It was a wonderful start to yesterday’s action as Colombia beat Greece 2.1, as predicted on the blog.
I tipped up Colombia to win, BTTS, James Rodriguez to score and a final score of 2.1 and with all 4 tips coming home, it marked a terrific start to the evening’s action although unfortunately it went somewhat downhill with England’s defeat to Uruguay. The Colombians look to be a genuine threat in this tournament and their narrow victory came as no surprise and they could be headed for a last 16 clash with Uruguay and that promises to be an absolute cracker. I landed my anytime double goalscorer for 3rd time out of 4 with Rooney finally scoring a World Cup goal to add to the Rodriguez strike in the Colombia game and this brought home a very nice double but sadly for England and for me, not only did they fail to get the win I was hoping for, but the late goal they conceded has all but certainly condemned them to an early flight home unless Italy can do them some major favours . I spoke at length about Wayne Rooney yesterday and as I expected he was England’s best player, looking sharp and being at the forefront of every attack they launched while young guns Sterling and Sturridge were less impressive and overall his performance will have silenced some if not all of his critics. In the end it was the genius of Luis Suarez and the appalling defending which cost England their chance and how they missed the Chelsea boys Terry and Cole at the back. I always felt it was a major blunder to leave out Ashley Cole and Leighton Baines has looked far below the standards set by Cole who was easily one of the top 5 left backs in the world game. Perhaps he still is? In any case, the manager’s decision to look to the future was brave and not without good reason but his decision to go for Baines ahead of Cole always struck me as strange and Baines has looked ill at ease this past week in his role at left back. In midfield Steven Gerrard may now decide the time is right to step down as another disappointing campaign stares him in the face and for the Liverpool man it has been an excruciatingly painful month and whether he still has the drive and ability to move forward again remains to be seen. Any England fans looking for some good football to cheer them up following the defeat in the late game between Japan and Greece were to be further disappointed as the two sides played out a depressing 0.0. The Greeks really are the dullest nation when it comes to football tournaments these days and it has to be hoped they are not back for the next one. Sorry Samaras. Tonight’s action see’s Italy take on Costa Rica with England fans praying for an Italian win while France take on the Swiss in what is essentially a winner takes all to decide who will top the group and the late action sees the match you have all been waiting for...Honduras vs. Ecuador! I am quite disappointed that on the night before my weekend off this is the action we have in store for us but you cannot have steak for dinner every night and let’s hope the action will be a little better than what the Japanese and Greeks served up last night. Comments are closed.
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