Suddenly England’s draw with the USA is looking mighty fine, the big teams are running scared in the group stage and not playing to the strengths that got them to South Africa-
Spain 0, Switzerland 1
How can a team dominate a game so completely and lose? Basically it’s down to over confidence and sloppy play. The Swiss showed precision planning and stood up to everything that the much fancied Euro 2008 winners could throw at them. Iniesta missed a few sitters and Swiss keeper Benaglio looked solid as the first half slipped away without goals.
Just seven minutes into the second half a mighty hoof from Benaglio put Spain under pressure, Casillas charged out feet first and ended in a heap, defenders made desperate lunges and Gelen Fernandes picked his way through the debris to fire in the goal. Now cow bells could be heard tinkling and Spain were looking desperate. Torres and Navas came on, the Liverpool striker looked lively but faded, Navas made good inroads down the right but an Alonso piledriver against the post was the nearest they got to a goal.
After 76 minute Pedro, the Barca striker from Abades, Tenerife joined the goal hunt but could not deliver a chink of sunshine. Switzerland could have made it 2-0 with another break, this time Derdiyok hit the post. Even 5 minutes added on didn’t save Spain – anyone fancy some Toblerone?
Honduras 0, Chile 1
These two sneaked onto the stage almost unnoticed but Chile were hot stuff with their direct approach and good ball control. Honduras had to thank goalie Valladeres for a string of saves but he had no answer to Beausejour who pounced in the 34 th minute as the Honduras defence dithered. That was it for goals but Chile looked hungry right up to the end. Probably a good bet to make the next stage, then anything can happen.
South Africa o, Uruquay 3
Diego Forlan is an enigma to Man Utd fans, he never hit it off there but has been brilliant at Atletico Madrid and ran the show again for Uruquay. South Africa found that home advantage just wasn’t compensation for a lack of talent and they ran out of ideas fairly quickly. A bad clearance from home goalie Khune found its way to Forlan in acres of space and in one fluid move he turned and fired a wicked 30 yard dipping shot into the South African goal.
The screw tightened in the second half, Suarez was finding his form too and Khune put a foot out and tripped him as he ran into an offside position in the box. Off went the keeper with a red card, on came back up Josephs as they shuffled the depleted pack but even after a long drawn out wait, Forlan coolly despatched the penalty. There was one final show of class as Forlan delivered a fantastic diagonal pass to open up the South Africa defence, Suarez headed it down and Pereira made it 3-0.
