2010 HWCI World Cup Pool Update
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Issue # 3.1.1 "The Reign of Spain Falls Mainly With Pain"
[ Home | Blog | Standings | Results | Pando! or Gordo? ]
GAFFES, OWN GOALS, RED CARDS, DRAWS, AND VUVUZELAS
Record 67 entries vying for $670 pot

EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt) - Boy, now I know somewhat what writers feel when something happens at the last minute, changing the whole feel of the story they had just written.  H1-Spain.  The original title was "Where are the All-Star Goalkeepers?" but with one flop, Spain took the headlines.  The H2-Swiss, who didn't allow a goal in 2006 (lost on PKs in Round of 16) kept their clean sheet while getting a crazy goal of their own.  Although Spain could easily recover, no team who lost their opening game has ever won the Cup.  Meanwhile, H4-Chile played a fun style in beating H3-Honduras for their first WC win in 48 years. 

The first World Cup in Africa kicked off with host A1-South Africa somehow withstanding a furious A3-Mexican attack and scoring first.  A2-Mexico got the goal back but the tie was a victory for RSA and the nation, which has shown very little problems hosting the World Cup thus far (as long as you ignore the buzzing of the vuvuzelas).  But the play has been marred with incredible goalkeeper gaffes, red cards, struggling soccer powers, and lots of ties.

Some superpowers such as A4-France and G4-Portugal played to uninspired scoreless draws with A3-Uruguay and G3-Ivory Coast, respectively, while F1-Italy needed a missed goalkeeper punch to rally and tie F2-Paraguay.  B1-Argentina also couldn't finish in only a 1-0 win over B2-Nigeria.  Proving that if you keep shooting, something will go in, C2-USA's Clint Dempsey's long range shot was misplayed on the pickup by C1-English GK Robert Green giving the Americans a tie.  This was the first of four GK gaffes with the aforementioned Paraguay's, C3-Algeria's GK tried to do a volleyball move as the ball harmlessly got by him to give C4-Slovenia its first-ever win, and G2-North Korea's GK tried to play a cross and left the near post open for a laser shot by G1-Brazil's Maicon (though I would've played the cross as well).  PRK (#105 vs #1 BRA) did somehow manage to keep the game scoreless at halftime and scored a late goal to only lose 2-1.

Day 2 saw early goals with Argentina (6'), B3-South Korea (7'), and England (4') netting before the 8th minute.  Day 3 saw red as Algeria (Abdelkader Ghezzal got 2 yellows in 15 minutes), D2-Australia, and D3-Serbia all had one person sent off (the only other two red cards were to Uruguay and RSA's GK (vs URU) and only the Socceroo's Tim Cahill was a straight red).  Algeria's Ghezzal and Serbia's Zdravko Kuzmanovic also had extremely dumb handballs (reaching for the ball like a football catch) hurting their teams, with Serbia's leading directly to the only PK thus far (scored by D4-Ghana's Asamoah Gyan).  E2-Denmark got E1-Holland on the board on an unfortunate own goal (which also unfortunately was credited not to Simon Poulsen but to his teammate Daniel Agger whose back it went off when Poulsen headed it).

D1-Germany was the only superpower who dominated their match on the pitch and the scoreboard routing the Aussies 4-0.  The Germans have now outscored their first round-robin opponent 18-2 in their last four World Cups (average 4.5 to 0.5).  The best ending happened with F3-New Zealand tied the match with F4-Slovakia in the 93+' earning them their first-ever World Cup point.  For the six African teams, only Ghana picked up a victory, with the host and Ivory Coast picking up ties and Nigeria, Algeria, and F4-Cameroon losing.

Like when the USA played Brazil on Independence Day in 1994, South Africa played on Youth Day as they kicked off the second 16 matches in this round-robin format.  Like the USA, South Africa lost, putting the hosts in jeopardy of becoming the first host to not make the next round.  Uruguay's first goal was one of the very few that were hit with a long, hard strike from outside the box (and we still haven't had a free kick goal yet).

As for the pool, we got a record 67 entries, topping 2006's total of 44.  The 67 were submitted by 57 people as six entered twice and two entered the max of 3.  Brazil (picked by 24) and Spain (20) were the heavy favorites to win it all though Argentina (10) and Holland (6) got some love.  Only one picked the U.S.  Spain, Argentina, and Italy are the only teams where everyone expected them to make the Round of 16.  On the other end, only 2 picked North Korea to advance.  In the Group Stage, no one picked Japan to beat Holland later this week.  Sixteen of the 48 matches were picked by at least 63 entries.

With a $670 pot, there will be four prizes and maybe a Bonus Prize.  The surge of entries really surprised me.  If I could easily discern the number of wins per Group in the Round of 16 and beyond, we may have one; otherwise no.  We'll find out this weekend.

After the first 16 matches, Corner Kick Kid, Dime 23, I Hate Vodka (who was the only person to pick the Swiss upset), LeftyRodriguez, and Rivas lead with 8 points (out of 10 possible at this stage).  There  is a 27-entry logjam at 7 points.  Coin Tossed (like the name implies) is last with 2 points with Edu and Krispy Kicker (who was our last entry received) stuck at 4 points.  Four were perfect (6 pts) until Japan's surprising win (picked by 9).  The most evenly divided match was South Korea (34) vs Greece (33).  

The blog is up and running and should be the one-stop shop for the latest timely updates on the pool.  Also, Sam's Pando! or Gordo? is now four issues in with the latest one found here.

   SIDES 'N KICKS:  The first 16 matches saw 25 goals by 25 different players (only 1.56 goals per match); URU's Diego Forlan broke that streak with 2 goals today... Teams scoring first are 11-0-4 (2 scoreless draws)... Teams leading at the half are 6-0-1 (9 scoreless 1st halves, 1 tied at 1 the half)... 12 matches have been shutouts (including 2 nil-nil)... Of the 36 entries, 20 are returning entries... the rumor that the fans at the stadium supporting North Korea are really Chinese actors is one of the funniest things I've heard - and it might be true...   the Verizon VCast works to watch the games live on your smartphone but another FREE option is to watch the Univision live stream using the Skyfire browser (if you have a Droid, like my Droid Incredible)...  60+-minute subs by players coming off major injuries (Fernando Torres (ESP) and Diddier Drogba (CIV)) produced some excitement but did not change the outcome... Spain was 15-0-3 vs. the Swiss... 32 entries are returning entries... as convoluted as the java bracket was, it is extremely easy for me to enter in the manual entries I got (though interestingly, if you entered an existing nickname, it didn't give you an error but instead printed out your original picks)...

-----
Asia/Oceania doing pretty well at 2-2-1...
Scott


© 1998-2010 HWCI Productions
HWCI circa 1990