World Cup – Day 8

Argentina 6 – 0 Serbia (& Montenegro)
Netherlands 2 – 1 Côte d’Ivoire
Mexico 0 – 0 Angola

Argentina are in my mind clear favourites to take the whole thing. Serbia (to whom I will no longer add Montenegro, since they no longer are) were basically considered to have the best defence in all of Europe. The statistic was something like, no goals conceded in all of their qualifying matches, but don’t quote me, and I’m not going looking now. They talk about football as the beautiful game, and Argentina were all dressed up. It really was astounding.

I’ve already made my feelings felt about the Netherlands beating Côte d’Ivoire. Ivory Coast are the best team in the competition that won’t go into the second round, and better than many that will go into the second round. It was terribly unlucky for them to go into the ‘group of death’ with Argentina and the Netherlands, both widely considered contenders. By effectively outplaying both Argentina and the Netherlands they deserved to stay and have a few more games than what will be their last against Serbia on the 22nd. Unfortunately outplaying isn’t the criteria for success, it’s outscoring.

I was surprised to see Mexico held goalless by Angola, but they should still go into the second round with Portugal out of Group D.