World Football Championship 2006, Let the mania commence ! Options

[milanius]

Okayyy... someone had to to this, someone who is in love with the game, enough of a man to admit he's a huge couch-potato and watches even the least significant games... but enough beatin' round the bush ! LET'S PLAY FOOTBALL !
Today is the opening game of WFC2006 and Germany is opening it against Costa Rica. Predictions, anyone ? (Starge, wink wink )

[Olav]

It was a draw/tie, and the result was 1-1. This is a very good achievement by USA against one of the real veterans. This means that both teams got 1 WC point, and everything is still quite open, so the US could very well go further to the final rounds.

I thought the US played very well, but then again I'm no expert so I'll leave any professional analysis to others. Italy didn't play very well though, even though they beat the incredibly good Ghana 4-0 (I think) only days ago.

Sidenote: Two US players got expelled from the match, and one Italian. That is only the 4th time that has happened in the history of the WC (3 players expelled).

I remember I spent a holiday in Italy at the time when they won the WC (long time ago, 1980 or something). The entire country was in celebration for days, not doing anything productive, only running/driving around screaming with waving flags. They sat on the roofs and hoods of cars, banging stuff into them, totally destroying them. It was quite cool...