Match 13: Cote d'Ivoire x Portugal Post-Match Thread

Fair result.

Fábio Coentrão = MOTM. What an impressive display.

And like always, Paulo Ferreira was a little shaky...

 

Not for people watching.

 

What a great game that turned out to be - last few minutes were crazy!

 

What was the point of holding up play for the player to get treatment if he was just going to blow the whistle 2 seconds after they took the corner

 

0-0 was a fair result .

Côte d'Ivoire comes out looking the better team . Portugal relies on Ronaldo too much .

Brazil is going to walk this group .

 

Ivory Coast didn't deserve a point. They deserved all three today. They had more posession, and they created more chances than Portugal.

Also, I find it sad that Portugal and the Ivory Coast are going to depend on what they do against North Korea.

 

What was the point of giving away the corner?

 

I know it's a small thing, but does anyone else think that a slow short corner is the dumbest thing ever when you're in the 4th minute of stoppage in a game that only has 3 minutes of stoppage? Kick the ball in the darn box! Good gracious, some players are so foolish.

Anyway, Portugal looked inept. I can see how they almost didn't qualify. It appears that this group is going to come down to Brazil, and whoever beats N. Korea by more between the Ivory Coast and Portugal.

 

OK, you are about to take a corner kick and the ref holds you up to tend to an injured player and then he blows the whistle to end the game before you get to take your kick? WTF - isn't that what injury time is for?

 

why does everyone keep saying its normal for world cups to be defensive in the beginning? its normally the opposite

ivory coast played us last time in the opening game and were exciting and attacking and almost beat us in the end.

 

Why didn't the referree let Côte d' Ivoire make their play? =/

 

If I heard Ian Darke say one more time that both these teams were guaranteed to lose to Brazil, I was going to scream. What a sanctimonious creep. Both those announcers are just losers.

Pretty good game in the end. Ivory Coast had much more of the run of play overall; they're a high qualiity side. Pity Drogba is injured and couldn't go the whole 90; he might have made the difference.

Gervinho was MOTM for me.

 

That last kick of the ball pretty much summed up the tournament so far. Portugal needs a clinical finisher and Ivory Coast needs a playmaker. Seems like i was right in my prediction that two of today's games would be draws, now Brazil 2 x 0 Korea DPR.

 

They did make their play. That play was to give up.

 

He did, but Côte d'Ivoire wasted it on a short corner.

 

They could and everyone knows that short corners never work but I don't think he even gave enough time for anyone to have a chance if it was straight into the box.

EDIT: Ignore that, I've just seen the replay and they had plenty of time and just sat on the ball faffing around

 

entertaining match.

i thought CIV deserved the win. tough to tell which of the two will advance with brazil. i'm betting on CIV.

 

That's basically what he didn't say; that's why it was so damn maddening, making assumptions like that.

 

Well, this is football in the YouTube era.

Hard to tell. The tackling by Ivory Coast was very poor --after a tackle taking the ball from the Portuguese, there was no one around ready to pick up the bounce. That's not something I'd expect from a top team.

On the other hand, most passes forward by Portugal were either misjudged, misplaced or intercepted. They were always passing the ball to where the players had been, not to where they actually were or to the open space to which they were running.

All in all, exciting to watch but both teams showed some technical weaknesses that prevent me from saying they are contenders at this point. The match stats are very even, 50/50.