Well, I have been severely preoccupied with it. Not been getting any sleep and just watching the matches over and over.

So here’s my thoughts:

1. Sloppy. I realize that even though it’s the worlds there are lots of different skill levels. Even so I’ve seen a lot of sloppy play by all teams. Consider the low scoring matches between super star countries vs newbies. For instance, Portugal vs Angola should’ve been a high scoring affair but there was far too much sloppy play that lead to play breaking down in the final third for both teams.
   Mexico vs Iran is another example where every goal save one could be attributed to sloppy play by the defense. All games so far should’ve been substantially higher scoring (other than Germany and the Mexico affairs). Even with that said the Germany game was surprisingly high scoring for Costa Rica and there are some serious holes in Germany’s defense. Those issues need to be solved if Germany wants a chance at the Cup otherwise I believe they’ll be eliminated in the first game of round 2.

2. It’s too early. It’s far too early in the first round to start making predictions but Poland is looking very shaky. I had picked Poland along with Germany to go through Group A but Ecuador surprised everybody with their 2-0 victory over Poland. It seems very likely that Poland will be eliminated as they are surely facing a loss against Germany and may have to rely on a convincing win over Costa Rica followed by a win or a tie with Germany to squeak by.
   Normally Paraguay is a pretty powerful team but this year I expected England to win convincingly but yet again a poor performance by a top ranking team leads me to speculate that England may too be eliminated early in the second round.
   I hope that all the top teams do well in their upcoming games as those teams usually are the ones with style.

3. Game picks.
   Italy [flag]ITA[/flag] vs Ghana [flag]GHA[/flag]
   Exciting game with Italy winning.

USA [flag]USA[/flag] vs Czech Republic [flag]CZE[/flag]
Czech Republic although the USA style is certainly more attractive.

Australia [flag]AUS[/flag] vs Japan [flag]JPN[/flag]
Japan hands down with the Aussies taking penalties early on.

I stand by those predictions!

In case you didn’t know Italy is always my favorite with Holland a close second (although my favorite players are starting to retire). Like everybody else I’m predicting that Brazil will win it all.