Well guys, almost two weeks into the 2014 Fifa World Cup and all the hopes and dreams of this reporter have been well and truly destroyed.
If you remember back three weeks ago, you will recall myself predicting that the English national team would be the ‘big dog' to fall at the first hurdle, and boy was I right. After a disappointing, yet encouraging display against Italy in Manaus June 14, England faced a must-win game with Uruguay last Thursday. After a flat, timid and downright pathetic performance, England once again found themselves on the losing side as a Luis Suarez inspired Uruguay dumped them out of the World Cup at the group stage for the first time since 1958.
While I may have predicted it, and for the most part probably expected it, it doesn't hurt any less to see your national team going home before the tournament has really gotten under way.
But we are not alone. Perhaps the biggest shocker to come out of the World Cup so far is the fact that Spain, the reigning World and European champions, find themselves booking an early plane home after successive defeats to the Netherlands and Chile.
On a lesser scale, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon and Honduras are the other teams we already know will be leaving the tournament early.
Looking back over the past week, we have had some absolutely fantastic games to feast our eyes upon, the best of which took place this past weekend. Group G, containing Germany, Portugal, Ghana and the United States, was labeled this year's ‘Group of Death' and boy has it lived up to its name. After a resounding 4-0 victory over Portugal June 16 (no guys, I did not see that coming), the Germans played out an entertaining 2-2 draw with Ghana on Saturday to leave both teams with a chance to qualify for the knockout stage.
In perhaps what was the game of the weekend, the US and Portugal took to the field in the middle of the Amazon rainforest late Sunday in a game both country's saw as must win. Nani got the Portuguese off to a wonderful start five minutes in before Jermaine Jones and Clint Dempsey struck in the second half to give the US hope of what many believed would be an unlikely victory.
As the seconds ticked down, the US's dream of progressing to the last 16 looked a distinct possibility, while Portugal, who did have star forward Cristiano Ronaldo in the starting line-up even if it was against the doctor's wishes, were making preparations to head home early alongside those beleaguered nations listed above. Then, in the fourth minute of five added on, Ronaldo picked the ball up deep on the right wing, beat his man and whipped in an absolutely incredible cross which substitute Salvatore Varela nodded home to level the game at 2-2.
Last minute goals were a bit of a theme for this latest round of games at the World Cup. Having put in an incredibly spirited display against a team many see as the favourites to win the entire thing, Iran was downed by a 91st minute Lionel Messi wonder goal that gave Argentina the 1-0 win they needed to qualify for the last 16.
Joining the Argentineans in the last 16 having won their opening two games are Belgium, France, Colombia, Netherlands, Chile and, quite unbelievably, Costa Rica.
With several do or die match-ups coming up over the course of the next few days, most notably on Thursday when Groups G and H wrap up, and the round of 16 set to kick off over the weekend, I think we can safely assume there will be some pretty good footie action on the box, for the next little while at least.
Since I got my predictions pretty spot on last week for Monday's game (not really, I went 0-3), I figured it might be fun to do the same again. There are four matches scheduled for today and unfortunately, because of our print deadline, we cannot wait for those games to finish to print this column, so here it goes.
Australia 1-3 Spain, Netherlands 1-1 Chile, Cameroon 0-3 Brazil, Croatia 2-1 Mexico. I'm pretty confident I'll get at least one result right this week!
