Day 2 at the World Cup in South Africa held three great matches between some of the biggest contenders to win the Cup. Let’s take a look at what happened in each game…
South Korea 2 Greece 0
South Korea showed that they should be higher in the rankings as they dominated the favorite Greece 2-0. It wasn’t just the scoreboard that showed the domination, but the South Koreans were all over the Greeks constantly controlling the ball. The first goal they scored came off of a corner kick which was missed by several Greek players before falling right onto the boot of Lee Jung-Soo, who made no mistake burying the first goal only 7 minutes into the game.
Park's Pleasure
The problem with Greek soccer is that they play too much defense. They showed very little aggression to send players forward. In the 52nd minute Korean Park Ji-Sung, from Manchester United, stole a poor misplaced ball by the Greek defender. He immediately had a breakaway and managed to just chip it in over the goaltender. It was a beautiful goal and the South Koreans are looking good… so good maybe they could be the first Asian team to win the World Cup.
Argentina 1 Nigeria 0
This game could have easily been 5-0 as Argentina had so many more opportunities to score. If it wasn’t the Nigerian goaltender Vincent Enyeama, the Nigerian team could have been easily embarrassed by the onslaught of scoring opportunities. Lionel Messi should have scored three goals but each shot that was headed into the net were just deflected wide by Vincent’s fingertips.
Heize Header
Argentina was able to score their first goal early during the 6th minute by Gabriel Heinze and they never showed any struggle to keep Nigeria under control. It seemed like a game where Argentina just slowly passed the ball from defender to defender over and over again without any pressure because Nigeria had to worry about the dangerous Argentinean strikers.
USA 1 England 1
It was the most anticipated game of the World Cup preliminary games, but it fell short of a good finish. England’s captain Steven Gerrard scored what seemed to be such an easy goal for England as it came so early in just the 4th minute. It was a beautiful play and Steven was able to easily get into a position to slide the ball into a wide-open corner.
Whoopsie Daisie
Clint Dempsey of the US team managed to even the score with a few tricks up his sleeve. Not only did he make a couple of sharp turns by himself to lose the defender, but also he slowly kicked the ball straight at the English goalkeeper from outside the 18-yard-box. Well it tricked everyone because the ball slipped right through the goalie’s fingers on a slow bounce. England should have won this game, but could have lost it just as well.
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