Source: FOOTYMAD
Two Bears And A Bore: Gio, Rino And Plg - Little Boy Blue's World Cup Diary
June 14: Day Four The FF Messageboard hasn't been short of barbed comments about the quality of football being served up in South Africa. Maybe it is just the wall-to-wall coverage or maybe I was too easy to please but, after what I saw as a bright start, I feel the tournament has gone off the boil. Its as if these group games are viewed as little more than shadow-boxing before the serious business of the knock-out stages. Nevertheless I expected a lot of good stuff today, only to feel more than a bit let down at the end of the day. Holland won without shedding too much sweat, Japan upset Cameroon and those infuriating Italians, surely a stick-on to beat Paraguay, stuttered and stumbled to a 1-1 draw. Holland v Denmark was top of my must-see list this week but it was somewhat surprising to see the Danes catch the eye in the first half. Twice Nicklas Bendtner came close, first with a header which grazed the post, then with a powerful drive which Maarten Stekelenberg touched wide. It certainly was not what I was expecting and I felt Bert van Marwijk and Ronald de Boer had to kick a few erses at half-time if they were to change the shape of the game in the second half. We'll never know if they did or they didn't. Within a minute of the restart, Robin van Persie sent a speculative cross into the box and Simon Poulsen totally mistimed his jump at the ball so, instead of heading clear, he let it rattle off the back of his napper and into the net. It was a gift of a goal and one which turned the game in Holland's favour. It was not a gift they were inclined to throw away. Without ever really moving into top gear, the Dutch were in complete control in the second half and, after a few near misses, finally put the game to bed when sub Eljero Elia's wee dink rebounded from the post and Dirk Kuyt had the simplest of tap-ins. Hearty congratulations are in order for the Dutch skipper, our good pal Gio 'We Are The People' van Bronckhorst, who won his 100th cap today. Apparently, he is only the fifth Dutchman to pass the big milestone and it gives me a bit of a buzz to remember his contribution to the Rangers during the Tricky Dicky years. He will be quitting international football after the World Cup so I want Holland to go as far as possible to let him bow out on a high.n> Having won arguably their most difficult game in the group, the Dutch are clear favourites to win Group E so it was not unreasonable to expect Cameroon and Japan to get stuck right in to set themselves up as serious challengers. But just like Algeria and Slovenia in Group C, they seemed to back off each other, each afraid to commit themselves, waiting for the other to make a mistake. Well, the Japs must have got a great boost when they saw how Cameroon lined up. What is it with Paul le Guen and centre-forwards? He never rated Boydie at Ibrox, was constantly at loggerheads with Pauleta at Paris St Germain and, inexplicably, with all that Samuel Eto'o brings to the party, PLG chose to play him wide on the right. Cameroon did little in front of goal then, as half-time approached, their defenders did little in front of their own goal, totally missing a cross and even allowing Keisuke Honda to take a touch in the six yard box before scoring. Early in the second half a mystified Mark Lawrenson said: "C'mon Paul le Guen, you're supposed to change this." I wish I had a fiver for every time I had similar thoughts during the Frenchman's time at Ibrox. Towards the end I think Eto'o got fed up playing to orders and started to go looking for the ball but the initiative was with the Japs and they held on with only one long range shot rattling off the crossbar to worry them. But the big winners from this game in Bloemfontein must surely be Denmark who will fancy their chances of making amends for todays defeat by taking care of both Japan and Cameroon. Italy's arrival on the scene was eagerly awaited but the holders were a big disappointment. Frustratingly, they never looked too interested until Paraguay snatched the lead just before the interval. With Cannavaro flat-footed on the ground and di Rossi jumping, but in no particular direction, Antolin Alcarez was able to get in a free header and score quite easily. Yes, Italy were a disappointment but was subbing the keeper at the interval going to change too much? OK, maybe he took a knock. LOL! They certainly looked a bit more purposeful in the second half. Maybe the threat of Rino Gattuso warming up on the touchline prompted them to put themselves about a bit more, yet they owed their equaliser to a shocking piece of goalkeeping from Justo Villar. He came for Pepe's corner, waved his hands around like Michael Jackson, missed the ball by yards and di Rossi, finally learning to jump towards the ball, netted the equaliser. From that point onwards, I fancied Italy to run away with the game but they seemed to lack any great desire to go for it and the game had a draw written all over it long before the final whistle. I'm reluctant to say Slovakia and New Zealand have a chance to push themselves into contention tomorrow. From what we've seen so far, they'll both probably go for the cagey approach, hoping a red card, a stupid mistake or an iffy refereeing decision settles the issue one way or the other. The Kiwis had better hope it goes there way because, facing Italy on Sunday, they can hardly expect Marcello Lippi's team to be as slack as they were against Paraguay. Methinks Rino Gattuso will spend all this week lobbying for a place in the team...and I don't think Lippi is daft enough to ignore the good sense of such a move. Tomorrow: New Zealand v Slovakia, Ivory Coast v Portugal, Brazil v North Korea.
