World Cup – Day 14

Italy 2 – 0 Czech Republic
Ghana 2 – 1 USA
Japan 1 – 4 Brazil
Australia 2 – 2 Croatia

UPDATED POST
What’s on tonight?

Guus Hiddink will be thanking me again, along with every other Australian, after we endured the heart-attack-inducing game against Croatia. In what was arguably Australia’s worst performance in their three games so far in this World Cup, we shot ourselves in the foot several times but, somehow, managed to still come away with the draw which will take us into the second round.

I’m not sure why Hiddink chose Kalac over Mark Schwarzer in goal for Australia. Kalac may be a Croatian-Australian, but sentimentality should have played no part in his selection for this most important match. He wasn’t good against Greece in Melbourne earlier this year, and he conspired to lose the game for us against Croatia today. Apart from the near-attempt to bobble the ball into his own net when picking it up, the second Croatian goal was comic in its ineptitude. Fortunately, for Kalac and Australia, Kewell managed to get a second goal for Australia with 10 minutes left, despite a hint of offside against him.

One of the bizarre moments late in the second half was when the Croatian player Siminic received a second yellow card. A second yellow card in the same game is an automatic red card which sees the player sent off. Amazingly the referee didn’t realise he’d already issued a yellow to Siminic and he stayed on the pitch. The surreal moment came as the referee blew full time. He gave Siminic a third yellow card, and then presented the red. This has surely got to be a first in World Cup football – or football at almost any level. Siminic will, I think, be going down in the record books for a long time to come as the only player to receive three yellow cards in one game. With Australia going through to the second round Siminic may also be rightly bitter about choosing Croatia over Australia.

I said earlier that Group E was wide open and, sure enough, with the Czech Republic losing to Italy and Ghana beating the USA, Italy and Ghana go through to the second round. Czech Republic, the number 2 ranked team in the world going into this World Cup, won’t go past the group stage. That’s a bit of an upset. I had them pegged to make it to the semi-final!

UPDATE: I just watched the Italy-Czech Republic game on video. I am more confident of Australia’s chances aginst Italy now. For the entire second half, the Czech Republic played with only 10 men. In the 87th minute, against a very tired Czech side, Filipo Inzaghi went through with the ball, leaving two Italians and the Czech goalkeeper the only players in that half of the field. Italy struggled, and the Czech Republic had plenty of opportunities to score. Australia to make the Quarter Finals.

I’m really glad Ghana are through to the second round and the USA is out of the World Cup. Not that I hold any particular animosity towards my country of birth, but the arrogance of US coach Arena saying Australia were simply “there to make up the numbers” was hard to take in any good spirit.

I didn’t watch the games, but it means Australia will face Italy in the second round match at 1am, Tuesday morning. Bring it on. If Australia play like they did today against Croatia, they’ll lose by two goals or more. If they play like they did against Japan or Brazil, they’ll have a good chance of going to the quarter-finals.

Japan scored the first goal against Brazil in the 33rd minute, a great goal, and the first Brazil has conceded this World Cup. After that Japan kept pushing and playing well for the rest of the first half but conceded a headed goal to Ronaldo late on. Two more stomping goals went in before Ronaldo scored his second to make it 4-1 and equal Gerd Mueller’s all-time record of 14 goals in World Cup finals. He still looks slow, lazy and out of form, but at least scoring will relieve some of the pressure he’s been feeling from critics who say he’s slow, lazy and out of form…