It is now about the mid-way point in the group stages of the world cup. This world cup has been quite boring in general with the exception of a few games such as matches involving Argentina and Germany. The average goals per game is about 2 goals maximum.
In general, a lot of the teams seem to be happy to sit back on a goal lead and hope to win on the counter. This led to a lot of the games meandering to draw or low scoring games. I wonder if it is due to some of the teams are still adapting to the altitude and weather condition that some of the games are been held.
It seems that the goal keeping errors have been leading to a number of goals. Example are the goal conceded by Robert Green as well as the Japan GK error in the match against Holland. I wonder if it is partially due to the new ball used in this world cup as a lot of the mistakes seem to be due to a misjudgement of the ball trajectory or after bounce.
In general, the European teams have been quite a letdown in terms of their performance especially the big teams. France and England come to mind. France seems to be on a downward slide for a couple of years as now the team looks very disjointed and a lot of infighting within the team. For England, their performance against USA and Algeria has been dismal. It seems that England has lost their qualification form and making it very difficult for themselves to qualify for the next round. For Spain, after their unexpected defeat to Switerland, they will need to buck up else they may not make it to the next round.
A pleasant surprise has been the performance of teams from Asia and Central America. Both Japan and South Korea managed to get their first world cup win on foreign soil. North Korea had a good match against Brazil. Mexico and USA has performed quite well in their 2 games.
Argentina has been playing some of the most gung ho soccer in the tournament. The only worry that they may have is their defence seems not very solid and both Nigeria and South Korea could have caused more grief for them if their finishing was better.
Hopefully as the tournament proceeds to the knock out phase, there will be more excitement and brillant goals and less of goalkeeping errors.
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