E3-Costa Rica was headed to a scoreless tie with E1-Brazil despite taking no shots on goal and having just one corner kick but Brazil scored twice in stoppage time to dash those hopes. E2-Switzerland was also heading to a tie in their match with E4-Serbia before Xherdan Shaqiri's great effort as he slipped the ball under the GK in the 90' to give them a 2-1 win. Brazil and the Swiss are tied atop Group E with 4 points while Costa Rica is eliminated. Serbia became the first team to score first and lose as well as have a lead at halftime and lose.
In a team that didn't play today, D1-Argentina benefited as
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ -- D1-Argentina GK Wilfredo Caballero miskicked a ball played back to him straight into the air and D3-Croatia's Ante Rebic's eyes were wide with opportunity and hit a wicked shot past the keeper for the first score in the 53'. Although it looked like an easy put in by Rebic, if you look at the replay, it was a great finish, a finish 98% of MLS players would not be able to do -- most would settle the ball, wait for it to stop, and then try to kick it past the keeper. Croatia then took major advantage of two more opportunities against an Argentine team desperately trying to score and before you knew it, Messi and Argentina went down 3-0 and will need a lot of help if they want to make it to the Round of 16. Croatia qualified for their 2nd trip to the Knockout Stage and like Switzerland vs Brazil, took advantage of a lenient ref to commit 23 fouls and spread the cautions among four players.
Meanwhile, C1-France qualified for the Round of 16 in the most
TIMES SQUARE, NEW YORK -- Three prolific scorers scored, all just enough to lead their team to beat a very underdog team, 1-0. Luis Suarez scored early for A4-Uruguay which held up and sent both A1-Russia and Uruguay into the Round of 16 and eliminating A2-Saudi Arabia and A3-Egypt. For the second straight match, B1-Portugal's Ronaldo scored in the 4' and that was barely enough to hold off B3-Morocco. B2-Spain's Diego Costa scored for the second straight match nine minutes into the second half and fought off a tenacious B4-Iran team that you would never have known they had zero shots on goal. And one of the potential shots on goal that went in in the 62' was called back by VAR after review showed Iran was offsides. The three heavy favorites were just ho-hum in sleep walking to 3 points.
Spain's win eliminated
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
GERMANY STUNNED AND GROUP H UPSIDE DOWNA record 79 entries vie for 6th pool title; Ilvecchio is in 1st
LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (LAX), CA (smt) -- The host nation A1-Russia opened the World Cup in grand fashion thrashing A2-Saudi Arabia 5-0but it was F2-Mexico who provided the biggest shockwave of the tournament, literally according to seismologists, with a 1-0 win over the defending champions. F1-Germany is ranked #1 in the world and won all 10 UEFA qualifying matches with a +39 goal differential. The biggest upset, however, was the smallest-ever qualifying nation of D2-Iceland scoring a game-tying goal against powerhouse D1-Argentina. Just a few years ago Iceland was ranked in the triple-digits and then the shocking win over England in EUROs two years ago gave them a Gonzaga-like vibe and who wouldn't want to do the Skol Viking Chant? Lionel Messi also missed a penalty kick that kept the game tied at 1. The odds-on favorite to win the World Cup, E1-Brazil, struggled against a foul-against-Neymar E2-Swiss team and ended up with a disappointing tie, even though SUI is ranked 6th in the world. It's much better than their previous two WC matches, a 3-0 loss to Netherlands and a 7-1 thrashing by Germany. Only G1-Belgium came away with a victory, a convincing one as well 3-0, amongst the top 6 ranked teams in the world.
In the most anticipated match of the Group Stage, Match # 3 saw the two Iberian peninsula powers, B1-Portugal and B2-Spain, go at it for what seemed like the millionth time and the match didn't disappoint. From
The first red card of the tournament! Just three minutes in, H4-Japan caught H3-Colombia off-guard and what could've been a red card (at least a yellow) for trying to drag down Yuya Osako as he went 1v1 on the GK, credit to Osako, he didn't dive, continued forward with the shot that was saved but the rebound shot by Shinji Kagawa is saved by Carlos Sanchez...
by his arm and he reaches out to stop the ball. Dumb play as Colombia could've easily rallied from a very early 1-0 deficit, but much harder to do with just 10 men. In my mischief, I was kinda hoping there would be two reds on Colombia but one is good enough. Credit to Colombia for fighting back and the classic free kick UNDER the wall was brilliantly done to level up 1-1 (reminded me of David Beckham's first match in New York in 2007, where Juan Pablo Angel did the same thing, going under the LA Galaxy wall past the GK on a free kick). But Japan would get the game-winner off a corner and becomes the first AFC team to beat a CONMEBOL team in World Cup play.
Meanwhile, H2-Senegal used a H1-Poland own goal to gain confidence and never let
While the three odds-on favorites (BRA, GER, ESP) to win the Cup have gone 0-1-2, just on the outside is G1-Belgium, ranked #3 in the world and in the second half they exploded against newbie G2-Panama scoring 3 times in a 3-0 win. Only top group seeds A1-Russia and C1-France have managed to pick up wins, and Russia was technically the fourth-best team in the group. H1-Poland plays Tuesday.
Harry Kane scored early and in final stoppage time to give
The constant aggressiveness by F2-Mexico to start the match paid off in a big way with lots of opportunities and a great effort and finish by Hirving Lozano. The defending champs took back possession but Mexico kept the pressure on, committing 15 fouls. F1-Germany had 61% of the possession and took 25 shots, 9 on goal but was held scoreless. Will MEX keep up the momentum or have a typical letdown against a lesser team such as F4-Korea Republic? Who would have thought GER would score UEFA's first loss of the tournament (was 5-0-3 with SRB's win)?
While GER was picked by 22 to win the 2018 WC, E1-Brazil picked by
Saturday, June 16, 2018
ARGENTINA doesn't have a
stand-out rising star, and certainly no one closely resembling the next Messi.
And there's the rub...the sun is setting on La Pulga and his generation, and
they'll have to win with the usual suspects.
Two unproven youngsters I should mention would be Giovani Lo Celso and
Paulo Dybala.
At age 24, Dybala is a
mainstay striker for Juventus, scoring 22 goals in 33 matches.
But with Argentina, he has but 8 caps, and his natural position is
occupied by a moored teammate...Leo Messi.
Perhaps he gets at least one substitution opportunity during the World
Cup round robin stage...a small window of time to generate an impact.
Lo Celso, on the other hand, may not even make an appearance.
Only 22 years old, the midfielder notched 4 goals in 32 PSG appearances
this season...this rising talent may have to wait til 2022 to make an impact on
Argentina’s fortunes.
BRAZIL.
Getting a roster spot for this team is tough, given the
The only thing missing was a water break in terms of new twists that have been added the past few years. The first goal confirmed by goal line technology (via ref's watch) happened in the 81' giving C1-France the goal ahead goal off a shot off the crossbar that bounced just inside white line. Interesting that they gave the minute of the goal when the ref confirmed the goal line technology and not when the ball actually crossed the line. In that same match, the
new VAR (Video Assistant Referee) review system was used to determine that there was a penalty in the box and FRA was awarded a penalty kick that they converted for the first score. C2-Australia battled back with their own PK but in the end, France held on 2-1 (Edit --
FRA's goal was changed to an own goal the next morning after another review -- the website called it an own goal, the official match report had it as a goal for more than 12 hours after the match).
In the surprise of the tourney, tiny D2-Iceland may not have much possession but they never panicked and even tried
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