Boring, boring Brazil win their opener



Brazil 1 – 0 Croatia
Kaka (44)

For 69 minutes the defending champions Brazil played their opening match against Croatia with 10 players and one passenger in the field. There was a glimpse of some urgency in the team only when young Robinho replaced Ronaldo. However by then they had already taken a 44th minute lead through a sublime Kaka goal.

But don’t be mistaken. This was a game which Brazil fully controlled and dictated the pace. They knew full well when and how to attack and more importantly they also knew how to defend. You somehow got the feeling that they could have moved up a gear at any time and that they were resorting to slowing down the game to preserve their energy for the other matches to come.

There were no theatrics and showing offs from the Brazillians. They were utterly professional but they did have their magical moments too. Roberto Carlos showed us how powerful his kicks can be while Ronaldinho performed some of his party tricks.

Mind you, this win sees them winning their eighth straight victory in the World Cup – a record – with the last seven culminating in them taking the trophy for a record fifth time in 2002.

Croatia, for their part, played well and on the three occasions when they had the chance, they shot straight to Dida.

But one thing that caught my eyes was the woeful performance of Ronaldo. He looked sluggish, never contested the ball and failed to run anywhere in the pitch while he was still playing. In fact the only time he showed some form of excessive activity was when he trotted out during his substitution.

Here are some high-points of the match:

Best display of the game: The entire Croation defence

Magical moment of the game: Kaka’s goal from out of nothing

Best spectator: Ronaldo – both while on and off the pitch

Best shots in the game: Between Kaka and Roberto Carlo

Best duel of the match: Stewards trying to remove a Croation fan who had encroached into the pitch

And here are how the other two matches of the day went:

France 0 vs 0 Switzerland

France, the champions of 1998, continued from where they left in 2002 – goalless and winless. This was a boring display from the French team which clearly lacked vision and penetration to kill off the young Swiss side.

Their lack of goal should not come as a surprise as after all France is the team which scored the least number of goals in the qualifying rounds amongst all finalists – 14.

In fact, it was Switzerland which came the closest to score a goal and grab all three points.

Thierry Hendry continued to puzzle football fans as to why he could not reproduce his Arsenal form at international level.


South Korea 2 – 1 Togo
Lee Chun-Soo (54) Mohamed Kader (31)
Ahn Jung-Hwan (72)

South Korea did Asia proud by winning this game with two wonderful goals. Togo took a surprise lead in the first half when S Korea looked very stale in their performance. A second half substitution to bring in the 2002 hero Ahn Jung-Hwan plus the sending off of Togo’s central defender turned the tide in the Korean favour.

Debutants Togo showed no signs of internal turmoil – and their coach who walked out over the weekend returned to the team again – and scored their first goal in the tournament with grace and splendour.