Second Times THe Charm

It had to happen.

The 2010 World Cup has woken up.

After a cagey first round of games which lets face can largely be forgotten and most have, the tournament has reached a stage where teams cant afford to be frightened if they are - they could find themselves on a very long trip home. No longer will we see nervousness from the players, they will leave that to the fans as we bite our nails down and pull our hair out ( whats left of it).
The South Africans have only themselves to blame if they do bow out fronm thier own ( or is it Africas) World Cup,, They want to entertain and please the crowd that cheer them on , perhaps a basic lesson on how not to be naive inthis environment wouldnt go amiss. Still they have a shot, thanks to the hapless French who in the space of a decade have shown how far you can fall from being World Beaters to - well just plain beaten. It is all to play for in Group A, but i can quite easily see a draw between Uruguay and Mexico to start up conspiracy theories, but then again the 2 teams going home can only look in the mirror and see that they just got it wrong.

Group B is a real dogfight, and the worst team in it could still find a passage through to the last 16. Nigeria, after 2 defeats can see the light at the end of a long tunnell but a victory over the South Koreans coupled with a loss by Greece against the imposing Argentinians, should be enough. The greeks though will fancy going through, a tight defence will have to be really stingy though if they are to get anything from Maradonas mob, at times it looked too easy against Korea, and maybe it was, but they have a certain 'meaness' that Herr Klinsmann referred to.

Matchups from these Groups in last 16?
I expect to see Argentina v Mexico and Uruguay v South Korea

Oh, a small matter of some Lions roaring in 24 hours. Should be fun......