Thursday, June 17, 2010

GROUP B ....



I think we were a bit unlucky yesterday and very much on the right track, Sanchez looked what he is, a top class player and could easily have bagged a couple of goals, also Chile and Spain registered 44 attempts on goal between them. So along with the late game, where Uruguay recorded a very comfortable win, I am confident with my thoughts that the tournament is finally opening up are correct.

World Cup: Group B

Here is a link to a recent post regarding World Cup venues.

We are on South Korea to progress from the group and it would be fantastic if they could collect a point today, but it is going to be tough. Argentina are settled in Joburg , with SK moving up from Port Elizabeth and sea level,most of their players are based or come from Seoul, which is at sea level too, so conditions today are going to heavily favour the South American side. I think the most likely outcome is that Maradona's team will win by a single goal, they will certainly be made to fight for every ball and inch of grass by the hard working and extremely fit Koreans, but IMO this is a game to watch, so no bet.

Greece were dire in their opener, far too negative and lacking in ideas or motivation and they create absolutely nothing from open play. I doubt that they will be quite so bad today, teams rarely are after such a poor first game and in some ways the level of expectation will have dropped, so maybe they can relax a little. Having said that, Nigeria, who really rode their luck against Argentina and could have lost by three, will have a big adavantage here in stepping down from Joburg, whilst the european side are up from sea level. Neither is going to go for broke from the start, with the loser being all but out of the tournament, but sooner or later the Greeks will have to press forward as a point will almost certainly not be enough for them and that is when the far more talented Nigerians should take advantage. Hopefully they will give Peter Odemwingie more game time, as the Lokomotiv Moscow striker looked lively when he came on in the first game. Expect most of the action here to take place in the last 30 minutes, by which time the venue and conditions should have taken their toll and heavily favour the African side.
This looks the perfect game to play in running IMO, but for the purposes of this post, I will select Nigeria from the start.


Nigeria -0.5 2.09 .

Good Luck.

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