 |
|
|
Time to shine
The last warm-up game has been run and won, the final training sessions are being prepared by the coaches, and soon Germany will erupt into football fever. Tonight the 2006 world cup kicks off in Munich when Germany and Costa Rica meet.
It's been a long time coming and as the final friendly ended last night, a 3-0 win to Ukraine over Luxembourg, the worlds focus turned to Munich and the start of a month of football.
Germany of course have had the easiest passage into the tornament being the host and thus automatic qualifier. But for the first time the remaining 31 finalists were all forced to re-qualify. Whittled down from 194 teams, the qualifiers required 847 games and 2,464 goals to seperate the winners from the wanna-bes.
In the past nine days however the final preperations of all finalists have been underway. Oceania's only representative, Australia, who are now actually a part of Asia, played two matches in June, scoring a 1-1 draw with the Dutch and a 3-1 win over Liechtenstein indicating Australia may provide a threat to teams that take them lightly.
Asian representatives Korea Republic have played twice so far this month with an unconvincing start to their campaign, drawing 0-0 with Norway and losing 1-3 to Ghana. Japan have played just once but managed to pick up a 1-0 win against Malta. Iran and Saudi Arabia have been less active this month, ending pre-world cup preperations in May before making their way to Germany.
In Africa Togo and Angola wer both in action this month. Togo overcame Liechtenstein 1-0 while Turkey beat Angola 2-3. Tunisia managed a 0-0 draw with Uruguay while, as mentioned earlier, Ghana had a morale boosting win over Korea 3-1 and the Ivory Coast beat Slovenia 3-0.
In South America most teams took a relaxed approach in reagard to warm-up matches with Brazil defeating New Zealand 4-0. This was the only match a CONMEBOL qualifier played in June. It was also Brazil's only international match before the world cup.
CONCACAF teams took a similar approach, playing just one more match than their southern neighbours. Mexico first lost to a second string Holland 1-2 before Trinidad and Tobago went down to Czech Republic 0-3.
Europe completed the majority of the matches in the lead-up. As mentioned holland defeated mexico 2-1 before drawing with Australia 1-1. Germany overcame Colombia 3-0. Ukraine were the busiest nation in the last nine days, darwing with Italy 0-0 before defeating Libya and Luxembourg 3-0 each. Sweden meanwhile had to settle for a 1-1 draw against Chile.
England had one final hitout against Jamaica, thrashing them 6-0 including a Mr. Robot, Peter Crouch hat-trick. Spain played twice, beating Egypt 2-0 and Croatia 2-1. Croatia, couldn't manage a win against Poland either, going down 0-1. Portugal easily beat Luxembourg 3-0 while the Czech Republic downed Trinidad and Tobago 3-0 as well.
In France's only June match, China a little resistant, only going down 3-1 in the final minutes to the French.
None of these matter now however as Germany and Costa Rica prepare to have the eyes of the world on them. While Germany are cler favourites to win this particular match, upsets have been common place in the opening match of the world cup. 2002 was a prime example as Senegal beat reigning champions France 1-0. In '98 Scotland almost plucked a draw from Brazil, the Samba kings winning 2-1. And in '94, Cameroon stunned Argentina 1-0.
The whole world is watching Germany and praying firstly that their nation will get out of the group stages.
9 June, 2006 |
