Posted by Cathal Breathnach on June 15, 2010 | 4 Comments
God this World Cup is incredibly boring. I know people say to expect the opening games to be quite cagey given what’s at stake, but I think it’s fair to say, we all expected it to be a bit better than this.
I was looking forward to seeing Brazil get their campaign underway against the mighty North Korea but unfortunately for myself and the millions watching, Brazil were fairly awful. At half-time, it was 0-0. I couldn’t believe it. Brazil, who are priced at 9/2 to go all the way this summer, drawing with North Korea, who are priced at 4,000/1 to lift the trophy on July 11th.
Maicon and Elano scored during the 2nd half but Brazil managed to concede with just minutes remaining. Ji, who as you can see has an unusually small name, scored the goal for the Koreans on a night when even Kim-Jong-Il will be fairly happy despite the result.
Elsewhere in Group G, Portugal played out a goalless draw with Ivory Coast. Even the great Ronaldo couldn’t prevent this game from being a proper snooze fest.
In the early kick-off today, New Zealand claimed a famous point against Slovakia. Winston Reid scored a late equaliser for the All Whites after Robert Vittek had put the Slovakians ahead early in the 2nd half. Fair play to New Zealand. Everyone, including myself expected them to go home without a point but they have proved the critics wrong and have shown everyone that they are not just in South Africa to make up the numbers.
Anyway, here are 3 conclusions we can draw from today’s action:
- New Zealand are better than everyone thought.
- The Brazilians need to step up their game if they are going to win the World Cup this summer.
- And finally, Portugal aren’t very good.
Feel free to leave your thoughts on today’s action by leaving a comment below. Make sure to tune in every day during the World Cup to read my thoughts on all the action from South Africa.
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4 Responses to “World Cup Day 5 – God this World Cup is boring!”
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June 16th, 2010 @ 6:01 PM
How dare you speak to thy with such vileness!
June 17th, 2010 @ 10:38 AM
I fell asleep during 3 games and volunteered to get the drinks in for the rest
June 20th, 2010 @ 11:21 PM
Do soccer players and its followers have brains?Nothing is so boring as a soccer game!
Absolutely NO variation
June 24th, 2010 @ 5:04 AM
The game of European Football (soccer over here in Canada) is always boring! Here are the objective, scientific reasons:
rules which favour endless lateral play; endless midfield play; too large a field (pitch); arcane substitution rules which leave players exhausted; absurd moveable offsides instead of fixed offside lines which penalize clever play and the penetration of defence;a culture of faking injuries; rules which favour defense and lateral ball movement which lead to ties; few offensive chances; few attempts on goal; nil goals and nil action; a dearth of goals; endless out of bounds infractions; archaic rewards like corners, throw-ins, free kicks which seldom result in scoring chances; rules which favour smothering defense and congestion; individual skills which have little excitement value and are unable to generate tactical advantage (sewing takes skill but why would I watch it?);
too much strategy and no tactical excitement;
no physical accoutrements to keep the ball in play (ie hockey boards). There are many more arcane rules which make soccer immeasurably dull. Why is it so popular? Only God knows! I dare say that in countries where there are many team sports from which to choose soccer is loathed as “The Beautiful Lame”. The only good soccer rule is the ‘play on’ option reserved for the referee.
Solutions: make the field smaller; allow unlimited substitutions like any other contemporary sport; establish fixed offside zones which reward players for getting behind the defense. FIFA will never change. They like boring. Sport is not chess. It must have a sense of constant potential action or excitement. European Football lacks this trait with an embarrasing abundance. Any game (match) that can be commented on in one word bursts like “Rooney…..Defoe….corner…” over a thirty second period is too dull for most North Americans. By the way, I despise NHL hockey too. But soccer takes the cake as the most cecile and stagnant of activities.