Lacklustre Giants

The World Cup torunament has so far been rather unconventional, filled with upsets and doesn't seem to follow any sort of plot. If there's one tournament which follows the twists and turns of a Lost episode before you can say "Ahhh!", this is it. From the start, it was filled with some unfamiliar faces such as New Zealand, Slovenia, Slovakia, Honduras, Algeria and North Korea. They are not really the typical bunch of nations which many expect to be playing regularly in world tournaments. But they are there and some of them are not allowing the giants to roll over them that easily.

It seems that this year's World Cup is filled with lethargic legs, especially those from the major footballing nations. It's not only 1 or 2 giants that are underperforming, the plague of lethargicness can be seen spreading all across to the other camps. The French were outrageously bad, where they had a goalless draw with Uruguay and this was followed by a defeat to Mexico. To compound to their problems, the team spirit was already horrible from the beginning and the dismissal of Le Sulk Anelka from the camp drew a revolt from the rest of his teammates. Words like shameful and disgrace were rained down on the French team and even if they were to get to the next round, they will pose little threat to others considering that their morale has been shattered thoroughly. Perhaps Irish retribution had indeed struck the French in the hand..haha

Argentina had been modest with their 1-0 win on their opening match and seemed to pick up further pace with a 4-1 rout over South Korea. They along with Holland, are the only favourite giants to have picked the full 6 points. Even for the Dutch, they are playing effective football in grinding out wins instead of the attractive Total Football that they used to play. I would say based on current form, only the Dutch and the Argentinians seemed to have any good chance to progress beyond the 16.

The Germans looked exceptionally solid in their opening match. They were the best performers in the first round of matches with a 4-0 win and many thought that they would do the same against the Serbians. But alas, the dismissal of Klose seemed to have dislodged the Germans psychlogically and Podolski even missed the penalty which could have redeemed them. An absolute dissapointment in the Serbian loss and I only hope that they could bounce back against Ghana, which will not be easy.

The Italians and the English can easily ranked alongside with the French to compete for the titles of the worst performers. It's the same old story for England where they are bound to dissapoint in tournaments in the silliest of manner. Robert Green had a nooby slip of a ball which allowed the Americans to equalise while the second match against Algeria ended in a goalless fashion. In both matches, the fingers were pointed at Wayne Rooney for his inability to bang in the goals. Perhaps Nike's Commercial on "Write the Future" was true for the first instance, Rooney did Roo-In. The Italians had a draw against Paraguay and instead of mopping up the Kiwis in the 2nd match, they were also held to a draw, with the Kiwis taking the shocking lead first. Imagine that! Of all beings, New Zealand had held the defending champions to a draw!

Three more giants have yet to play their 2nd match. Brazil will play shortly in a few hours time and although they had won 2-1, it was said that their performance was nothing to be proud of considering that the North Koreans had put one into te net and they were expected to bang in more than 2. Well, one could argue that Kim Jong Il's men had spent 6 months in a training camp doing military style exercises but it cannot be disputed that the Brazillian midfield is lacking in creativity following the underperformance of Kaka. The Portugese with Christiano Ronaldo were unable to garner a win against Ivory Coast and it remains to be seen if they are gonna rip the North Koreans apart. The last group probably contained the biggest earth-trembling shock of all times with the Swiss running away with a 1-0 win over heavy favourites Spain. This is no Rafael Nadal vs Roger Federer match but it makes no logical sense how a Spanish team with tens of shots could not put one behind the net when the Swiss only had a small miserly amount of chances. Xavi and co would have to make their chances count if they don't want to exit the tournament in the most ridiculous fashion.

Oh well, there's still plenty of time for more shocks to come. If the giants continue their lacklustre performance, we might as well get a Slovenia vs New Zealand World Cup final...haha.