Saturday, July 03, 2010

World Cup Quarterfinals Redux

Yesterday's games were da bomb. Today's -- not so much.

Germany, in an absolutely dominant performance, crushed a very solid Argentina team. I think Germany has to be the heavily favored pick to win it all. But they'll have to get through another solid team in Spain.

Although I was nominally rooting for the underdog, Paraguay, in their quarterfinal matchup with Spain. I can't say that I'm all that put out that Spain eked out a win against plucky Paraguay.

The true excitement came in yesterday's matchups. The underdog Dutch fended off the favored Brazilians with an impressive come from behind win, that was battled until the very last second.

However, the heart-stopper was Uruguay's wild and crazy win over Ghana in a game that it should have lost. I'm happy that there's at least one Latin American team in the semi-finals; but I do feel terrible for Ghana's Asamoah Gyan, who missed a game-ending penalty kick after time had just expired in the extra period. But, he shouldn't bear all the blame, as his teammates didn't do their part in the post-time penalty kicks that determined the ultimate outcome.

Needless to say, a great few days of futbol. Semifinal matchups are now set: Uruguay versus Netherlands and Germany versus Spain. Looking forward to these upcoming matches.

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