Day 16. What happened today in Brazil. Teams
went home, others trained, or didn't in the case of Nigeria. Following
Cameroon and Ghana's players' strike over unpaid bonuses, now it was the
Nigerian's turn. Whatever we may think about greedy,
overpaid footballers if they have contracts that promise these bonuses
they should get it. It seems like President Goodluck's intervention has
saved the day.
England have been home for a few days and a
couple of their players are happily moving on and sorting out their
futures, with a little bit more money to come their way. Defender Luke
Shaw, who is 18, signed for Man United for a transfer fee of 27 million
pounds. Yes, he's eighteen. Adam Lallana has had a medical at Liverpool
in expectation of a 25 million pound move. More will follow, once the
bigger teams start getting eliminated and the agents kick into high gear
selling the new World Cup stars at terribly inflated prices to the
gullible English teams.
Tomorrow, the action reaches a new
level of excitement. Lose now, and it may take extra time and penalties,
and losers there will be, and you're on your way home. No goal
difference to the rescue now. It's South American day on Saturday.
Brazil-Chile, followed by Colombia-Uruguay.
Chile have reached
the last 16 three times and each time they have lost to, yes, Brazil.
It wouldn't take that brave of a person to bet on the un-thinkable (to
Brazilians) happening. Chile have looked mighty good and Brazil have
been iffy. Only question about Chile is how Holland dealt with them
pretty easily in the last group match.
Colombia-Uruguay, I
imagine, is going to be ugly. Not ugly, in the turgid (thanks BBC)
Italy-Uruguay way, but I suspect that especially if things aren't going
Uruguay's way we are going to see some nastiness that the Colombians may
get caught up in too. Uruguay are now in the us against the world mood,
after Luis Suarez's suspension. Their coach, Oscar Tabarez, had quit
his Fifa advising roles in disgust, the captain Lugano says Suarez did
nothing wrong, Maradona has become an honorary Uruguayan to defend
Suarez against the 'mafia' at Fifa, and the whole team refused to speak
in English to English journalists because, in case you didn't know,
Suarez only chewed at Chellini's shoulder because he is a victim of the
English media's harassment and torture.
Colombia have only
played a South American team once at the World Cup, and again you
guessed it, it was Uruguay, who won 2-1 in 1962. Colombia won 3 games so
far, which is the total number of wins in their previous 13 matches in
World Cups. They have some wonderful players, and I hope we get to see
them, and their fantastic goal celebration, again after tomorrow.
Enjoy....this is going to get really good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLAIjbJvx7s
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