Day 6 saw Honduras take on Chile; one of the bookmakers favorites Spain take on Switzerland and the second round of group matches from Group A with South Africa playing Uruguay.
Many Honduran fans will remember this match for reasons different than the result: 3 Palacios siblings making it to the team, with Wilson starting and Jhony and Jerry on the bench. Apart from that, Chile had more to take from this match, since it was their first win in a World Cup since 48 years. The last time they won was in '62 when they won 1-0 against Yugoslavia in the third-place play-off. Their toughest challenge will come against Spain, but with this morale-boosting win, they will genuinely fancy their chances against the Swiss.
This was a massive shock, but nothing should be taken away from a Swiss side that clearly refused to back down against the reigning European champions. In terms of stats, Spain comfortably outdid their opponents in every area except the one that mattered: goals. With Chile winning their match earlier in the day, this result reduces the margin of error for Spain and as things stand, they would need to win their matches against Honduras (21 June) and Chile (25 June). Methinks, the 25 June match will be a knife-edge affair, since Switzerland will probably win their match against Honduras and throw the gauntlet to these 2 teams.
Uruguay are neither pushovers nor are they outside favorites. But, a force to reckon with, they certainly are. With several players plying their trade in Europe's top leagues, they have the class to make it as far as quarterfinals this year and to do that, they had to get all 3 points against the hosts, which they duly did. The first of Forlan's goals was a long range strike which had a significant deflection on its loopy way in, but despite that, it was a great goal, purely on intention since Forlan probably knew, with his enormous experience, that even with a deflection, the goalkeeper would surely concentrate harder on such shots due to the Jabulani's reputation. For a major portion of the match, they had a vice-like grip on the midfield and after the hosts' keeper's dismissal to a late tackle on Luis Suarez, literally toyed with the Africans' defence. Their only concern will be to finish as group winners and avoid meeting Argentina in last 16, which incidentally will be an objective shared by Mexico.
No comments:
Post a Comment