World Cup – Day 13

Netherlands 0 – 0 Argentina
Côte d’Ivoire 3 – 2 Serbia
Portugal 2 – 1 Mexico
Iran 1 – 1 Angola

Guaranteed spots in the second round with two wins each, the Netherlands and Argentina both started their match with understrength sides. Not wanting to risk losing players, anyone with a yellow card started on the bench. If you get two yellow cards at any point in the group stage you will miss the next game. The game itself was actually quite entertaining to watch. Both teams played really well. It’s as good a game to get a draw against either of these sides (as Australia did against the Netherlands in a friendly a few weeks ago) as it is to get a win – so they had to play well to keep each other out.

Between Portugal and Mexico I actually picked Mexico to top Group D. They would have, had they been able to beat Portugal in this game, and they looked quite good throughout. They gave Portugal a penalty when Marquez (sp?) committed a stupid handball in the box. At some point they had a player sent off as well, but were outplaying Portugal with only ten men for a good portion of the second half. A good game to watch.

I didn’t watch either of the other two games, but was happy to see Côte d’Ivoire get a well-deserved win in this world cup. A bit sad to see Serbia do so badly, but cujemo se at the next world cup maybe.