Tuesday 12 January 2010

Tuesday 12 January 2010 – 150 DAYS TO THE WORLD CUP

Last night as Tevez scored a hat-trick for Manchester City against Blackburn in the Premier League thus upping the hopes of Argentina elsewhere England’s own prospects felt somewhat more optimistic and healthier as their Group C opponents Algeria went down to something of a surprise 3-0 defeat against Malawi in the African Nations Cup. The official line I heard from a friend on Twitter watching the game on Eurosport was that “Algeria don’t like it up ‘em.” Suddenly it begins to look like one of the dark horses of the World Cup no longer looks so dark or dangerous after all.

Elsewhere in the tournament another surprise/shock occurred as the Ivory Coast, despite Didier Drogba’s best efforts (including crashing into the Burkina Faso goalkeeper), were only able to scrape out a 0-0 draw against the quite unfancied Burkina Faso team.

Today sees Group C beginning as reigning champions Egypt take on World Cup qualifiers Nigeria in what could prove to be one of the games of the group round. Egypt no longer makes use of the being that is Mido but they do boast a striker named Zidan (but not of the headbutting variety I believe). Nigeria boast a solid grounding of Premiership players including Yobo, Obi and Yakubu which hopefully will see them back to their exciting best this summer (and perhaps even seeing them victorious in this tournament).

The other game sees Mozambique going up against Benin who are two teams I would struggle to find on a world map let alone the footballing map. Due to ignorance my predictions for the match comes down to a battle of nicknames as The Mambas face The Squirrels as little hope builds for a side sounding so nutty and cuddly.

Elsewhere there are a number of FA Cup replays occurring tonight including Birmingham and Portsmouth.

No comments:

Post a Comment