can’t see the Chinese World Cup team being taken seriously as singers.

But…you are right…with a billion call ins, it really wouldn’t matter how good they were…

Who are you for on Sunday – and more importantly, who are you for in the game that really matters – the one on Saturday?

Joe Bellanti
Editor
http://www.SoccerBriefs.com
Tony

Joe,
Are you trying to bait Anton??!!
See if he takes the worm….so to speak?
http://www.SoccerBriefs.com Joe

Shhhhhh………

Joe Bellanti
Editor
http://www.SoccerBriefs.com
nicko

Angola played some pretty dull football too, I can’t believe they didn’t try and win their last game – instead being happy with just having gotten a goal at the world cup :(
Anton

Hey Joe!

France. 1-0 or 2-1.

Btw, your website is awful. So is this one, for that matter.

When silly people from all over the world come together to talk about a sport they know very little about – websites like this one and like yours are created. That makes me upset. I don’t know why, I know it’s silly to be upset because of something people post – but I’m upset anyway.

I’m upset because people cannot appreciate a 0-0 game anymore. I’m upset because there are some people who want to reduce the world cup to 16 teams. There are even people who suggest making the goals progressively bigger throughout the soccer match… Wow.

Sam’s post might have been sarcastic, or meant to be funny – but it failed badly.

Arguing on the Internet is like participating in Special Olympics – even if you win, you’re still retarded. Therefore, I am not going to argue with you. In fact, I will do my best never to post or even visit this web site again. Thankfully, the World Cup concludes on Sunday and I’m off work so I will be able to watch it live on TV, without a need to read idiotic comments, which by the way do a really awful job of telling me what’s going on on the field.

So cya Joe, Sam, Bill, Mike etc. and I hope to never read any of your stuff again. But you will remember me on Sunday. When France will win 1-0 or 2-1. Depending on whether Barthez will screw up or not.
Sam

The only team that would be disqualified from the World Idol Compitition proposed by Anton would be Serbia and Montenegro. Come on, they came all the way to the world cup, and not a single one of them could be bothered to sing the national anthem?? You can’t win if you don’t sing.

Back to the topic at hand… The Angola games weren’t too fun to watch, but I thought they played pretty well myself. In fact, I thought the goal-less game they played against Mexico to be better than the Iran game.

By the way, it seems that the team has returned to Luanda to a hero’s welcome, with 50,000 people in a week-long festivity. That’s pretty good for coming back with only a single goal!
nicko

certainly Angola did well results wise, with two draws, but they played very defensively (just akwa up front and almost nothing between him and the defenders) and seemed happy to just ‘make-up-the-numbers’ re. Bruce Arena which I thought was a real shame.
Arthur

i was very dissapointed by brasul vs. france. i was pretty tired this day and the game couldn’t let me stay awake.
http://malta-da-rua.blogspot.com/ malta

«Anton | July 7th, 2006 at 8:45 pm
Ukraine 1 Tunisia 0, First Round
“The mission was clear to both sides. If they won, they advanced.”
Ukraine only needed a tie.
Posted from United States

Arguing on the Internet is like participating in Special Olympics – even if you win, you’re still retarded.»

This retarded Anton was the first to post a comment here… first retarded then. Go back to your six-pack, your hotdogs and burgers and your american football websites… soccer’s not for fascist americans :-)
nicko

PS on world cup idol, you can kinda see why some players don’t sing when they put microphones near them…

I’d give my individual idol effort to Patrick Viera in the anthems for the France-Togo game, France was on the line, having to win by 2 goals and under huge criticism, his chest was out and he seemed to get more volume than the rest of the stadium, awesome!
http://worldcupblog.org ranjit

the 5 worst games are of course:

england vs the 5 teams they played.
Ulli G

England, I agree.
nicko

I thought England-Sweden was not such a bad game to watch
http://malta-da-rua.blogspot.com/ malta

And you’ll see… Germany vs Portugal will be much more interesting to watch than the final. Check foxy italians waiting to score in the counter attack and unimaginative french trying to break the catenaccio. The french will taste the medecine they used against Portugal…
Gordon Bennett

Portugal – Netherlands, definitely. What could have been a splendid match rapidly degraded into a disgraceful brawl with an absurd flurry of bookings.

Everyone seems to want to put all of the blame on Ivanov for failing to maintain control, but the truth is that while he can shoulder some of the blame, many of the players on the field are equally responsible for their disgusting and unsportsmanlike performance.

I’ll geant you this, it certainly wasn’t boring, but that doesn’t mean it was good.
Nolan

The only thing I’d change is replace Spain v Saudi Arabia with Argentina v Netherlands

The former was pretty bad but at least you got to see flashes of brilliance from a Spanish side that, had the players felt that they weren’t hopelessly doomed to remain subs, could have shone. The latter was tragic in that it would have been a great game had either team felt like actually playing.
matilda

Portugal vs Netherlands. It wasn’t boring like some of the games listed (it was fascinating to watch, like a bad car crash) but this game definitely qualifies as one of the “worst” in football terms. Nasty play by both sides and a card-happy ref who couldn’t keep control. A dark day for “total football” and a win for bad behaviour. :(
http://ampasoftaol.com Marcus

US Versus Italy degerated into one of the worst matches. Both sides got red carded. Once red card comes in it becomes backyard soccer.
Claude

Well Anton I really resent your remark about Special Olympics and retarded. I have a beautiful little girl who is 8 years old and can’t walk, talk or even crawl. She is totally dependent on others to bring her toys, feed her etc. I just wish she could participate in Special Olympics. The participants in Special Olympics may never set a world record but they show a lot of courage to overcome their handicaps and to participate. These people should be admired too just like a Ronaldo, Zidane, Klose etc. Lastly just because someone has a handicap doesn’t make them retarded. People with disabilities can’t help the way they are. You on the other hand had a choice of being worthless scumbag or a person with some qualities. We all saw what you chose to be.
jack halford

Its sad that England are in the running for at least 4 out of 5 matches played for worst performance.
Only the first half against Sweden give England any credit !
Where does that leave England in the ‘True’ World rankings ?
http://www.myspace.com/panda100 panda

Hello my children,
I know this has nothing to do with the do-hicky above buuuut do any of you know where i might find some statistics on the use of mobile phones during the world cup?
I’m researching it on Google and coming up with nothing.
Thanks guys!
bonzion

what world cup did you guys watch