As if I needed another reason to be jealous of Bastion Scheinsteiger, meet his girlfriend Sarah Brander.

The deeper we get into the World Cup the greater the excitement grows, and the more intense the games get.

Saturday was almost like watching the same game twice.  Both South Korea and The United states outplayed their opponents for 80% of the game but still managed to lose.   Uruguay scored in the first half on a lapse in Korea’s defense, but South Korea came out strong and dominated the pace in the second half.  For some reason however, they became lax after knotting the game up, in the 72 minute and Uruguay went right back ahead less than ten minutes later.  Clark tried to be clever and looked foolish as Boateng took the ball and went straight to goal, once again putting the USA down in the opening minutes.  From there the US fought back and created multiple shots, but just couldn’t beat Kingson.  At half Bradley went with the lineup most expected with Altidore and Dempsey up front with Edu and Feilhaber coming forward to add pressure when needed.  The change was successful and earned the US a PK, which Donovan struck truthfully, finally beating the Ghanain keeper in the 62 minute.  The score stayed that way into Extra time and it was deja vu all over again as a weak play by an American defender allowed another quick strike, and this time the “Comeback Kids” couldn’t recover.

Sundays opener pitted Germany vs England in what quickly looked to be another German rout, with Germany quickly going up 2-0.  England quickly recovered though finding the goal twice, unfortunately the 2nd bounced out after hitting the ground two feet behind the line, and was missed by a very underwhelming referee.   It is hard to say whether England would have continued at that pace or not had the goal been allowed.  Germany played the entire 90 though, adding another 2 goals in the 2nd half.

Argentina Mexico were met with controversy as well, with another bad off sides call.  Argentina however won by 2, again bailing out less than stellar officiating.

Monday’s games were less than competitive with the Netherlands dominating the Slovakian side,  scoring 2 goals and only allowing a pk in the final seconds of stoppage time.  Slovakia prevented the shut out and their hero Vittek became the highest scorer in Slovakian history, but in game terms the goal was trivial with the final whistle being blown as soon as the ball was in the net.  Brazil came out and controlled the game early.  They didn’t find the net until the 35th minute, but added another less than 5 minutes later.  They scored again during the 59th minute, and that was the games final goal.

Tuesday’s first game found Japan and Paraguay evenly matched.  Neither allowing a goal (though the Japanese defense had to handle many shots) during regular or extra time.  The game went to PKs with Paraguay hitting all 5 and Japan missing their third.  Spain defeated possibly the best defensive team in the league as they toppled Portugal, and scored the first goal on them of this tournament.  Who knows what might have been if Ronaldo had gotten a free kick, next to the Spanish box on a missed push by David Silva, but they shouldn’t be ashamed of going out of the tournament with a 6 goal difference.

Gonzalo Hiquain – 4 (ARG), Robert Vittek -4 (SLO), David Villa – 4 (SPA)Thomas Mueller -3 (GER), Luis Suarez -3 (URU), Lius Fabiano 3 (BRA), Asamoah Gyan -3 (GHA), Landon Donovan -3 (USA) and 14 other players tied at 2.

My pick for Player of the Tournament so far would be Mueller with him also netting 3 assists and having his 3 goals on only 8 shots.  With runner up and my pick to take the Golden Boot David Villa.  He’s been playing lights out, assisting himself to score the only goal in Spain’s Victory over Portugal.

Friday July 2nd

Netherlands fall to Brazil

Urugray defeat Ghana

Saturday Juy 3rd

Argentina falls to Germany

Paraguay fall to Spain

Results so far:

29 – 15 – 12

Tags: Brazil, Donovan, Germany, Netherlands, Sarah Brander, Spain, Uruguay, USA, world cup

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.