Can: Day 5: Boredom continues in South Africa

It has been 5 days but there is still nothing “original” to talk about the World Cup. Yesterday, I was quite sure that the game between Ivory Coast and Portugal will satisfy the expectations for classy football but all hopes had been melt down with the preferences of Sven-Goran Eriksson, Ivory Coast coach, and the absence of a powerful striker for Portugal. Ronaldo, who is the superstar of Portugal team was denied by the post and increased his nonscoring period up to eleven international games. Ivory Coast had quite difficulty in counter attacks as Didier Drogba and Abdulkader Keita was on the sideline until the last minutes of the second half. After Keita has been substituted with Gervinho, Ivory Coast had some effective attempts in the last 8 minutes, but at the end the score was 0-0.

5 times world cup winner Brazil was expecting an easy win over North Korea in the last game of the day. Yet, the young Korea team showed a great performance and they really forced Brazil especially in the first half. Brazil’s lack of motivation and the impressing stamina of Korean players provided us a relatively more exciting game in the second half. Maicon was selected as the man of the match not only because of his remarkable goal but also his unstoppable dripplings from the right wing through the match. Galatasaray player Elano was also in high heels during the game by scoring a goal and giving the pass to Maicon before his spectecular shot. Dunga’s Brazil is seeking for the spirit of 94, but there is quite difference in terms of motivation between 94 team and the current team. I can barely say that Dunga was far better on the bitch than he is on the sideline. Besides, he still could not learn how to wear as the coach of the world’s most famous team.

In the other game of the day, New Zealand scored a late goal in six-yard and got the point from Slovakia. The game will probably be one of the forgotten games of the World Cup in the end.

[all photos: Reuters]