The higher they are, the harder they fall. That's how the Spanish team must have felt after losing to the super speedy Japanese boys despite having the lion's share of possession. Yup, now we know where the speed of the Japanese women's team were lost ...... Japan could have won by 3-4 clear goals after Spain lost their defender to a red card professional foul. Lucky the Spanish goalkeeper was in top form. The Japanese Asian main rival, Korea only managed a draw against Mexico. So to do home team GB, Craig Bellamy's strike not enough to secure victory against Senegal. The UAE, by the way, got beaten by Uruguay 1-2 after a good start. Egypt almost got back at Brazil but could only suffer a 2-3 reverse, after being 0-3 down in the first 30 minutes. Their fellow Africans Morocco managed to hold Honduras 2-2, after playing with 10 men for the last 20 minutes. The third African team, Gabon held the Swiss 1-1.
2 yrs ago in S. Africa, Spain got beaten by in their first match... but ended up winning their first WC. In their first match in Ukraine/Poland one month ago, they only managed a draw... in the end, we know the result. Now, will they repeat the same feat again? Let's wait and see.
got my ticket for Brazil VS New Zealand hopefully it will be a good match, I paid £40 for it (class A seat)
These young lads are not very prolific in front of goal, are they? Euro 2012 had a deluge of goals by this stage, but the men's competition is drying up of goals. So many 1-1 or 0-0 draws.
Hope you got your ticket's worth ...... NZL can play an uncompromising defensive game to thwart Brazil, even now Brazil is having difficulties breaking down Belarus.
After matchday 2, the biggest story of the competition is the demise of the World and Double European Champs Spain to as mighty a team as, err, Honduras. The Spanish lads have left behind their shooting boots, hitting the posts multiple times but just can't score ...... Uruguay too were mightily humbled, by none other than Senegal. After a 1-0 lead, Senegal lost a man for a professional foul on Luis Suarez. What do they do? Well, score another one, of course - and then defending doggedly for the last 50 minutes of the match. Not good news to team GB, as they have a do or die battle against wounded Uruguay next, with one of these teams going out ......
It's appalling to see Spain going out so early when they have so many good players from winning side to select from. Instead they decided to choose only one over-aged who is Mata of Chelsea. They could pick one experienced centreback, one playmaker (Xavi or Silva) and Torres to add more fire in their attacking side. This shows football in Olympics is not taken so seriously by many big countries. Only South Americans like Brazil, Argentina and etc are serious in competing and are willing to field the strongest side as much as they can at their disposal. Brazil is by far the big favourites to win with such a godly line-up on paper.
The Asians have a chance to make history and win Olympic Gold for the first time. Korea and Japan are in the semifinals against their respective opponents Brazil and Mexico. Brazil, the favourite, hasn't really looked impressive, needed Honduras to lose a man before they could eke out a 3-2 victory.
The Asian boys went back to their 2nd class footballing standard yesterday. After a good start, a slow moving Japan made continuous mistakes at the back to hand Mexico a ticket to the final. Koreans had it worse, were blanked out 0-3 by supercharged Brazil. It is now Brazil's gold to lose ..... Neymar would surely ensure that would not happen.
The Japanese blew, but I think the South Koreans can make a case for some missed calls that could have turn the tide of the game. First there was the high kicked that saved a goal in like the 13th minute, that probably should have been foul, a yellow, and a penalty kick. Then like on the second of Brazil's goal, the ref didn't make a call for the American football tackle that striped the ball and led to that goal. There was also one pretty bad no call in the box, that should have been a penalty kick in my opinion.
There seem to be a few questionable calls that favour the favourites, don't they? First the USA vs Canada women's match that lead to the USA equalizing 3-3. Now the Korea vs Brazil match. Quite a number of other calls too, like the GB vs Spain men's hockey (favoured the hosts), a few boxing results etc. The only time Team GB didn't get any favours was in track cycling, and they still won the lion's share of the gold. The only golds they lost were for being relegated ...... Good to see that badminton is not the only sport with bad calls in the Olympics.
The samba boys of Brazil were humbled 2-1 in the final. It was a match where the victorious Mexicans could have easily scored a few more goals. Another 4 year wait for the 5 time world champs to try and win their first Olympic Gold at home turf.
