Day 4: No Pun Found

Netherlands 2 – 0 Denmark

Japan 1 – 0 Cameroon

Italy 1 – 1 Paraguay

Netherlands midfielder Rafael van der Vaart summed up his team’s performance yesterday quite well – “Germany played like us and we played like them”. The Dutch opened their campaign with a game less full of attacking penetration than we expected but kept the ball well and in the end comfortably saw off Denmark. The Danes were a little unlucky that Simon Poulsen’s own goal, a pretty dreadful attempt at a headed clearance that went completely the wrong direction and rebounded off one of his teammates into the net, came just after half time, as it visibly deflated them when they would have hoped to be at their brightest. In the first half Denmark had been growing into the game, fashioning a chance or two for Nicklas Bendtner (albeit chances finished in true Bendtner style) and you felt that if they started the second half strongly that an upset could have been on the cards. Their Plan B never materialised after conceding, though, and the match was almost surrended entirely when Morten Olsen withdrew Bendtner to avoid any reoccurance of an injury after just an hour.

Van der Vaart himself had an average game, taking so badly to his role as Robben’s replacement on the left wing that Wesley Sneijder had to be moved out of his most influential position in the hole to let van der Vaart come back inside. It wasn’t until the young winger Eljero Elia replaced him that the Dutch looked really potent up front, with Elia immediately making an impact. He tore the Danish right back Lars Jacobsen to shreds on more than one occasion with blistering pace, great ball control and one or two sumptuous teasing balls into the box. He was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet with the dinked shot that came off the post for Dirk Kuyt to wrap up the victory.

Elia’s performance was certainly much more assured and exciting than anything in Japan’s 1-0 victory over Cameroon, which for a long time was a very very dull game indeed. Japan were set up for the 0-0 from the get-go and Cameroon were quite clearly set up in a way that didn’t play to their strengths, with Samuel Eto’o stranded out on the right wing and never brought back inside. It’s all very well him filling that role at Inter where his central striker is Diego Milito, but when he’s the best player in his team by miles, giving his best job to Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting is just not good enough. Major mistake by Paul Le Guen. Credit must go begrudginly to Japan, though, who at least looked more determined once Keisuke Honda’s goal shocked everyone out of their comas, and deserved their three points having held on well. Cameroon’s Stephane Mbia must also be mentioned for hitting the best long shot we’ve seen so far in the tournament, crashing against the corner of the crossbar and post just before stoppage time.

Speaking of teams obviously not playing to their strengths, I was surprised by Paraguay, who I would have expected to play more of a 4-3-3 to take advantage of their excellent strength in depth up front. They wouldn’t have needed to sacrifice their hard-working defensiveness as the three man midfield could have gotten behind the ball when Italy were in posession, but the best way to test an ageing Italian defense would surely to have started Oscar Cardozo, who’s a really gifted player, alongside Barrios and Valdez and really ask questions of Al-Ahli-bound Fabio Cannavaro. I would only have been more encouraged to do this in the second half when Federico Marchetti had to replaced Buffon in the Italian goal after the great Gigi suffered a back injury (he’s expected to be fit for the next match, by the way).

That aside, Paraguay played well although the Italian equaliser clearly took the wind out of their sails in a big way. You felt as the game drew to a close that Italy could score at any moment but Paraguay managed to cling on to what will end up as a good point for both teams. They had the better of a slightly off-colour Italy side for much of the game, until Mauro Camoranesi was introduced to make a more orthodox 4-4-2 and allow Iaquinta to play in his more natural role through the middle. Aureliano Torres provided some great deliveries from set plays, none more so than the free-kick that set up Paraguay’s goal, centre-back Alcaraz heading home confidently, and they will be confident on this form of beating both other teams in the group and maybe managing to top the table.

Man of the Day: Simone Pepe impressed me today, as did Thomas Sorensen, but the standout performance was Elia’s, who totally transformed the Netherlands when he came on and terrorised Lars Jacobsen and the rest of the Danish defence. He should have made enough of a case to start the next game if Robben isn’t available again.

Later today I fancy New Zealand to snatch a draw with Slovakia, the Ivory Coast should beat Portugal (please! I drew them in a sweepstake), and Brazil should royally thump North Korea. We could finally see some serious goal action.