EXCITING!!!

Wow!! I sure am glad i didn't miss the brazil- france match yesterday.. nope.. should be today morning.. The main reason i went to macs was to support england while my sis supported france. I thought the england- portugal match was ok but after watching the 2nd match, i realised there's an obvious difference in skills.. I seriously don't think either team in the 1st match will reach the finals regardless of who they're playing against.. Let me talk about the individual matches now:
England vs Portugal- England was doomed to lose right at the beginning... 1st Owen's not playing. Then Beckham got substituted because of an injury. Early in the 2nd half, Rooney got sent off!! He got a red card for pushing Christiano Ronaldo!!!! There was a slight accident when rooney and another player was vying for possession of the ball and Ronaldo went foward making some sign languages to the referee trying to get him to give a harsher punishment to Rooney(at least that's what i think he's doing)... I didn't know Rooney has such a bad temper.... The accident was just that. An accident. He wouldn't have got sent off for it if not for the push.... Down to 10 men with a lot of main players not playing, England has close to zero chances of getting into the semis... The audience knew it, the players knew it, and deep down in my heart, i knew it. I think the english players made a lot of fatal mistakes.. They had quite a few very good chances to score but either they missed the ball entirely, or it was an off-shot... There was one very nice cross which landed right in front of the goal but a player missed the ball!!!! I forgot who he was and don't care to remember.... It was such a golden opportunity!!! They would have won if they scored a goal but in the end the match went into extra time and eventually to penalty kicks... The fact that the commentator kept emphasising that england has never won a penalty shootout did not help much... From the penalties, you can see a very obvious difference in skills of the 2 keepers.. Ricardo managed a lot of saves.. It's either he's good or the england players are predictable... The english keeper on the other hand did not manage a single save.. The 2 balls that Portugal missed were because of an inaccurate shot... The match was a bit more exciting at the end and i was close to having a heart attack during the penalty.. Majority of the people at macs were England supporters and everyone was chanting when the players were preparing to kick- "goal goal goal miss goal goal miss miss...."- and i was one of them.. When Portugal shot in the last goal, there was an audible sigh of disappointment in macs and only a few were cheering.... This match wasn't confirmed right at the beginning. No one knew who would win but England were the hot favourites... It's quite disappointing but not unexpected...
Brazil vs France- This was an entirely different match. Everyone expected Brazil to win even before the match started. They didn't think much of France so imagine their shock and disappointment when Henry scored the only goal in the entire match. The goal which brings them to the semis, and the goal which eliminated Brazil, the hot favourites. Almost everyone at macs was supporting Brazil, even more than thos who were supporting England so when France scored the first goal there were some unhappy people there.. but they still had some hope for Brazil and whenever Brazil was close to scoring there were excited shouts. I started off watching the match with no favourite team but after seeing France play, i realised that they are good, man.. Especially Zidane... Great ball skills, great control, great balance, great everything.. The pace of this match was a lot faster than the 1st match. In this match, both sides wanted to win and you can see that in their play. There was a free kick just around 5 min into the game, awarded to Brazil. In fact there were a lot of free kicks in this match and the winning goal was scored during a free kick. Zidane took it and Henry finished it. I think this is a major oversight on the Brazilians' part. They had a lot of defenders but only a few went after the ball. And the player who was supposed to defend Henry was just standing at the line like he's watching a show... In fact, they had 5 Brazilian players just standing there and watching. They must not have been expecting a goal and were waiting for the ball to come their way.. That definitely was a great mistake they made, leaving Henry free, which eventually sent them home.. These 2 teams are really good.. It doesn't matter which side wins as they are both equally deserving to be in the semis. In football, it's all about mistakes. Whoever made the first or the most mistakes will be the team that eventually loses... I think Ronaldinho is a very good sport. He is always smiling during the game and you can see the professionalism of the players in this match, not like in the previous one where there were lots of play- acting, mostly by the Portugese side.... The players in these match were also more friendly towards each other. Yes! I have decided that France will be the team i'm rooting for now. World Cup is meaningless if you do not have a team to support, so... GO FRANCE!!!