Officially, we have locked in the top half of the brackets. That means that for the knock out stage, we’ve assembled eight teams out of the 16 possible. Uruguay had a close win over Italy, surrounded by story lines, while Costa Rica secured their top spot in the group after a meaningless draw against England. We’ll get the Costa Rica-England game out of the way because neither team really anything to play for. There was a chance for Costa Rica to lose their top spot, but it would take a monumental loss or a lopsided win by either Italy or Uruguay for that to happen. The Costa Ricans were playing not to lose and their opponents, the English, well, they were just playing for pride’s sake. And with nothing at stake, little was expected. The play was mediocre, the crowd wasn’t very into it and it was just a lackluster atmosphere overall. England had a few chances but when they didn’t have the ball, Costa Rice focused on possession, passing the ball to make the English players chance. The Costa Ricans even managed to get a few “Ole!” chants from their compatriots in the stands. Let’s just move on to the bigger focus of the day: Italy-Uruguay. Despite their big win over England, the pressure was on Uruguay to come out on top. Italy only needed a single point (tie) to advance into the next round and they looked seemed pretty comfortable with that situation. The match produced a stagnant first half but in the second half, the action picked up and so did the incidents. Uruguay takes advantage being up a man, scoring a late goal despite some rather familiar antics by their star Luis Suarez. The red card received by Italy was justified, in my opinion. I can’t defend Suarez’s actions, no matter how much hilarious content continued to fill social media long after the match was over. Believe it or not, Suarez managed to overshadow LeBron’s headlines in a matter of under five minutes with his actions. It’s still undecided as to what FIFA will do but I can’t imagine that they’re just going to turn their head in the other direction. Still, Costa Rice and Uruguay are in the knockout stages.
The second half of day was left for Group C to sort themselves out. Colombia had already qualified, but needed a point to secure the top spot, while the rest of the teams were vying for a second place spot. I gotta give it up for Japan. They played their hearts out for their entire match against Colombia, who was clearly the superior team. The Japanese had plenty of chances and continued to play at an aggressive pace, but eventually it caught up to them and Colombia took advantage of the situation, turning the game into a rout. The Colombians are one of the few teams that have mounted to 9 points, and they have looked impressive in every single one of their games. Sure, they didn’t have the hardest group but I expect them to continue to play well going forward in the tournament. Japan showed lots of heart and had some of the best pound-for-pound fans, but they weren’t able to close things out when key situations presented themselves. The other side of the group featured Ivory Coast and Greece, with the Greeks needing a victory to advance into the next round. Oh, what a crazy finish we witnessed. After a last minute penalty decision, the result is a heart-breaking loss for Ivory Coast and an almost dream-like win for Greece. And if you’re wondering how I feel: yes, I do think it was the right call. The Greek forward was going to have a decent attempt at the goal but I still thought the foul was unnecessary from the Ivory Coast defender. It appeared that the Africans were going to be the first representing their continent in the next round but they let Greece attack much too easily at the end. Gotta give the Greeks some credit, because the continued to attack, hitting the goalposts on multiple occasions and finally, a little luck went their way. Colombia and Greece advance from their group.
Tomorrow’s games (June 25th): Group F Argentina-Nigeria and Bosnia & Herzegovina-Iran (both 12 pm ET); Group E Honduras-Switzerland and France-Ecuador.
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