No more ties…
Soccer haters, rejoice! The World Cup has reached the bracket-style, knockout phase of the tournament. From this moment forward, all games will have a winner. The sudden-death golden goal format was abandoned in 2002 in favor of two mandatory 15-minute overtime periods, but excitement still lives in the form of penalty kicks. Well, unless you’re from England. The Three Lions have been excused from the World Cup in 1990, 1998, and 2006 after losing on penalties.
Spain won when it counted…
Their stay in South Africa couldn’t have gotten off to a rockier start and looked to be much shorter than anyone imagined after a loss to Switzerland. However, the reigning champions of Europe kept their cool with a clinical wins over Honduras and 10-man Chile. Those victories, couple with a Swiss choke against Honduras, put Spain at the top of Group H. Instead of having to run the gauntlet against Brazil/Netherlands, Spain will face off against Portugal in a battle of Iberian supremacy.
Chile had a discipline nightmare…
Honestly, perhaps the problem was their tournament-leading nine yellow cards against Switzerland. That disgrace led to Friday’s bloodbath in which only three people were shown cards but all three earned suspensions for the next game against Brazil. Perhaps they should take a lesson from the Spanish. While Chile leads the Cup with 12 yellow cards, Spain has amazingly not been booked a single time in three games.
Switzerland couldn’t do what it took…
To quote John Candy in Cool Runnings (a wordsmith, for sure): “It was there for the taking, and you choked.” There’s no better way to describe a Swiss side that notched a goal against Spain but couldn’t find the back of the net against Honduras, of all teams. A convincing win – anything more than a goal, really – would have been enough to extend their stay, but they never came close. If anything, Honduras is the team finding itself ruing missed chances in that contest. Typical Switzerland.
South America gets the clean sweep…
Five South American teams qualified for South Africa and all five are through to the knockout stage after an extremely impressive performance that saw them lose only one of 15 group matches (the aforementioned Chilean nightmare). Europe, by contrast, advanced six teams out of a possible 13. A Chile-Brazil matchup will guarantee an end to South America’s perfect stay, but the continent could still manage three teams in the semifinals.
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