World Cup Fever - 3

Nostradamus was wrong!!!

"In the sixth month of 2006 the King of Spain will cross the Pyreness with his troops. The legions of Beelzebub will battle him in central Europe but the evil ones will suffer doom and destruction. The Holy Grail will then come, like the King, to Spain."
This is what Nostradamus say in one of his prophecies which was referred in all of the major Spanish newspapers with respect to the chances of the Spanish team.

Obviously that hasn't been fulfilled and Spain lost to France in the 2nd round continuing their legacy of under-achievement. France did very well and with no pressure on them to win they pulled out a rabbit from the hat and beat Spain with their experience.
Brazil and England did enough to win without playing to the level that can win a world cup.
Argentina left it pretty late relying on an extra-time wonder-goal from Maxi Rodriguez to win it against Mexico.
Germany did it in the first 12 minutes and Sweden were left picking up the pieces for the rest of the game.
Switzerland and Ukraine played out one of the worst games of the world cup with neither of the team wanting to take any chances and Ukraine winning in a scrappy penalty-shootout.

Portugal and Holland played out one of the most amazing games I have ever seen and it's not the quality of the game that I am talking about but rather the lack of it. There was no sportsmanship from any of the players and the referee just made it worse by flashing cards like crazy. No wonder it equalled the record for the highest number of yellow cards in a match (16) and broke the record for the most number of red cards (4).

This is the line-up for the quarter-finals:

Germany V/s Argentina
Italy V/s Ukraine
England V/s Portugal
Brazil V/s France

I personally would like to see a Argentina v/s Brazil final with Argentina winning.
But with Germany playing at home and peaking at the right time, they will be tough to beat.
Italy should have it relatively easy against Ukraine.
England have been outsmarted by Scolari, the Portugal coach, twice before and are my favourites to do it again.
Brazil v/s France should be an interesting match and will come down to whoever controls the midfield well. The world's best midfielders would be in that match with Ronaldinho, Kaka, Zidane and Viera playing for their respective teams.

Best of :

Goals : Maxi Rodriguez (Argentina)
Match : France V/s Spain
Team : France
Player : Lukas Podolski (Germany)
Coach : Luiz Felipe Scolari (Portugal)

I am off to San Francisco this weekend and am not sure if I will be able to watch the games, but I am sure gonna try.

Enjoy!!!

-Muthu...