Match 46: Korea DPR x Cote d'Ivoire, post-game thread.

Well Ivory Coast did win 3-0, but to make up 6-9 GD over Portugal was way to much.
Korea DPR's arrival home?

 

CIV played well, should fought harder for a win against Portugal. Congrats, keep your heads up elephants.

 

North Korea has been the worse team in this WC. But it would have taken a Herculean feat to overcome the 7 scores Portugal put up on them when they ran up the score. It's hard to ask a team to pull off the greatest comeback in World Cup history, no matter how good they are.

 

It's too bad Ivory Coast had to go home. In the majority of other groups, I think they could have advanced. They are clearly the best African team in this WC.

 

Korea DPR basically screwed CdI of any chance by trying to play attacking football versus Portugal.

Although chances are the Bra-Por would have ended 0-0 either way.

So CAF keeps its quota: 1 out of 6 is not much worse than 1 out of 5. But CdI was unlucky to be in this group. Very unlucky.

 

North Korea:

Game 1: Brasil are so scary. We'll keep 9 guys back, and pull our flank tight to our own endline.
Game 2: Hey, we did pretty good! We'll set our offside trap high above our own box top, and push to beat Portugal with our speed.
Game 3: Ow, that hurt. Let's keep our flank tight to our own endline.

Post-Cup: Man, Côte d'Ivoire still got behind our flank ...

 

Basically.

Ivory Coast had a tough draw. If they played Brazil third, and Portugal faced Brazil at full strength as the second match in the group and North Korea attempted to attack against Ivory Coast, who knows what could have happened.

It's a bad combination of circumstances that Ivory Coast is going home. They definitely should have gone more for the win against Portugal in the first game.

 

No luck for CIV at all, despite being one of the better sides in this and last WC. Murderous draw again, Drogba breaks his arm, Portugal gets to play Brazil last, N Korea desides to collapse vs Portugal. In the end I think SGE is a poor coach who made very poor decisions. CIV played somewhat conservative against Portugal and came out more vs Brazil. HUH, it should have been the oppositte. And how the hell do you play Dindane and Kalou ahead of Gervinho and Keita, boneheaded decision. Leaving Romaric on the bench and playing Eboue in midfield is also retarded. Too bad for CIV, their golden generation was just a waste as this team did not fulfill its true potential.

 

It should be interesting to see how North Korea does from here in their international matches which will almost all be against Asian teams where they will do much better.

They started off well in the WC but got away from their game plan. I still say in a different group they could've gotten one or 2 ties and if some of those bounces went their way they may have been able to squeak out a win.

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYIGIMIBj48"]YouTube- Funny - Eboue listening to North Korean coach instructions[/ame]

One of the best moments in this WC.