mindless ramblings

Group A
Poland finally got a win at the expense of the Costa Ricans. With both teams already out of the tournament, it didn’t really matter though. Mr. Maidin from Singapore was in charge of this one too, and I wonder if we’ll see him in the later stages. He has done pretty well so far!

The more interesting game was between the top 2 sides. The winner of this one would go on to win the group and thus the presumably weaker second placed team in Group B. The Germans didn’t take long to open the scoring with Miroslav Klose’s goal in the 4th minute. He added another just before the break before Lukas Podolski put the result beyond doubt by adding a third in the 57th minute. Another impressive performance by the Germans, Jürgen Klinsmann is doing a good job!

Group B
Trinidad & Tobago had a slim chance of qualifying, but they ultimately failed to do so as Paraguay won instead. T&T have done well to come away with 2 draws, but they had to score goals tonight and that meant playing with a more offensive attitude. This proved to be their downfall as Paraguay was given lots of space to exploit and a Brent Sancho own goal gave Paraguay the lead. Undaunted, T&T poured forward in the second half in search of the win but no goals were forthcoming. Nelson Cuevas finished them off with a beautiful goal in the 85th minute. T&T have done extraordinarily well for a relative minnow in the World Cup and they should be rightly proud of the performances they have put in.

England had to get a decent result out of this game in order to avoid meeting Germany in the next round and they came away with it. Despite losing Michael Owen in the 1st minute, they managed to find the lead through a great volley from 30 yards out by Joe Cole. Sweden kept searching for the equalizer and they were justly rewarded by Marcus Allbäck ’s header found the back of net. Sweden then hit the bar twice before Steven Gerrard found himself unmarked in the box and directed a well-placed header past Andreas Isaakson. The Swedes immediately laid siege on the England goal and Henrik Larsson got their equalizer in the 90th minute after a defensive snafu by England.