Sunday, June 11, 2006

World Cup Fever -1

Finally, I get a chance to post about something which really excites me. Before you start getting any ideas, let me say it's regarding the World Cup Soccer going on in Germany. It has taken me some time to say "Soccer" since people have a funny look on their face when I talk about the "football" game in Germany.
So who seems to be the favourite this time around.
Looking at some of the group games as of Sunday June,11, Netherlands seemed to be the most impressive team with Argentina a close behind. Although I really like England and would like them to do well, they have a real problem with the strikers that they have now. They have 4 strikers now but in reality its about one and a half, with Wayne Rooney injured and Theo Walcott with his inexperience. That leaves Peter Crouch as the only fully fit striker and a half-fit Michael Owen(who was substituted at the 55th min). An interesting statistic about Wayne Rooney is that he didn't score a single goal in any of the qualifying matches.
And about Argentina, my favourite team to win the World Cup, they have a couple of missing players Javier Zanetti and Walter Samuels who did really well in the last world cup and are really impressive in their respective leagues. Argentina didn't have any offense on the right flank, all the attack seemed to be coming from the middle and the left with Riquelme doing a really impressive job. But my main worry is what if Riquelme gets injured, booked or has a rough day who is going to command the midfield. Lionel Messi seems to be the answer but he is coming off a bad injury and would be a shadow of himself before he was injured.
This is my observation from the last few games about what was the most impressive in the following categories:
Best Team : Netherlands
Best Player: Arjen Robben
Best Match: Sweden V/S Trinidad
Best Coach: Leo Beenhakker(Trinidad & Tobago) For the offensive substitutions that he made when they were playing with 10 men.
I am going to post my thoughts and update the list very often till the world cup is over.
Till then, enjoy.

--Muthu...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hey, I want to see DAILY thoughts on the world cup! Where's today's thought?