World Cup - Day Five

6/13/2006: Brazil 1 – Croatia 0 (Group F)

Brazil ties a record with their 7th straight World Cup win but it isn’t easy as Croatia has plenty of scoring chances in an entertaining back and forth game. Most of the Brazilians play with their usual flair except for Ronaldo, who lacks pace and interest. He’s hardly into the game it seems, and aside from one good shot in the second half disappears from this game. Kaka scores on a beautiful left-footed shot to the upper left-hand corner right at the stroke of halftime.

Brazil get the 3 points but trails Australia in this group due to goal differential. However they have faced their toughest challenger in the group and will roll over the two other teams. I still like Croatia to come out of this group, and especially now more after seeing them create against the Brazilians. They will likely fight it out against Australia, a team with a heavy Croatian influence so that battle should be interesting.

6/13/2006: South Korea 2 – Togo 1 ( Group G)

Togo had immense off-field issues before this game: problems with how much the players would get paid, questions whether their coach would coach them, an outbreak of chickenpox. Despite this, the team came out and gave a very good effort, playing with lots of energy and intent on winning. They even had the lead until the second half before a foul cost them one player due to an ejection (and on the play the South Korean’s Lee Chun Soo scored on the free kick from the edge of the penalty box). Later on, second half substitute Jung Hwan’s mid-range shot proved to be the difference. For a team which hardly anyone knows, Togo put a scare into the 4th place finisher at the last World Cup,

For their part, South Korea, now coached by another Dutchman, Dick Advocaat, win a World Cup game for the first time outside of Asian soil. With France and Switzerland tying at 0-0, the Koreans find themselves in first place in this group. This group appears to have opened up quite nicely now.