Latest World Cup news and results

Japan too good for sub par Denmark
Japan booked their place in the knock­out stages of the World Cup when they defeated an out of sorts Denmark 3–1 in their final Group E fix­ture at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg last night. Two well-struck goals from free kicks by Keisuke Honda, after 17 minutes, and Yasuhito Endo on 30 minutes, gave the Asians a 2–0 half­time lead.

The Danes pulled a goal back nine minutes from time when Japanese ‘keeper Eiji Kawashima blocked a Jon Dahl Tomasson pen­alty only for the Danish for­ward to score from the rebound. Shinji Okazaki (pic­tured) net­ted a third goal three minutes from time to give Japan their hand­some vic­tory. They are now the second Asian team after South Korea to qual­ify for the last 16 and will meet Paraguay in Pretoria on Tuesday.

Japan took con­trol of pro­ceed­ings from the start and put the Danish defence under con­stant pres­sure. Their metic­u­lous, one-touch play and the speed of their ata­tcks cre­ated a series of chances, Daisuke Matsui stretch­ing to meet an angled cross by Yoshito Okubo that hit the diving Danish ‘keeper Thomas Sorensen’s right knee, being just one of many.

The Asians, enjoy­ing mid­field superi­or­ity, duly took the lead after 17 minutes with a bril­liant goal by Honda. Taking a free-kick 30 metres out on the right, he unleashed a left-foot shot that left the flat-footed Sorensen help­less. Desperate to secure an equal­iser the Danes pressed for­ward with fierce determ­in­a­tion, but were frus­trated when Jon Dahl Tomasson shot nar­rowly wide and had another effort saved. Denmark were then left reel­ing when Per Kroldrup tripped Okubo and Endo curled a right-foot free-kick round the wall and inside Sorensen’s left post from 25 metres.

After Endo’s strike the Danes were always play­ing catch up foot­ball and although Tomasson pulled one back for the Europeans, Japan sealed vic­tory through Okazaki’s late goal. It was a fine per­form­ance from the Japanese who must be very con­fid­ent of their chances in the knock­out stages.

Holland edge out Indomitable Lions to go through
Netherlands advanced to the World Cup knock­out stages when they recor­ded a con­vin­cing 2–1 vic­tory over Cameroon at the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town last night. It was their third win from as many games and secured them top spot in Group E. The Dutch will now play Slovakia in the second round of football’s most pres­ti­gi­ous tournament.

Goals from Robin van Persie (pic­tured) and Klaas Jan Huntelaar secured the win for the Europeans, who had already qual­i­fied for the last 16 with vic­tor­ies over Denmark and Japan. Nicely bal­anced through­out the team, the Dutch have qual­i­fied without even enga­ging top gear and are cur­rently head and shoulders above any of the other European teams in the competition.

Cameroon made a pos­it­ive start to the match and put their oppon­ents under pres­sure early, but the pre­ci­sion passing of Netherlands always made them look the more threat­en­ing side. Van Persie had a golden oppor­tun­ity to put his team ahead after 19 minutes when he ches­ted down a lovely 40-metre ball by Giovanni van Bronckhorst, but his weak shot hardly troubled Cameroon ‘keeper Hamidou Souleymanou.

After Dirk Kuyt had squandered another oppor­tun­ity to score, Van Persie even­tu­ally broke the dead­lock in the 36^th minute when a clever one-two with Rafael van der Vaart put him through and he guided the ball through the ‘keeper’s legs. The goal allowed the Dutch to focus and they began to move the ball around sharply on the stadium’s high-speed surface.

The Indomitable Lions respon­ded with some clever moves of their own and Samuel Eto’o, Landry Nguemo, Jean Makoun and Aurelien Chedjou, a late change to the start­ing lineup for Alexandre Song, all had chances to score in the second half. Their con­stant pres­sure was rewar­ded when Van der Vaart handled a Geremi free kick in the area and Eto’o lev­elled mat­ters with a 65^th-minute penalty.

With only seven minutes of nor­mal time left and the teams dead­locked at 1–1, it seemed like a draw would be the logical res­ult, but sub­sti­tute Huntelaar had other ideas when he stroked the ball into the back of an empty net after Robben’s shot from the edge of the box hit a post and reboun­ded into the path of the striker. Despite fin­ish­ing last in their group and being unable to score a single point, Cameroon can hold their heads high after a gutsy second-half display.

Defending cham­pi­ons Italy crash out
Defending cham­pi­ons Italy were bundled out of the World Cup yes­ter­day when they slumped to an embar­rass­ing 3–2 defeat to Slovakia at Ellis Park in Johannesburg. Slovakia’s win put them through to the last 16 as Group F runners-up.

Striker Robert Vittek (pic­tured) scored a brace and Kamil Kopunek added a third in the 89^th minute to stun the fifth ranked Italians who never really got going against their 34^th ranked oppon­ents. Antonio Di Natale and Fabio Quagliarella scored late on for Italy but the group favour­ites were always play­ing catch up against the well-organised Slovaks.

“Everybody had the desire, the dream to get through but we didn’t and it’s our fault,” said Italy’s injured first-choice goal­keeper Gianluigi Buffon. “If you can’t win it is right to go home. We will have to look at what happened,” he added. “It’s a huge suc­cess. We’ve moved the lim­its of Slovak foot­ball. We couldn’t have dreamt about this,” said goalscorer Vittek. “Of course, we didn’t expect such dom­in­a­tion. We were bet­ter dur­ing the match. We played with our hearts and that’s what decided the match today,” he added.

Slovakia, need­ing a win to have any hope of reach­ing the knock­out stages, star­ted con­fid­ently, mov­ing the ball around swiftly and demon­strat­ing a sharp­ness on attack that their oppon­ents lacked. The Azzurri, who were let down by poor defend­ing in their early games against Paraguay and New Zealand (both 1–1 draws), were once again made to pay for their slop­pi­ness at the back.

Daniele De Rossi care­lessly gave the ball away in the 25^th minute allow­ing Juraj Kucka to pass to a fall­ing Vittek who made no mis­take from the edge of the box. Italy’s best chance in the open­ing 45 minutes came when Slovakia’s Martin Skrtel headed nar­rowly over his own bar, a sign of how poor the Azzurri have been in the tournament.

The second half saw Vittek bang in a second goal at the near post in the 73^rd minute and, after Di Natale pulled one back for Italy on 81 minutes, sub­sti­tute Kopunek net­ted a third for the Eastern Europeans a minute before the end. His effort was a typ­ical example of the determ­in­a­tion Slovakia have dis­played in the tour­na­ment thus far.

Chasing a through ball, the 26-year-old Kopunek pro­duced a sur­ging run which saw him out­sprint two defend­ers and lob the ball over a des­pair­ing Federico Marchetti in the Italian goal. Quagliarella made it 3–2 with a bril­liant long-range chip over Jan Mucha in extra time, but it was too little, too late for the defend­ing cham­pi­ons who looked absoulutely gut­ted at the final whistle.

With France also exit­ing in the Group stage, it is the first time the two final­ists from the pre­vi­ous tour­na­ment have been unable to make it to the last 16. It was a shock­ing defeat for Italy and brought a sud­den end to Marcello Lippi’s time as Italy coach and the inter­na­tional careers of Fabio Cannavaro and Gennaro Gattuso after the trio said this would be their last tour­na­ment with the national side.

Paraguay qual­ify for last 16 with draw
Paraguay breezed into the last 16 of the World Cup with a goal­less draw against New Zealand in Polokwane yes­ter­day. The 31^st ranked South Americans cre­ated the bet­ter chances but took few risks know­ing that a point was suf­fi­cient to book their place in the knock­out stages.

The 78^th ranked New Zealanders did not man­age a single shot on goal, but their defence was top notch and they can be proud of their achieve­ments in the tour­na­ment. The All Whites did not taste defeat in the global showpiece, earn­ing draws against Slovakia and Italy before yesterday’s match.

These res­ults were above and bey­ond expect­a­tions for the Kiwis and they received a rous­ing send off from their sup­port­ers at the end. Seldom has a team of such mod­est tech­nical abil­ity and lim­ited inter­na­tional exper­i­ence done so well at a World Cup. The All Whites demon­strated good organ­isa­tion, dis­cip­line and effort to fin­ish above the Italians in Group F and dis­prove many of the pun­dits who stated they had no busi­ness par­ti­cip­at­ing in the tour­na­ment. However, there was a sur­pris­ing lack of urgency from the All Whites who, with Slovakia beat­ing Italy, could have even topped the group with a victory.

“I think I need to pinch myself,” said New Zealand coach Ricki Herbert. “If you are going to exit the World Cup there are good ways of doing it. “A lot of people thought we shouldn’t be here and that we had ama­teurs who were not up to it. But I think that’s dead and bur­ied now,” he added.

In a dreary open­ing 45 minutes, Paraguay enjoyed the lion’s share of the pos­ses­sion but were unable to con­vert that into genu­ine goalscor­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, their attack lack­ing teeth. “I’m pleased with the qual­i­fic­a­tion but not with the way we played,” said Paraguay’s coach Gerardo Martino. “We had a lot of prob­lems in an area where we didn’t expect, and that was in attack,” he added.

Paraguay’s best efforts in the open­ing half came from cap­tain and right-back Denis Caniza with two long-range shots. Indeed, the first corner of the match did not come until 17 minutes into the second half and it pro­duced the South American’s best effort with a Cristian Riveros header well saved by New Zealand’s agile ‘keeper Mark Paston.

Martino brought on for­wards Lucas Barrios and Edgar Benitez in a bid to beef up his side’s attack and the change had the inten­ded effect. After an excel­lent passing move, Benitez pro­duced a curl­ing shot that was par­ried away by Paston. Then Roque Santa Cruz (pic­tured), who demon­strated some glimpses of his class, brought a top notch save out of Paston from an 80^th minute free kick.

The only real moment of con­cern for Paraguay came four minutes later when Shane Smeltz fired a ball across the face of the goal and 18-year-old sub­sti­tute Chris Wood, slid­ing in at the back post, almost knocked it into the back of the net.

“We’re very happy to have qual­i­fied but it was a very dif­fi­cult game,” said Santa Cruz. “The game got bor­ing because they were so defens­ive. In a game like this you expect to win but the import­ant thing is we qual­i­fied,” he added.

Other res­ults (from left to right, African teams in bold)
Wednesday
Slovenia 0 – England 1
USA 1 – Algeria 0
Ghana 0 – Germany 1
Australia 2 – Serbia 1
Group Standings (GD = Goal Difference, * = qual­i­fied for last 16)

Group A
Pos     Team                 GD       Pts
1.        Uruguay*           4         7
2.        Mexico*             1          4
3.       South Africa -2        4
4.       France                –3         1

Group B
Pos     Team                 GD       Pts
1.         Argentina*         6         9
2.         South Korea*     –1        4
3.         Greece              –3         3
4.         Nigeria –2        1

Group C
Pos     Team                 GD       Pts
1.       USA*                   1        5
2.       England*             1        5
3.       Slovenia              0         4
4.       Algeria –2        1

Group D
Pos     Team                 GD       Pts
1.       Germany*            4         6
2.       Ghana* 0         4
3.       Australia             –3        4
4.       Serbia                 –1    3

Group E
Pos     Team                 GD       Pts
1.       Holland*              4         9
2.       Japan*                 2        6
3.       Denmark              –3       3
4.       Cameroon –3      0

Group F
Pos     Team                 GD       Pts
1.       Paraguay*          2         5
2.       Slovakia*           –1        4
3.       New Zealand        0         3
4.       Italy                    –1        2

Group G
Pos     Team                 GD       Pts
1.       Brazil*                3          6
2.       Portugal*           7          4
3.       Ivory Coast –2         1
4.       North Korea       –8          0

Group H
Pos     Team                 GD       Pts
1.        Chile*                 2          6
2.       Spain                  1           3
3.       Switzerland         0           3
4.       Honduras            –3          0

Upcoming matches
Today
Portugal vs Brazil – Durban – 4pm
North Korea vs Ivory Coast – Nelspruit – 4pm
Chile vs Spain – Pretoria – 8.30pm
Switzerland vs Honduras – Bloemfontein – 8.30pm

Saturday
Uruguay vs South Korea – Port Elizabeth – 4pm
USA vs Ghana – Rustenburg – 8.30pm

Sunday
Germany vs England – Bloemfontein – 4pm
Argentina vs Mexico – Johannesburg – 8.30pm

Note: Saturday and Sunday’s matches are knock­out games. A defeat will spell instant elim­in­a­tion from the tournament.

Photo Credits:
Defending cham­pi­ons Italy crash out — Photo – Robert Vittek: Source – www.weltfussball.de
Holland edge out Indomitable Lions to go through — Photo – Robin van Persie: Source – www.bigfourza.wordpress.com
Japan too good for sub par Denmark — Photo – Shinji Okazaki: Source – www.campeonesmorales.wordpress.com
Paraguay qual­ify for last 16 with draw — Photo – Roque Santa Cruz: Source – www.new.taringa.net

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