Having seen only one full game (Italy v Spain), highlights of another (Germany v Portugal) and none of the other two, I’m not in a position to accurately disect too much of the action from the last eight. Add to that the fact that I predicted none of the games correctly and you have probablby […]
I’m going to change things about here since I haven’t had time to watch the Germany/Portugal game outside of injury time at the end. I will review the quarter-finals after the weekend. So let’s have a look at the next two quarter finals on Friday and Saturday. Day 14 preview Croatia are full of confidence […]
Day 10 review Austria 0 Germany 1 (predicted: 0-3) The scoreline may not have reflected the German dominance but they were worthy winners against a brave effort from limited Austria. The 10,000 people who signed the petition calling for the nation not to compete and embarrass itself should be the ones left a little red-faced […]
Day 9 review Switzerland 2 Portugal 0 (prediction: 0-2) Luis Felipe Scolari made eight changes to his Portugal team who went down to the proud Swiss and their three-tournament goal striker, Hakan Yakin. Helder Postiga, Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Bruno Alvez, Fernando Meira and Raul Meireles were amongst those brought in. With no Ronaldo, Deco, Petit […]
Day 6 review Croatia 2 Germany 1 (predicted: 1-2) Yes, this took me by surprise. Unfortunately I had to make do with highlights and match reports for most of today’s games but it seems that Croatia turned things upside down in Group B. The Croatians were as good as they were lackluster in their first […]
Day 5 review Czech Republic 1 Portugal 3 (predicted: 0-2) Portugal guaranteed their passage to the quarter-finals on the same day that their manager, Luiz Felipe Scolari, was confirmed as the new Chelsea manager. Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo stuck another two fingers up at Alex Ferguson with a fine display that he capped with a goal […]
Day 2 review Austria 0 Croatia 1 (predicted: 0-2) For the second day in a row the competition co-hosts were hard done by, this time Austria losing out to the underwhelming Croats by a single goal. Croatia went ahead from a Luka Modric penalty in the fourth minute after Rene Aufhauser clattered in to the […]
Day 1 review Switzerland 0 Czech Republic 1 (predicted: 1-1) Two very different games unfolded on Day 1 of the competition. In the opener, hosts Switzerland were unfortunate to be on the losing end against the Czech Republic. They had numerous chances in both halves and even survived the loss of their star striker, Alex […]
Four to go… An obscene number of countries embarked on the 1998 World Cup road and only four remain. By this time next week the 1998 World Cup champions will be crowned. Brazil, Holland, France and Croatia are the challengers and the winners may be harder to predict that you might think. Four weeks ago […]
