Today the greatest sporting event in the world starts and will last just over 4 weeks. The soccer World Cup finals after 4 years of qualifying we are down to the last 32 countries and yes England are there. Ok we only have ever won it once (1966) but the country is gripped with football fever.
Cars, houses are flying the George Cross (Englands flag) in anticipation of the coming victory.
The 32 countries are initially split into 8 groups of 4 with the top two from each qualifying for the knock out stage.
Today's matches are from Group "A" with Host nation Germany versus Costa Rica and Poland versus Equador (I reckon Germany and Poland should qualify from this section).
England start tommorrow in group "B"against Paraguay with Sweden and Trinadad making up the group.
(My tip England and Sweden but I wouldn't write off Paraguay).
The other groups (my tips in bold) are :-
C - Argentina, Ivory Coast, Holland & Serbia (tough group this)
D - Mexico, Iran, Angola & Portugal.
E - Italy , Ghana, USA & Czech Republic (2nd place too close to call but I hope USA can do it as they have a Leeds player Eddie Lewis in their squad, sorry I mean I love my American blogging friends).
F - Brazil, Croatia, Australia & Japan (but don't count the Aussies out if Viduka and Kewell perform).
G - France, Switzerland, South Korea & Togo.
H - Spain, Ukraine, Tunisia & Saudi Arabia (don't rule out a shock here though).
Come on England you can do it.
6 comments:
World Cup Update :-
Germany 4 Costa Rica 2
Expected result but what a leaky defence.
Poland 0 Equador 2
First shock of the tournament and one of my predictions already struggling to qualify.
Tomorrow's matches :-
ENGLAND v Paraguay
(only one winner of course)
Sweden v Trinadad & Tobago
the other group "B" match
Argentina v Ivory Coast
(The Argies against Africa's finest this will be a cracker)
My whole office is world cup crazy. We have several Brits that work with us and an office in macclesfield so they are all into it. They are running tons of commercials for it out here so I think more and more people are getting into it. Quite the phenomenom!
Uh oh, I'm doing some catching up on your blog and find that I've landed in a zone of World Cup excitement. There's actually been some discussion about the relative disinterest of Americans in the sport on talk radio.Apparently U.S interest in soccer is growing. I'm not a good representative of this one way or the other. The only times I've cared about spectator sports is when my kidlets have played. And, for a brief period, I watched 49er games with my hubby and rooted for the 9ers. So,it looks like I'll be out of the loop with this one. So yeah, like Kristine said, "go ENGLAND" (unless the U.S. has a chance of winning; I don't really know).
Re. some past posts: My hubby and I plan to see Gore's flick tomorrow night. I've been aware of many of these issues for a while now and wish political decisions were rendered with greater environmental responsibility. Hopefully the film will have impact in this direction.
Getting rid of the lbs. Plateaus suck, especially when you've been working hard.
unfortunatley I'll be at my sister's graduation party when the USA plays their first game... I'm not happy
I've noticed even down South interest in soccer is growing. I don't ever anticipate it taking over American football - there's NOTHING like a good SEC game - but it is gaining in popularity.
I doesn't surprise me that the sport is growing in the States. It is the Worlds biggest sport (played seriously by more Nations).
On my last visit to the US I was amazed at the number of soccer pitches I saw when my plane was coming down to land in Nashville.
Sometimes Football (soccer)is more about the passion of the fans (at club level) and patriotic pride at National level. The atmosphere at big matches is awesome.
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