Done with groups

Panama - England 0-2

Croatia - Ghana 2-1

Colombia - Portugal 0-0

Congo - Uzbekistan 3-1

Jordan - Argentina 1-3

Algeria - Austria 3-3

This is it, the last 3 groups have been settled on a fairly uneventful Saturday. England has won their group, in a blatant disregard of my prediction. I have to say, after the Croatia game I thought the streets were fairly well behaved. The Ghana game was a damp squid, but already after the Panama game vandalism on the London Underground began to seep in.

If they must beat Congo, I hope it will be a squeaky bum, penalty after 0-0 affair, and I believe England can get past either Mexico or Ecuador, but they will lose to Netherlands in the quarters.

I'm glad to see Croatia came into their senses, they finish the group second and will play Portugal. I feel like Portugal will edge it, even if only because of the extra intensity.

Speaking of, Portugal - Colombia was a highly entertaining game, I'd venture to say it's the most entertaining 0-0 I remember maybe since the Champions League final in 2006, Arsenal - Barcelona. I didn't see Congo - Uzbekistan, when Uzbekistan scored first I thought we might be in for a more interesting end to this group, but the natural order was soon restored, and Congo goes forward as a well placed 3rd.

Argentina dared start without Messi, and he still scored! I thought this would be the more interesting games, but Jordan did not present serious opposition to Argentina, even without Messi. Algeria - Austria went a bit off the rails with a 3-3 draw, but how was I to know?

Canada - South Africa 0-1

The first of the knock-out games was a damp squid affair, exactly as I expected it to be. As it was slowly crawling towards the end of the 90, I prayed that one team scores so that we don't have to witness another half an hour of it. Canada did, pretty much at the death, so it saved us the pain. 

Also, only game of the day, felt a bit like a day off. Brazil - Japan (about to start) will be much more interesting of an affair.