After seeing 21 goals in the first 7 matches, today saw just one in two matches. In the biggest surprise of the tournament, D4-Japan was held to a
zero-zero draw by #37 ranked D3-Argentina. While ARG had no shots in the first half, did not have a shot on goal until the 73', had zero corner kicks, and never got into JPN's box until the 65', ARG's defense formation held firm for the whole 90 minutes. JPN was too patient and never had many runs at ARG's defense, opting to play the ball around (sort of like men's Spain team did in '18 WC) and had just eight shots. ARG celebrated like they had not only won but won a championship. When you're in the shadow of the men's team, a tie is a great result. It's a shame that the largest crowd since the opening match (1st >20,000 at 25,055) saw this dud. D1-England leads the Group and D2-Scotland's chances have greatly improved with this result.
E1-Canada had lots of possession but only managed one goal against #46 E2-Cameroon in the lowest attended event at 10,710 fans. But as always, getting the result of 3 points is the goal in the first match as 89% of WWC teams who won their first match, advanced to the Knockout Stage including all 9 teams in 2015.
The Asian Football Confederation is off to a
disastrous start. It has the worst loss thus far (A2-KOR 0-4 to A1-FRA), the first upset (top seed C1-AUS losing to C2-ITA), and most shocking result (#7 JPN tying ARG) and are 0-3-1 with F2-Thailand expected to lose big to the F1-USA. The Confederation of African Football had all its teams (CMR, A4-NGA, B4-RSA) lose but none of those teams were ranked higher than #38.
Four entries went 2-0 today including
Eggman (5th-Tied, 7 pts) and last place
Soccerhorn (5 pts). Warner L's two entries
Fotografo il Migliore and
Pazzo Americano also picked the JPN-ARG tie and
both are tied with Michael H's two entries,
Mauihammy and
Mauihammy II (whose 7 game win streak to start the tourney was snapped with the tie), for first place with 8 pts. With the first tie of the tourney, it's interesting that 13 of the 44 entries
picked no ties.
Soccerhorn picked the most with 12, or 1/3 of the 36 group stage matches.
Other than the two dud matches, big day today with my wife's birthday and my son graduating from elementary school.
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