England 1 Paraguay 0; T&T 0 Sweden 0; Argentina 2 Ivory Coast 1

Group B
England 1
Paraguay 0

Moments after the England match ended, I received an SMS text from Mr. Leung:
“Unimpressive win by England.”
To which I replied something like:
“Unimpressed with the performance but impressed with the win”

So it is. England wins their coveted first match. If you knew what happened in the opener against Sweden in 2002 and England being a notorious slow starters in major championships, this is what Ericsson and co needed. They got it through...you guessed it, the talismann, the captain, the dead ball specialist, the one and only Mr. Golden Balls.

Beckham’s free kick on the 3rd minute, which was beautifully struck flies into the sweaty mass of english and paraguyans. As the ball starts to drop, the paraguayan captain glances it with his head and gave no chance for the keeper to recover. One of those goals that if you’re a colombian, you would have gotten killed for it.

This was all going on whilst I was smartly sitting in the motor home of a Midland Racing team, one of the Formula 1 teams racing this weekend at Silverstone. What would have been a drooling experience for AJG as well as the oldest person in the mtba, I was walking around the F1 paddock with the likes of David Coulthard, Takuma Sato, Jean Alesi (at the GP2 paddock), and Jenson Button. I was there as an japanese<-> english “interpreter” for this guy who wants to buy a GP2 team (GP2 being the NBDL of Formula 1). So I got to see some ridiculous shit and what used to be called motor homes were more like motor palaces. Especially the Ferrari, Williams, and the Mclaren ones. Oh yes and the women were as hot as the weather (if you want to know, it was 29 C). The stench of money at this place was putrid and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Anyhow, back to the match. As I munched on some good expensive stuff, sipping on ... Rhino’s energy drink (main sponsor of Midland and apparently second to Red Bull), England should have poured on. But obviously they didn’t. Don’t know if Paraguay played well or England played poorly, but England seemed like once again a PS2 team. On paper, they are the football man’s dream come true. With the quartet of Becks, J Cole, Lampard, and Gerrard in the midfield, combined with a solid back four and Owen plus Robo Pop minus Potato Head (we’ll see him soon), they are as good as Brazil, me thinks. I still don’t buy the Lampard and Gerrard playing central mid and not having a holding midfielder. Fluidity was never there and never showed up during this particular match. Paraguay never really threatened and this match did not diminish the collective english pessimism towards their chance of winning it all.

Oh, almost forgot. Watch out for Valdes from Paraguay in the future. Partnering Santa Cruz at the top, he looks to be a great mother fucker of a striker in the making.

With England securing 3 nice points topped of with some doubts for the imminent clash with better teams in the group (Sweden? T&T?), we move onto the other match in Group B

Group B
Sweden 0
Trinidad and Tobago 0

Apparently there are mere 1. 4 million people living in Trinidad and Tobago. I actually don’t know where this place is in the map, but they have got just enough people to have a football team. Obviously these boys have qualified from the bad side of the America and everyone thought they will be the bitch, whore, slut, a donkey drunk punch of group B. Oh why oh why oh why. This is why we play this game.

Sweden absolutely did everything in the books to unlock what is the most difficult puzzle of this glorious summer day in Dortmund. The trio of the guy who juggles with a chewing gum, the guy who made Celtic semi-famous, and the guy who is more famous with his ad as a CK underwear model ripped through the T&T’s defense. They were greatly aided by the 2nd booking of a A John of T&T and reduced to 10 men, Sweden’s 3 points looked like a lock.

I didn’t see this match, but I did see the highlights. There were at least 51 shots on goal by sweden compared to T&T’s 1. Hislop of T&T became the accidental hero of the day as he single handedly gave this small country something to dream of...a possible get out of jail card to the last 16 of the cup.

This game, which was a supposed lock for England and the Swede has suddenly became slightly more interesting...

Group C (ie group of death)
Argentina 2
Ivory Coast 1

“Always bet on black.” said Mr. Mirchandani.
Some commentator said 16 years ago, “An African nation will win the world cup in the next 10 years.”

The African nations are proud producer of some of the best footballers in the past decade and a half.
George Weah, JJ Okocha, Mboma, and some other black dudes. They were good dudes, very good. Current players like Drogba, Toure, Eboue, and some other black guys from Senegal, Nigeria, and Cameroon (and occasional Egyptian dudes) are fast, strong, and black. Very black.

Current World Footballer of the year? He’s black and he’s Ronaldinho. But he’s Brazillian and I will come back to this point later on.

This reminded me of a Sports Illustrated article that I read at HKIS. It was an extensive study of Black athletes versus White athletes. Guess what, black athletes are superior to white athletes in events where explosiveness is key. “But you german japanese twat, if you’re talking shiznit like that, why aren’t there any world class black skiiers and black swimmers?”.

Good question, but think about it very carefully. Swimming has never been a black man’s sports. And a black skiier? Most africans live in Africa, where it’s quite often not cold enough to be skiing. Remember cool running? Also it’s the dreaded economy thing. To be able to have a olympic sized swimming pool or a skiing facility, you need money. Sadly what many of the african nations are currently lacking exactly that.

So the commentator who said that an African nation, a black team, can win a world cup, he knew what he was talking about. With money pouring in from European clubs to develop young African players to play organized football and European coaches coaching african teams in the world cup and given that they are the ultimate athletes, why not?

Maybe, not just yet is my answer.

So far the best game so far, the Argentinians and the Ivory Coastans (or whatever you have to say) locked horns from the word, “go, mother fucker, go!”

I saw the difference between the two teams.

When Argentina has the ball, it filters through Juan Roman Riquelme and it filters like a glass of Brita water. It’s smooth and it goes down well. Everyone knows what they need to do, where to run, when to walk, when to kick, when to wait, and when to play “joga bonito”. To watch how the Argentinians strung pass after pass, was a textbook way of run and pass. It was as if they knew exactly where to run and where to send the ball. It was absolutely fucking brilliant.

When IC has the ball, it’s more direct. There doesn’t seem to have the inventiveness and the understanding that the Argies possess, rather brute force down the channels and up the gut. I’m not saying it’s ineffective, but compared to the Sky Blues, it seemed rather pedestrian.

Then it hit me. Africa has yet to produce a pure number “10”. The man who can create that harmony needed for a football team to be beautiful. Without “10” there will be no “joga bonito” and once Africa discovers “10” in themselves, only then they will be heralded world champion...me thinks.

As Diego watched from the stands, slightly more pudgy than in 86, the man who took over the white and powder blue, the man who now wears the number of the maestro, and the man who possibly will bring the cup back to buenos aires took centre stage today and never looked back.

It was pure Riquelme bliss.

He kills you twice. He’ll do you with his dead balls ala Becks (1st goal of the match came from his freekick, which was bobbled in the box and punished by crespo) and torture you to death with his inch perfect pin point, “you see this, you don’t see it now, bitch!” pass.

This is what we call a “through pass”.

Case in point, the 2nd goal of the match. Riquelme gets the ball in midfield and sees his options up front. His boys make their runs into the box and Riquelme looks as if he will direct the pass towards the right corner, then BAM. The ball splits the defence in two and the ballgoes straight up the gut and the running and puffing saviola beats the ivorian keeper just in nick of time to back the 2nd goal for the argies.

He’s basically magic johnson on cleats.

As Drogba’s brilliant and stunning spinning shot gave IC a glimmer of hope to steal a point from the Argie’s, the match came to a crescendo, but not crescendoing enough to give the africans the upset they needed to survive this group.

Africans winning the world cup in the next 10 years? I think I will bet on that one.

Ryu’s “Swimming with the fishees” goal of the day:
I have to give it to the guy who will probably end up dead in the busy street of asuncion when paraguay goes back home at the end of june. It was nice knowing you, Mr. Gamarra.

Tomorrow will be the debut of the other half of the “group of death”, featuring the flying orange dutchmen and the country that was one but now two countries, as well as “how come we can’t have nuclear missiles” and the birthplace of chupacabra.