OBT Forum

And it has begun....
The opening match of the FIFA Worldcup 2010 between South Africa and Mexico has just been played with the game ending in a 1:1 draw.

In the first half Mexico played better than their opponents and had the better chances, but were unable to score either because the South African Keeper Khune saved the ball or because the Mexican strikers were unable to create scoring chances or couldn't use them.
Ten minutes into the second half South Africa suddenly scored on a counter-attack. And what a beautiful goal it was that South Africa's midfielder Siphiwe Tshabalala scored.
Thereafter South Africa intensified its efforts to score at least the equaliser, but still had difficulties creating and utilizing scoring chances. Meanwhile South Africa had another great scoring chance with another counterattack but weren't able to utilize it.
Then Mexico managed the equaliser with a header from defender Rafael Marquez after a nice cross from Andres Guardado.  
In the 90th minute South Africa's striker Bernard Parker hit the left post in another counterattack.

All in all I must say that for an opening match this wasn't as bad as I had feared(FIFA World Cup opening matches are not known for brilliant soccer).

Ciao
Hessian

Edited to show the correct result, a 1:1 draw.

I'm not expecting much from the English team overall (though they may surprise us.) The real test will be this weekend. I'm really interested in seeing how the UK fairs against the US. That'll more or less tell me how they'll place in the group and depending on how some of the other groups play out whether or not their chances of making it to the end will improve.

Personally, I think this World Cup is a bit wonky in a traditional sense. All the top teams you'd expect to do extremely well probably won't (cept maybe the Dutch, Spain & possibly Brazil - though the Dutch has a history of choking late.) So I'm really looking at teams like South Africa. I'm really interested to see how they'll do in this tourney.

I'm not sayin Stevie and Rooney won't make a good show of it, I'm just worried about their mid-field and goal tending. 

I expect england to make the quarter finals, any more than that will be a bonus.

My favourate for the tournement is Spain.

S. Korea's kicking the crap out of Greece. They're looking way better than I expected after their last loss...

Yeah I heard Greece was a dark horse team that could maybe make the semi finals - guess not.

And I heard that France - Uruguay was not that impressive.

And I heard that France - Uruguay was not that impressive.

Was watching that match over at the bar. With what the announcers were saying I expected more offense from the Frenchies but nada.