An unimpressive day for the World Cup viewers

With much expected from Holland’s top striker Van Persie and midfielder Wesley Schneijder, luck was what favoured the Dutch ultimately in their 2-0 win.

Netherlands played easy from the start. Denmark’s defence was both confident and quite impassable. On the other hand, nerves got the better of the Danish attack when they got a few chances at the goal, a result of the the lethargic defensive play by the Dutch defence. Denmark’s striker Bendtner tried his best but missed scoring, as he failed to shoot on target.

Van Persie was an absolute disappointment in the first half and remained that way throughout the game. The Dutch attack moved absolutely slow throughout the game. 

Japan’s decision to go for defensive play at the start of the game was dubious. They had just two players in the attack, with a very tough defence. Cameroon’s main men Samuel Eto’o and Webo were well-marked and failed to bring about any sort of play all throughout the game. The game was tight from the beginning, but Japan had more chances than Cameroon at the goal. Nearing the end of the first half came Cameroon’s first shot on target. Frankly, a little too late, for at the other end, Matsui’s cross flew straight to the feet of Honda, who coolly stopped the ball and placed it into the empty net. It was clearly lousy defending by Webo who would do great if he was a wee bit attentive. Cameroon’s desperate and rough foul-play didn’t do them any better.

In the second half, the Japanese played amazing defence with all the tries from the Cameroon forwards and barely ever failed to clear the ball. Even with an additional time of four minutes, Eto’o and Webo failed to perfect their strikes. Japan deserve every bit of their 1-0 win and will give Netherlands a great fight or possibly even go on to win it. Cameroon and Denmark seem to have no chance past their group stage.

The Italy-Paraguay game turned out to be quite the shocker. At the start of the game Italy seemed quite good with their passing and co-ordination as well as their interceptions at every effort of their adversary’s. This lasted for about 15 minutes and all the strikes by the Italian forwards were belted right into the legs of their opposition’s tough defenders.

The Paraguay attack fired and an impressive header by Antolin Alcaraz through Torres’ kick saw goal-keeper Buffon stranded. The ’keeper was rested after the first half after the recurrence of a back problem.

The Italians had everything to lose, being the defending champions and made an all-out attacking approach but were not really successful. With an easy pool such as theirs, Italy should still manage to go past the group stage, probably along with Paraguay, but indeed a lacklustre day as far as the tournament was concerned.

Aloka D’Souza is the captain of the Mount Carmel girls football team