Some stats and observations from the opening round of fixtures

• 25 goals in 16 games. Less than 2 goals a game!
• 4 red cards
• Biggest win was by Germany. 4-0 thumping of Australia
• Upset of the tournament so far: Switzerland beating the favourites Spain 1-0!
• Goal of the 1st round: It’s a toss up between Tshabalala’s break away goal against Mexico and Maicon’s goal for Brazil

Germany are looking really good after their win, alongside Brazil, Argentina and Holland who also racked up early wins. It’s still early days and the only team struggling is Spain. No team has ever lost their opening fixture and gone onto win the World Cup.

Expect more goals in the 2nd round of fixtures as teams try to make up for their earlier mistakes if they made any in hope of progressing to the last 16!

Australian keeper getting beaten. Again.

Second to that, Ghana beat Serbia 1-0 with a well taken penalty to give Africa its first win of the tournament! One thing to note in this game was the way to ref and linesman communicated to give the handball penalty. The ref never saw it, but with the intervention of the linesman over their walkie-talkie system, he was able to get the call correct.

Lastly, Slovenia beat Algeria 1-0 with another goalkeeping mistake. Looks like Group C is the group where the goalies are taking the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. One thing I must say is both Algeria and Slovenia look pretty ordinary and shouldn’t pose much of a threat to England. England just need to get their ducks in a row!

So that’s it for Day 3. Not too much excitement other than the 4 goal blitz of the Socceroos by Ze Germans.

So here is Day 2 of the 2010 World Cup as experienced by me:

South Korea vs Greece

• The South Korean’s, now called ninjas by myself, looked pretty impressive.
• That being said, Greece are useless, so maybe the ninjas still need to prove themselves.
• How bad are Greece? Still haven’t scored a goal in a World Cup.

Final score: 2-0 to the ninjas!

I didn’t catch much of the match as I had one eye on the rugby, with South Africa totally destroying France at Newlands in Cape Town.

Argentina vs Nigeria

• Messi has officially turned up at the World Cup. He, like Ronaldo, usually under perform when playing for their country, but today Messi was wearing his Barcelona boots.
• The Nigerian keeper, Enyeama, had a great game. It looked like the Messi vs Enyeama show and the winner on the night? Enyeama. How he managed to keep Messi from scoring only the footballing gods will know.
• How awesome is it to have the legendary Maradona at this World Cup? I’m telling you now he is wearing an Argentinian kit underneath his suit and if his team are down a goal with 5 minutes to play, I wouldn’t bet against him whipping off his suit Superman style and taking the field!
• Argentina are officially my 2nd favourite team to take the World Cup.
• Nigeria are a solid side, but I don’t see them offering much at this World Cup. I think the likes of Cameroon or Ivory Coast will have the best showing of an African nation.

Final score: Argentina 1 – 0 Nigeria

England vs USA

This was going to be a huge match for me. It’s the opening of England’s World Cup campaign and will be the only group match that I won’t be watching England live. The yanks look a decent side and definitely worthy of pulling of an upset in this World Cup.

We headed down to the V&A Waterfront to catch the game with throngs of US and English supporters at the make-shift Dubliner pub. The atmosphere inside was awesome and the English definitely know how to shut up the opposition supporters in song.

• England had their chances to win the game, but with the number of mistakes made (not only at the back) a draw seemed a fair result.
• Capello made some tough selection calls that back-fired. Milner was clearly not feeling well and subbed after 30min and King can’t finish 90 minutes of football. As a defender, that is a prerequisite!
• BP have actually employed Robert Green to plug the oil spill in the gulf. See how swimmingly well that is going?!
• Gerrard should of been made captain long time ago. He was all over the park, making tackles, attacking and even scored after 5 minutes.
• Heskey had a decent game, but once again has shown what a blunt pencil in front of goal he is. We need goalscorers up front. Why not play Rooney up front with Gerrard just off him?
• I love the England football supporters. So much pride and history instilled in all of them. I wish SA had more of a history in sport – although we busy creating it we speak!

Final score: England 1 – 1 USA.

One last thing. Do you wonder why Americans have this preconceived misconceptions about Africa and that animals roam wild in our streets and back yards? Blame idiots that tweet things like this:

“Thirty minutes before departure the police are going to check the route of the team bus to make sure it is clear of elephants.” – This was tweeted by the official US Soccer Twitter account. Unbelievable.

So day 2 was pretty action packed and with Sunday’s big game only being Germany vs Australia, I’ll make the next post short and sweet. :)

I’m not the best writer, so I’m going to struggle to express how I felt on the opening day of the World Cup, but I’ll try anyway. Cape Town honestly felt like another planet – I don’t think SA will ever experience such comradery, ‘gees’ and happiness like we did on the 11th of June 2010. It surely can’t be topped?! Streets lined with thousands of people singing, dancing and blowing vuvuzelas. Everyone was on such a buzz – me included!

I headed down to the V&A Waterfront to watch the opening ceremony and both games. The opening ceremony was a little bit of a let down, but I guess having it during the day meant you couldn’t make use of any lighting, which is one of the things that really makes them special. Not too worry though, Bafana definitely made up for it on their opening fixture against Mexico.

Bafana Bafana vs Mexico

SA almost had the perfect start to the World Cup with Tshabalala firing SA into the lead with what can only be called a spectacular goal! South Africans across the country erupted when that goal went in – I couldn’t contain the excitement!

With Mexico enjoying the lions share of the possession during the game, I knew that we would have to minimise our mistakes to hold on for the win and unfortunately a defensive lapse by our captain, Mokoena let the Mexican’s equalise. So 1-1 the game ended and out of the 4 teams in group A, Bafana are looking the strongest to go through!

Moment of the match: Our ninja goalkeeper, Khune, making that diving save minutes after we had scored. He is going to be the difference between us qualifying for the 2nd round. Mark my words!

Uruguay vs France

I knew quite a few people that went to go and watch this game live at Greenpoint Stadium. It finished a dull 0-0 draw with both sides having a couple of half chances to score. France, having qualified for the World Cup solely on luck, don’t look like posing any threat. They have a number of world class players, but can’t seem to find to play well as a team together.

Uruguay also don’t look that impressive either. One thing they will go into the record books for is picking up the first red card at the 2010 World Cup.

Moment of the match: Thierry Henry trying to claim a handball from the Uruguay defense. Pretty rich coming from him considering how his blatant handball that was the difference between France and Ireland qualifying for the World Cup!

So there you have it, my short and sweet experience of the opening day of the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa!

Chelsea - Barclays Premiership Champions 2009/10

It has been an amazing season of English Premiership action. With Drogba netting the golden boot award with 29 goals, Petr Cech keeping 17 clean sheets and sharing the golden glove award with Pepe Reina and Chelsea scoring 103 goals (the most in history) during the 2009/10 campaign, there really couldn’t be any other Premier League champions.

Finishing off the league with an 8-0 thrashing of Wigan was a fitting way to the 2009/10 season. I was also lucky enough to watch Chelsea take on Blackburn at Stamford bridge during this season, so out of the 3 league cups Chelsea have won since I’ve been alive, this was definitely the most special. With the FA Cup still to play for, this could end up the most successful season in Chelsea history!

Enjoy the pics I found online. :)

There really is nothing better than winning trophies. Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea!

Check it out below and please let me know what you think. (For all my RSS and Email subscribers, click through to my blog to watch the video below)

BTW, we also made it to the featured video of the Zoopy.com homepage – so we must be doing something right!

Baseball is huge in the States and I’ve always wondered what the fascination is? After watching this game, I can tell you the only conclusion I can come to is that baseball fans are sad and boring people.

Its a pitchers game

The problem I see is that baseball is it’s a pitchers game. They throw so fast, that as a batter, its pretty much a guessing game of where and when to swing. In 9 innings, exactly 1 run was scored. Not a home run, just a couple of hits, and eventually 1 New York player got around to score. *Yawn*. All you ever hear the commentators says is “Swing and a miss!”. How boring is that?

With regards to skill, the only skills I really saw came from the pitchers ability to throw curve balls, swing balls, dropping balls (when the ball curves downwards as it gets close to the batter) and really fast balls.

There were 1 or 2 moments of skill by the fielders, but by using mits, it takes the skill out of catching and fielding. *Yawn*

Baseball versus Cricket

5 day cricket test matches sometimes can get a little boring, but there are passages of the game that are really exciting. Both teams can attack and defend while on the field, where as in baseball, there is no attack or defense.

Also, take the 20/20 format of cricket. Whats the purpose of it? To see batsmen smash the ball to all corners of the field! Attacking cricket is really awesome to watch, whether you batting or bowling!

So, baseball fans, what the hell is the fascination?

I was slightly disappointed in the 3 players they brought to the store – Michael Carrick, Ben Foster and Lee Martin. I think they could’ve included the likes of Rooney, Ferdinand, Giggs, Scholes or the likes instead of either Foster or Martin, but from what I heard, every 20 minutes the lineup of players changed, and I have a feeling Nike didn’t really have much control over it.

That being said, the biggest highlight was seeing the Champions League and English Premier League trophies. I asked Nike’s event manager if they were replicas and she said they were the real deal. How awesome is that!

I was lucky to get in and even get a postcard signed, as you had to buy a Man U shirt that got you a VIP card. They only had 300 VIP cards, so my Fiancé pulled some strings and we both got in. It really was quite an event as there were hundreds of fans outside just wanting to get a glimpse of the players.

6 degrees of separation

So in my quest to get closer to someday watching Chelsea and meeting some of my teams players, I had to go over after the event and shake the United players hands and thank them for coming out. So I’m now effectively 1 handshake away from John Terry, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and the likes. :-)

Check out my Flickr stream for more photos of the event!

Puma

• Switzerland
• Czech Republic
• Austria
• Poland
• Italy

Nike

• Portugal
• Turkey
• Croatia
• Netherlands
• Russia

Adidas

• Germany
• Romania
• France
• Greece
• Spain

Umbro

• Sweden

I’m predicting either the Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch to take Euro 2008. My firm favourites are the Portuguese. They really looking strong this summer and with Big Phil coming to Chelsea after Euro, I would love to see them lift the trophy for the first time.

The game was a great showpiece of how the English Premier League has improved over the past 2 seasons and is by far the best league in Europe at the moment. Did Manchester deserve to win? Probably, but if Chelsea had taken it, I think we could easily have said the exact same thing. For any cup final to be won or lost on the luck of penalties is really awful. Especially if you consider the one player that by far wanted to win that game more than any one else – John Terry.

What was even worse is that my Fiance, who is a huge football and John Terry fan, plane flight from Namibia was delayed by 2 hours and she missed the entire game. She landed just as the penalties started and I gave her running commentary – she is just as heartbroken.

There were moments of controversy, moments of glory and moments of tears, but all in all, it was a fantastic display of football, for Chelsea supporters, Man U supporters and even the neutrals.

The boys did us proud out there. Terry, Lampard, Ballack, Makelele, Essien, Joe and Ashley Cole get special mention for their big effort I felt they put in last night. They gave everything for the cause but the footballing gods just weren’t on our side last night.

Me? I’ll get over the loss (eventually). I won’t forget the pain and the way we lost the game, but I will be here next season shouting Chelsea! Chelsea! Chelsea!

Keep the blue flag flying high!