Who doesn’t love the World Cup? I guess some people. But I’m certainly not one of them. I started following the beautiful game because of the World Cup. It’s probably a familiar story for many. And now that I’m a blogger for the esteemed publication Tide Talk, I thought to myself: what better way to follow this tournament than blog about it every day? I acknowledge it’s an incredibly stupid idea. It’s going to be basically impossible for me to keep up with it. But sometimes, you have to just do the stupid thing in life. So here goes nothing!

Mexico 2-0 South Africa

Well, that was an interesting way to kick off the tournament. This matchup also opened the 2010 World Cup, which I’m especially nostalgic for. It was the first tournament I was really locked in for. On that occasion, South Africa were hosting the first ever World Cup on their continent. Here of course, it was Mexico hosting at the Azteca. Or whatever FIFA decided to mandate that stadium be called.

Predictably, Mexico took this one pretty easily. The eye test showed that they were clearly the better team on the day and the stats backed it up. South Africa were absolutely woeful. What I didn’t expect though was THREE red cards. Two for South Africa and one for Mexico. I thought the referee Wilton Sampaio was pretty suspect. You could argue that all three reds were probably yellows. In any event, that’s likely the tournament over for South Africa already. And it’s a solid start for Mexico.

South Korea 2-1 Czechia

Now that is how you kickoff a World Cup. After a pretty boring game earlier in the day, those who stayed up late were treated to a thrilling contest. When the game went into the half at 0-0, I did wonder if that’s how it would finish. South Korea were playing some pretty passes but weren’t able to take their chances. Czechia meanwhile seemed like they were just holding on at times. What we got in the second half though was awesome. Czechia’s Ladislav Krejci scored a bullet header from a long throw in the 59th to give his team a 1-0 lead. South Korea fought back with beautiful goals from In-Beom Hwang in the 67th and Hyun-Gyu Oh in the 80th. Mix in some late heroics from goalkeeper Seung-Gyu Kim and you have a classic.

In a way, the game was defined by this stat put out on the broadcast: the average height for South Korea was 5’9″ compared to 6’1″ for Czechia. The game played out exactly how you’d expect given the size difference. Czechia relied on their physicality with every set piece looking dangerous. South Korea relied on some pure skill on the ball. In the end, the proper way to play the game won out.

Stray Thoughts

• Can we talk about the drink breaks? What an absolutely embarrassing move by FOX to run ads during them. They even missed a few seconds of play coming back from commercial during the Mexico/South Africa game. The game is well and truly gone
• Commercials aside, FOX’s coverage was terrible yet again. It just seems to be getting worse and worse every year. I appreciate that they brought in Rebecca Lowe, who hosts the studio show for the Premier League on NBC. But even she isn’t going to be able to save this mess.
• Last thing, but how hilarious was it to see Alexi Lalas standing next to Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic? Something here is not like the others.

I’ll be back here tomorrow to go over Canada vs Bosnia and Herzegovina and USA vs Paraguay. It’s always exciting to see a host nation play. Even more so when it’s your own country as well as a Canada team coached by Jesse Marsch, who is still emotionally damaged from getting snubbed by the USSF. Can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.