The Energon Pub

The cup has begun. The inaugural game saw an intense match-up between South Africa and Mexico, that ended in 1-1 tie.

Mexico had ample opportunities to increase the score, but missed, or was stopped by several great actions of the south African goalkeeper. All in all, Mexico was clearly superior in long stretches of the game but was unable to capitalize on that superiority. South Africa on the other hand managed to score in pretty much the only dangerous approach they had.

Next up: France vs Uruguay. These 2 will Face Mexico and South Africa respectively next week.

France ties with Uruguay, leaving Group A in a 4 way tie at 1 point.

U.S.A ties with England to 1 also. Slightly slower match than expected. USA manages to keep England at bay. While also having a few attacks of its own.

Argentina beats Nigeria 1 - 0
South Korea beats Greece 2 - 0

For tomorrow Germany vs Australia shapes up to be the more interesting match.

Here are my picks for World Cup 2010, on a round by round basis.

Round 1.

Group A: Mexico and South Africa
Group B: Argentina
Group C: England and Slovenia
Group D: Germany
Group E: Netherlands
Group F: France
Group G: Brazil and Portugal
Group H: Spain and Chile

Germany wipes the floor with Australia with minimal effort.
Final score 4 - Nill

Not that that's very suprising. We shouldn't even be there.

Yeah, It was an entertaining match, that broke the monotony of the tiers, and the "barely" one by one goal.

I guess Netherlands vs Denmark is the one to watch tomorrow.
though Japan vs Cameroon may prove interesting.

Italy vs Praguay I'm not sure how that's going to turn out.
Italy is not up to par for a defending champion.

Now i would like to watch Brazil...... Hopefully they can perform some samba magic.... Winning is a failure if Brazil didnt play it beautifully....

Netherlands won their match 2 - 0
Japan one theirs 1 - 0
Italy in its unbounded mediocrity ties Nill - Nill with Paraguay.

Today, New Zealand tied 1 -1 with Slovakia

Ivory Coast fends off Portugal to a tie: Nill - Nill

And Brazil will take on North Korea. Looking forward to this one.

Hopefully this one will be far more entertaining and exciting.

Well. Brazil barely beats Korea. after getting a 2 - nill lead, North Korea pushes back and scoring once, and giving Brazil a very hard time at the end of the match.
final score Brazil 2 - 1 North Korea

Today marks the end of the first round of matches. With Spain vs Suitzerland being the very last match of the round.

Early results for today: Honduras falls to Chile nill - 1.

Spain lost to the Neutral Bank Capital nill - 1.

Coming up the first match of the second round of matches: The Host, South Africa, faces off against Uruguay.

Mexico bats France 2 - Nill with some help from the Ref. Yes a couple of he Refs calls weren't all that accurate, but overall it was a deserved win for Mexico.

France now has but a glimmer of hope to make it to the next phase. A very unlikely combination is their only chance.

Argentina shows what its made of against a somewhat limited and weak South Korea eating them 4 - 1.

Greece comes back from defeat and beats Nigeria 2 -1.

For tomorrow, Germany vs Serbia is an all but guaranteed win for the Germans.

Slovenia vs U.S.A. U.S.A needs to make this one count, if they want to have any chance of moving on to the next phase.

England vs Algeria. The Brits should be able to makeup some ground in this match, after loosing 2 points to USA in their first match that ended in a tie.

Sorry I haven't updated.

Seems team U.S.A got bamboozled out of their winning goal for no good reason against Slovenia. The Ref dissalowed their 3-2 goal with no real explanation. Was it a foul? Observers [point out that there were more transgressions form Slovenia than the U.S. Was it an off side? All Players were clearly behind Slovenian players at the time the ball was put into play. Nobody knows what was called, and Apparently FIFA is not requiring Ref Koman Coulibaly to explain anything at this point.


The Brits on the other had managed to give a an unaprallel show of mediocrity tying Nill - Nill with Algeria.


Yesterday
Japan fell to the Netherlands 1 - Nill
Ghana ties with Australia 1 - 1
Cameroon falls to Denmark 2 - 1


For today Paraguay beats Slovakia 2 - Nill

Italy 1 - 1 New Zealand 1. Italy is really having a hard time. Tying both matches means the risk being eliminated.

And Brazil will face off against Ivory Coast later today.


Tomorrow marks the last set of matches for the second round of the Group stage. With one match or all teams left I'll put what certain teams need to move on to the next stage. Most are still within Mathematical possibilities of qualifying.

Brazil beats Ivory Cost, 3-1. A good match, but the noise the people make is really annoying. It is 01:02 Am now and the people are still playing the vuvuzelas.

Yup.

Portugal utterly massacres the Koreans 7 - Nill.
Spain asserts itself over Honduras. 2 - Nill

With the end of the second round of matches lets see what the teams need to qualify:

Group A:
Mexico an Uruguay just need to tie with each other tomorrow to qualify. If either one loses, it opens the door for both South Africa and France to make it in. Either one of them would need to bat the other by enough goals to offset their deficit, and the goal difference the loser of the Mexico Uruguay match would end up with.

Group B
Argentina is all but qualified, however a loss to Greece combined with a win by the South Koreans over the Nigerians could still leave the Argentinians out.

Greece needs a win, and it needs to be by a better score than any win by South Korea over the Nigerians.



Group C
USA needs to beat Algeria to guarantee they qualify.
England would need to beat Slovenia, a tie would mean they'd need to hope USA doesn't win or ties with Algeria.
Algeria would need to beat USA and hope England doesn't win. Or if the Brits do win, they need to win by a large margin so Slovenia's Goal difference is offset, and Algeria can overcome them.

Group D
Ghana only needs to tie with Germany, however the Germans need a win otherwise either Serbia or Australia can leave them out.
Serbia has to win if they want to move on. If they tie with Australia, They'd need Germany to loose to Ghana.
Australia still has a chance. They'd need to beat Serbia, and hope Germany doesn't win.

Group E
The Netherlands is qualified.
The winner between Japan and Denmark moves on. A tie means Japan moves on.

Group F
Paraguay needs at least to Tie.
Italy needs to win. A tie would open the door for New Zealand to knock them out of the cup.
For New Zealand a win qualifies them.
Slovakia needs to win and hope New Zealand doesn't win.

Group G
Brazil is qualified
Portugal is all but qualified. Portugal only needs to tie, and even a loss as long as its not by too many goals would be enough.
Ivory Coast would need to do what Portugal did today to the Koreans, and hope Portugal loses to Brazil.


Group H
Chile can afford to loose as long as Switzerland doesn't Win by enough goals to offset the difference.
Spain needs a win, and hope its better than Switzerland's win.
Switzerland needs to win, and needs to win by a better score than Spain.

Between Spain, Chile and Switzerland it will probably come down to the goal difference.

Uruguay will face Korea on Saturday
Mexico Will face off against Argentina on Sunday

USA barely makes it in with a singe goal in overtime over Algeria.
The Brits beat Slovenia and knocks them out of the next round.

The best is still to come, when Germany will fight for their permanence against the undefeated Ghana.
Anything but a win and they could be eliminated. Serbia and Australia will attempt to do so in their match.

w00t! Australia's out! Now we don't have to delude ourselves!

Of course now we have to put up with people getting behind New Zealand.

Italy gets the boot from Slovakia and leaves the World cup with a less than mediocre group phase.

Paraguay and Slovakia move on.


Next up:

Denmark vs Japan,
and
Netherlands vs Cameroon.

Basically the only game of consequence is Japan vs Denmark. The Winner moves on. If they Tie Japan gets to move on.

Netherlands is already qualified, and Cameroon can't qualify regardless of what they do.

Yup. Basically Japan had it in their pocket halfway through the first half. Denmark really wasn't causing them much trouble.