Tshabalala’s great opening strike was outstanding, not simply for the sheer elan with which he smashed it into the Mexican’s net as for the promise it offered. Here was a goal formed on the playing fields of the best fast-flowing counterattacking sides. A defence splitting pass placed perfectly into the path of a sprinting Tshabalala, who just slammed it into the net. It raised hopes that this World Cup would be about skill and daring and excitement, that someone in Africa would rise to challenge the monoliths (if you can have monoliths that is) of European and South American dominance, that this World Cup would be about the joy of football rather than the stunning negativity, insecurity and fear of most tournament football. Sadly after this moment it was pretty much all downhill.

Not Goal Of The Tournament – Somewhat Spoilt For Choice

We could have Ghana’s non-goal that was blocked on the line by the hand of Dirty Suarez in the Quarter Finals. Or the American’s goal that never was against Slovenia. Or, it might seem, the Italian’s last minute almost-equaliser against the mighty Slovakia. Certainly the FIFA linesmen, who were by and large excellent, seemed to have mislaid their goalmouth specs on something of a regular basis. However, Not Goal Of The Tournament has to go to Frank Lampard’s chip and blip off the crossbar against Germany. Just like an overly imaginative fisherman’s tale, the gap between the line and the ball will only ever get bigger in the telling. However, the failure to give the goal will have two major positive effects on the game, it’s so blatantly a goal that FIFA will have to investigate the use of goalline technology and it won’t be allowed to cover up the myriad of failings of the useless Engerland side.

Best Chant Of The Tournament

Not a lot of choice here as the vuvuzela managed to successfully bloat out pretty much all attempts at chanting. However, the continued booing of Dirty Suarez during the Semi-Final against Holland was exceedingly gratifying. But the winner is the England fans’ reaction to the disallowed (non-allowed?) Not Goal, which was both the loudest and the best chant of the tournament. A World Cup half a world away, broadcast to billions, and the crowd is all singing ‘The Referee’s a wanker’ at the tops of their voices. That was a moment for Sepp Blatter to have nightmares about.

Best Sporting Moment Of The Tournament

It lasted the best part of three days and it wasn’t even in the same continent. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut’s amazing fifth set at Wimbledon was everything that sport should be about, excellence of technique, power of will, composure, discipline, psychological gamesmanship, physical agility and fitness, skill, daring and channelled aggression. They played more minutes in that one set than most players played in the entire World Cup. They didn’t blink, whine, pout, dive, get scared. And it was just a first round match.

Best Least Sporting Moment Of The Tournament

Hands up Dirty Suarez. Sure we might all have done it, it might even have been ‘instinctive’ rather than blatantly deliberate, but you know what, I hope we wouldn’t have. And, yes, almost no one would be bothered if only Gyan had scored the resulting penalty and Ghana had gone through. But this was another example of the extreme cynicism that dominated the World Cup, a moment where the punishment quite patently didn’t match the crime. You have to think that a penalty goal and a yellow card would be a better punishment for this sort of thing. Sure less drama, but quite patently a fairer result.

Best Team Of The Tournament

Most goals, top goalscorer, best young player, most exciting team, and not one, not two, but three four goal thrashings on their way to a Semi-Final loss to eventual winners Spain sees Germany win Best Team. Oh how we laughed when they gave Oztralia the kicking they so richly deserved, oh how we didn’t (well we did but in a crazy schadenfreude sort of way) when they mercilessly dished out the same drubbing to Engerland. And oh how we laughed again when they mullered the crazy Argies. And we can blame it all on divetastic ex-Spur Jurgen Klinsmann. Unlike the useless Engerland, Germany showed all the benefits of ambition, long-term planning, attacking philosophy and preparation. And, unlike pretty much every other team here, Germany came here to win the World Cup rather than simply gain it by not losing. The only team whose matches I’ve bothered to keep.

Least Best Team Of The Tournament

Hmmmm. Where to start? The pitiful inadequacy of both Cameroon and North Korea, neither of whom scored a point. The pulse-draining soul-sapping mediocrity of all those sides hopped up on fear and inadequacy that aimed to stifle the opposition and kill the game. The European giants who didn’t perform, like Italy and France. No, there’s really only one Least Best Team, the now utterly unmighty Engerland. The oldest squad in the tournament should have been chock full of big game, big tournament experience if nothing else, but instead seemed to have cornered the market on fear, insecurity and doubt. They also seemed to have left their footballing basics somewhere else as simple acts like passing seemed utterly beyond them. Apparently riven by strife, inadequacy, boredom and sexual jealousy, they were so bad that their flaccid performances in World Cup 2006 seemed like memories of the Elysian Fields.  If what we do in life does, indeed, echo through eternity, then these guys are going to be hearing the boos that accompanied them off the pitch against Algeria for a very long time.

These things can go either way. On the one hand you’ve got two teams who’ve lost the semi-finals and really probably feel like they should have taken a plane out of town three or four days beforehand. On the other, you’ve got two teams who know that nothing matters other than battering the shit out of whoever they’re playing against. Fortunately for us we got the second.

Both the Germans and the dirty cheating Urugs (for that is their name) came to win, which is more than can be said for most teams in most matches during this competition. The Germans welcomed back Muller, who must be a certainty for the Best Young Player of the tournament, while DC Urug foisted Dirty Suarez on us, who must be a certainty for Cheat of the Championship. Both had an effect on the game, albeit in different ways. Muller showed how indispensable he is to Germany, scoring the first goal and constantly being a thorn in the Uruguayans’ side; Dirty Suarez, on the other hand, contrived to miss every single opportunity he had. And he’s got the sort of misery face that makes you indescribably glad every time he fucks things up.

The Germans deserved to win, despite Uruguay putting on pressure and going ahead, if only for the positive attacking philosophy they’ve brought to the tournament. Uruguay have built on a great defence and Diego Forlorn, who has been good, but they’ve been the least interesting of all four semi-finalists.

63 Down 1 To Go, 2 Teams Remaining

There was something almost ironic about the second Dutch goal being that Van Persil, who still hasn’t broken his duck, was comfortably offside and undoubtedly interfering with play. Oh how we laughed as the Urugs (the dirty cheating, double dealing, African victory stealing bastards) attempted to protest, all to no avail. Oh how we chortled as even the Dutch seemed overwhelmed with the ref’s decision. And once they were ahead, they made sure with a Robben header. I mean a Robben header. Here’s a man who is so worried about his hairline that he barely strokes his head, let alone heads a ball. The Urugs must have thought that the sky had fallen in on their heads. Revenge is sweet.

Will The Real Dutch PLEASE Start Showing Up

How long are we going to have to wait until the Dutch actually play some interesting football. I mean this can’t go on. They are in the World Cup Final and they’ve played about 15 minutes of good football in total. They’re still playing with Van der Vaart and Van Bommel, two of the most wretched players ever to pull on an orange jersey, leaving the lively Elia on the bench until the game is well and truly over. They’ve got Van Persil, who still hasn’t scored, who has barely had a shot and who plays like a rather tall Jermaine Defoe. And yet, they won all their qualifying group matches. They’ve won all their matches so far. And THEY’RE PLAYING SHIT FOOTBALL. Mind you it’s an interesting kind of shit football, it’s neither obsessed with the Mourinho Discipline, nor playing the great game of flowing, attacking football. It’s a whole new kind of shit. Still shit nonetheless.

Meanwhile Back In The Batcave of Loew Leisurewear

Super friend of the Palace, The Other Charles, spotted this fantastic parody of German manager Jochim Loew and his pet monkey Gunther. Well worth the viewing while we wait for the long-hoped for annihilation of Spain.

61 Down 3 To Go, 3 Teams Remaining

Hmmm. So when I initially looked at the semis and said. “I see these being Uruguay vs Engerland and Brazil vs Portugal,” I was obviously not taking into account the awesome predictive skills of Paul the Octopus and his reality twisting powers.  Given I’ve only been watching football since I was six, it’s somehow inevitable that a cephalopod with no understanding of the game, but a clear knowledge of which flag belongs to Germany, should be able to outwit me in the prediction stakes.

Still one out of four isn’t catastrophic eh? Even if it does belong to the Cheating C**t Urugs. Who, it seems, have either discovered the irony thing or have completely misinterpreted the whole Hand of God thing from 1986, thinking that it was somehow good that Maradona should so cheapen himself as to cheat a goal in the same match he scored the Goal of The Century. I find it risible that Dirty Suarez (for that is his real name) should receive exactly the same punishment as craphat Harry Kewell for effectively deliberately cheating his team to a World Cup semi-final. However, as Laurent Blanc, the soon to be unfortunate manager of the World Cup power formally known as France and now known as Failure, discovered, deliberate cheating at the World Cup is alive and well. Let’s hope that Dirty Suarez and his hideous team get the same comeuppance as Croatia got.

Meanwhile the Dutch still haven’t built up a significant head of steam. As far as I can recall, they’ve played approximately one ‘last 15 minutes’ of a game with anything like the authority I expect from a semi-finalist (during their initial match against Denmark), and made approximately one dangerous cross into the box (against Brazil), but these appears to have been aberrations. They do seem to have raised their game to the extent that Robben has replaced the shockingly slow and tedious Van der Vaart in their starting line up, but that was presumably their game plan all along.

I see this as being an awesomely tedious match. The Cheating Urugs have, despite everything, a very solid defence, which has only conceded two goals albeit both at the sharper end of the tournament, while the Dutch have done the absolute minimum necessary to win all their matches without ever looking like a seriously dangerous team. I would hope that the Dutch win and ideally start to play the kind of football they’re capable of when Elia is on the pitch. And if they can stuff the Cheating Urugs, say, 5 – 0, that would be a nice bonus. But I’m not holding my breath.

As for the Spanish, they really are painful. They still can’t decide whether Tippa Takki or slothful wingplay is the way forward for football (I think the answer is neither if you can’t do it incisively). And it’s clear that in their panic they have resorted to the strategy of ‘Give It To Villa’. For a team that came into the competition with so much hype and expectation, they constantly find new ways of disheartening us all. Still they did show moments in the last game, which they clearly should have lost, when Iniesta was on the ball and Fabregas was on the pitch, where they did look almost interesting. However, their fundamental problem is that if you neutralise Villa, you’ve effectively got Spain by the balls.

Which leaves just the Germans. Who would have thought it? The Germans. Who, like 2006, came into the tournament with a largely untried team, fronted by a largely untried coach (then Jurgen Klinsman, now the svelte uber-dresser Jochim Loew), and delivered the most exciting football of the tournament. Unlike pretty much every other team here, Germany has remembered that football isn’t about not losing, it’s not about just defending, it’s not about long, slow, tortuous attacking build up around the halfway line while your opponents place their banks of 4 in pretty rows. They’ve remembered that football is about swift devastating attacks, speed of motion, intelligence, aggression, pace and power. Their clinical demolitions first of the spastically useless Engerland and subsequently Argentina, have been compelling viewing and the only matches I’ve kept on my recorder from the entire World Cup.

More than any other coach at the World Cup, Loew has revealed that he has game plans. And tactics. And I suspect that he’s intelligent enough to see where the threat from Spain comes from. And with German captain Lahm the player who will spend most time facing Villa, I can see them putting the Spanish to bed quite easily.  Not as easily perhaps as their previous two matches, where both Engerland and Argentina left their back doors open all game like deluded trusting people living in the country, but relatively easily nonetheless. Still here possibly more than the other semi-final, the first goal will be critical. If Spain get it, they have the power to shut the game down completely. If Germany get it, then Spain will have to come out of their shell and go for it. I see Spain dropping Torres, who has been wretched, and playing Fabregas and, possibly, their big striker Llorente in a more threatening formation. Otherwise this, too will be dull.

The semi-finals in 2006 produced by far the best games of the tournament, with all four teams going all out to win the matches. At some point in both of these semis, the teams are going to realise that they have to actually win these games rather than simply not lose them. It really is Fergie’s Squeaky Bum Time and, for most of the players in either semi, the only chance they’ll get to reach a World Cup Final. Who will discover their cohones? So far only the Germans have consistently shown they want to win matches, so by my reckoning, if not Paul the fucking Octopus’ (who should be dealt with like that Octopus at the start of Oldboy), it’s Germany’s to lose.

Possibly even more so than the Brazil Holland clash, this match was one that both teams went out to win. Certainly, Ghana were a bit tentative at first, but when Kevin Prince Boateng (who is my Man of the Tournament so far – I know, I know even I don’t believe that, but there it is) moved inside they began to dominate the game and really take the match to Uruguay.

Just as with the first game, South Africa v Mexico, where it was vital for the host nation to score first (and what a cracking goal that was), so it was essential to the game that the Valiant Wildebeest got in there quickly, if only to settle everyone’s nerves and ensure that they (and possibly the whole of Africa) genuinely believed they could win. Not hoped. Not wished for. But Believed. And when they did score Ghana were way the better team, had completely neutralised the threat of Forlorn and Dirty Sanchez and should have made it 2 or even more. As ever, Boateng was at the heart of Ghana’s threat and you wondered how powerful they might have been if only Michael Essien (another Premiership casualty) had been fit.

Those Penalities, They’re A Killer

None more so than the penalty Ghana got at the end of the final period of extra time. One penalty and you’re through. Not five. Not mano a mano. Just one penalty. And you have to feel for them. This was a clear penalty for a stone banker deliberate hand ball stopping a certain goal. Dirty Sanchez (for that is his real name) might have been sent off, but you can’t help feeling that a penalty isn’t really reward enough for such blatant cheating. Bear in mind this is the same punishment Oztralia got for having the ball cannon into arch-tit Kewell’s arm when he knew very little about it. No Uruguay will always be tainted by this cynical, deliberate cheating. They are officially cheating cunts and I hope the Dutch stuff their sorry arses.

58 Down 6 To Go 6 Teams Remaining

Well we all knew that the South Koreans came with buckets of enthusiasm and gung-ho attitude but hadn’t got a clue how to defend effectively and thus it was today. Like Chile against Spain, they were holding their own for the first 20 minutes or so before they had a defensive brain spasm and simply let Diego Forlorn, who had barely had a touch, cross the ball behind their entire back four all the way across the goal to Sanchez who was waiting on the other side for a tap in. After that it was, effectively, game over. The South Koreans could never beat the hard-nosed Uruguayan defence.

You have to admire the Uruguayans, they have a tight defense, an acceptable midfield and three hot strikers. Well, OK, with Sanchez and Forlorn you’ve got two and they throw in another one for good measure. Terrifyingly they could go all the way.

49 Down 15 To Go, 15 Teams Remaining

Yeah, so one of Uruguay, South Korea, USA or Ghana is going to a World Cup semi-final. And, let’s face it, that should have been Engerland not USA in that list. Out of these I give the Koreans little or no chance, for while they have a great team with a couple of decent players, they’re up against Uruguay, who have the excellent Diego Forlorn, who seems to be one of the very few players not to have been overwhelmed by the scale of the World Cup and has actually seized control of and dominated games. I see Uruguay going right the way through to the semi. USA have a great team with a never say die attitude, but attitude aside all they really have to offer is Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey and I’m not convinced. Ghana are a great strong passing side, who haven’t managed to score goals other than penalties so far. You can see them riding the wave of African euphoria, but they’re going to have trouble when they come up against a quality side.

Group Of Death

Forget any previous pussy, lame Groups of Death, this is the real thing. Germany, Engerland, Argentina and, well there’s always one, Mexico. For Engerland to get to the semis, we’re going to have to beat both the Germans and the Argies. If we get that far life will be very sweet indeed and we’ll probably only have to beat Spain and Brazil to win the big lump of gold. So no pressure there boys. If we want to win it, we’re going to have to do it the hard way. Heart says we go through and win, rational analysis says it’ll be the bloody Argies (again).

Group Of Football

With both Holland and Brazil, this should be a group of total football. Holland, I suspect have been playing a very cagey game and not really over-exerting themselves. Straight wins throughout their First Round matches means that they haven’t really been tested yet and I don’t see the conquerors of Italy, Slovakia, giving them any trouble at all. I think the Dutch will open with their wingmen and then we’ll see some football. Brazil and Chile should play off a great South American cup tie, but given Chile’s attack only policy and Brazil’s excellent defence I see Brazil wiping the floor with Chile’s poor quality defending. Brazil v Holland will be a cracking quarter final, which will provide Brazil with a really serious test, but this Brazil side is pretty formidable and, like the Dutch, just beginning to find their form. I see this as Brazil’s group.

Group Of Unexpected

Ideally, Spain and Chile should have switched groups, but they didn’t so this group has the Tweedledumb and Tweedledumberer match up of Spain and Portugal, in some ways it hardly matters which one of them comes through. Spain will have a tough game, they seem to have lost their way mentally and don’t know which direction to go in. Now true World Cup Champions always undergo some kind of transformation during the tournament, but the transformation Spain are undergoing is tortuous. Will they sacrifice the beautiful game that got them here for a pragmatic hoof and wingplay game we saw them trying before Chile gifted them the game? Portugal will be a hard test, they have a rock solid defence and are really hard to play against and when they’re in flow as they were against North Korea, they can’t half knock in the goals. I see Portugal going through. Paraguay and Japan will be a fantastic, open game, the Japanese will not give in and Paraguay are a decent team. This match should be a cracker and I see Portugal going out of this group.

The Semis

I see these being

Uruguay vs Engerland

Brazil vs Portugal

Can’t help being optimistic eh?

Oh my how South Africa will rue a moment of defensive madness. Not the moment when they allowed Ribery to get goal side of his defensive marker and set up Malouda for the goal that totally deflated Bfana Bfana, but the moment in that first match when they played not one, not two, not three, but four Mexicans onside for the tap-in that allowed Mexico back into the game and dropped two vital points for South Africa. How different things would have been had South Africa won that as they really should. They might have gone into the Uruguay match on a high with a bit of momentum and got some kind of result. As it is they are down and out having just beaten the losing finalists from 2006 and in some style until the last 20 minutes when they began to tire and the French scored. It’s sad, they could have had an easier Group (with say North Korea, Nigeria, and Honduras for instance), but the truth is that they were a poor side who survived on enthusiasm and optimism rather than skill and whose top man, Pienaar, never found the form that made him so effective for Everton. Only the supercool Tshabalala really impressed and he missed a number of opportunities to increase South Africa’s lead.

France, meanwhile, go out on something of a high, they have done marginally better than they did in 2002. Sure they finished bottom of their group, which included Uruguay, they played three, lost two and drew one, and they had a goal difference of -2, but this time at least they scored a goal. And quite a nice one it was and Malouda will want to keep that in his scrapbook. They also outdid themselves in the uniquely Gallic sulking stakes. Whereas in Japan in 2002 they were merely grumpy, stroppy, miserable tossers, this time they’ve added a whole new contemptuous angle to their behaviour. The players it seems prefer their bling and sloppy-mouthed gangsta verbidge to actually training or playing or anything. They seem to have no shame. Henry performed another blatant handball takedown, hoping maybe for that to become his signature move in the luscious advertising filled world he will now inhabit now he has renounced football for socca. Dominatrix, meanwhile, showed that he genuinely has no class whatsoever by refusing to shake the South African manager’s hand after the match. So, winners in their own special way, the French have elevated being sporting c**ts to something of an art form. They cheated to get to South Africa and were miserable, unpleasant tossers the entire time they were there. Thank f**k they’re leaving on a jet plane this evening.

Uruguay 1 – 0 Mexico

Who’d a-thunk it? Two teams who only required a draw for both to go through produce a result with honest to goodness shots and goals and the like. Having spent the time watching the South Africa vs France match, I’ve no idea who started it but it seems like one of those playground arguments that got seriously out of hand – “Miss, Miss, he’s tooken my ruler”, “No I didunt”, “Cheater”, “Liar” etc – before the nuclear option of “Your Mum” is played by one of the little brats and things go massively downhill. Given that Uruguay would have topped the group if things stayed at 0 – 0 and thus avoided Argentina in the next round (which has to be the reason for this no draw score),  you have to think that it was Mexico who first employed the playground tactic of actually having a shot on target, after which the Uruguayans must have immediately dished out the “Your Mum” response and gone for goal. I can particularly see Diego Forlorn as the messy-haired belligerent toddler ever anxious to take offence an given his performance so far he’s a dangerous man to upset.

So Bye-Bye South Africa And France

Two teams who fundamentally weren’t good enough to get out of what was a eminently winnable Group. South Africa just weren’t given the breaks they needed by FIFA, France were just shocking.

34 Down 30 To Go 27 Teams Remaining

Yes, the Second Round of Group matches were certainly better than the First Round. Most teams understood that they couldn’t simply defend all the time and play for a draw, even the Swiss, whose adoption of an almost ‘Neutral Country’ option has seen them regularly top both the Haven’t Conceded and the Haven’t Scored tables, realised that at some point they’d have to come out and have a shot, although to be fair they did have something that vaguely resembled a shot in the First Round and it paid off handsomely. The games got faster and more meaningful as we saw Matches That Mattered and teams realised that there was a very real danger of their World Cup ending later this week.

The Goals Are Coming

As teams threw off the shackles of defensive cowardice and started attacking we began to see more goals. Few teams were content to sit on a one goal lead and continued to press their opponents. Some goals were even good, although few of them were up to the Tshabalala standard. However, I distinctly remember exclaiming, “What a goal” more than once during Round 2.

The Cheating Has Started

Grab and Dive, with or without pirouette, is the order of the day. Compulsive penalty box wrestling at every set piece. Not that much deliberate diving, but plenty of subtle blocking and writhing around. All in an attempt to cheat your way to a free kick or some colour of card for the opposition, or both. Not good. I think if it continues, we will see some kind of tv replay system introduced on the fly, if only because the whole world is watching.

Lots of Empty Seats

Now that it’s getting serious I suspect we won’t be seeing too many empty stadiums, but I’d lay money that there will be empty seats at the Uruguay Mexico match, where both teams need only to draw to go through (0 – 0 anyone?). However, too many venues have been conspicuously less than capacity.

Who Has Been Naughty?

It’s goodbye to South Africa, France (very naughty), Nigeria, Greece (very bad),  Algeria,  Oztralia (awful), Serbia (painful). Cameroon, New Zealand (rubbish), Slovakia (tedious), Ivory Coast (unlucky to get Group of Death for the second World Cup in a row), North Korea, and Honduras. You are all officially too crap for the World Cup. Book your flights now.

Who Has Been Nice?

And it’s hello to Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, South Korea, Ghana, Germany, Holland, Paraguay, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, and Chile. Nicely done South America.

And Who Is Bricking It?

Group C is totally up for grabs with two of Engerland, USA and Slovenia, the permutations are excruciating, but basically all teams have to win to be sure that they will qualify. In Group E Japan and Denmark will duke it out, a draw being enough to take the Japanese through. Group H is so complicated that Spain, Chile and Switzerland could all end up with 6 points and theoretically identical goal differences and goals scored, in which case as Spain will have beaten Chile, who have beaten Switzerland, who have beaten Spain lots would have to be drawn.  Makes penalty shoot outs seem tame by comparison.

And Who Is Really Bricking It Most?

Has to be ever-optimistic no-hopers Engerland, who just seem utterly unable to cope with the pressure of having to play a few matches away from home in front of large television audiences. Basking in unwarrented media acclaim and with performances getting more inadequate by the day, Engerland are a disaster waiting to happen. And while the French are imploding with a farcical degree of hilarity, Engerland can’t even manage an effective internal coup d’etat. One thing is clear, Wednesday could be the most excruciating game of football ever played.

A bit like the second half of Gladiator, it started off slowly but now it’s time for Maximus Gladiatorius Violentius to walk out alone and stab a whole load of bastards to death. This round of matches matter. There will be those who will effectively be out of the running by the end of this Round, so unlike the first match, where not losing was, apparently, more important than actually winning, winning is everything. Let’s say it again, Losers Will Go Home. Starting now.

Who Was The Star Of The Show?

Anyone remember Poborsky, the topiary-haired Czech winger Man U bought on the back of Euro 96, who stumbled and fell and never quite managed to live up to the promise of a couple of good matches in the Euros? Well imagine everyone’s surprise when a player who was deemed even less successful at Old Trafford (no not Eric Djemba-Djemba or Juan Sebastian Veron) appears to be the Star of the Show here in Aferica. Yes, while Rhino, Ronalda, Messi, Kaka, Juan Sebastian Veron, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, misfire like a bunch of badly converted starter pistols, the one-time useless boy of the Stratford End has become the tournament’s top scorer and the influential lynchpin of Uruguay’s campaign. He scored a fantastic long range whammer, then helped cement the victory by whacking in the penalty to make it 2 – 0. Who’d have thunk it?

That’s The End Of South Africa Then

Despite the blaring noise of vuvuzelas and the overwhelming enthusiasm of pretty much the entire non-Uruguayan world, a distinct lack of footballing talent wasn’t quite enough to get South Africa through this game. Unless they achieve the super-double-bonus miracle of having France and Mexico draw and then beat France in their final match by something like 4 – 0, South Africa are on their way home. Fortunately for them as the tournament is being held in South Africa, they won’t have far to travel. Sadly for them they will be the first host nation to fail to make it through the Group games.

17 Down 47 To Go