World Cup 2010: Day Seven

It's starting to get serious.

Argentina 4-1 South Korea

The score line flatters the South Americans; it was 2-1 at halftime, although South Korea had never really looked like scoring until a defensive miscue by Argentina right before the half. As good as South Korea had looked against Greece, they couldn't get much going today except for a period midway through the second half where it briefly looked like they were seizing control - and then Argentina got their third and fourth goals just four minutes apart and put the game away. Argentina dominated the possession, with more than 60% of it, and they kind of have to; while they set up in a 4-3-3, they play more like a 2-5-3, dominating possession in the midfield, and both Messi and Tevez are killers with the ball at their feet. Higuain made the most of their distribution, scoring a hat trick that killed off the game after South Korea had opened the scoring with an own goal.

The real question is how Argentina will do in the knockouts. I fully expect them to breeze past Greece (more on them in a minute), but what happens when they run into a team like Germany that defends pretty well and has the offensive skills to expose a shaky defense?

Greece 2-1 Nigeria

I know they just got their first ever win at the World Cup, and I hate to be a buzzkill, but Greece: you're still terrible. I didn't see the game, but everything I've read suggests that Nigeria were in control of the game until Sani Kaita's Beckham-'98-esque red card that left the Super Eagles with an hour to defend a one-goal lead with ten men. Not surprisingly, they couldn't - although even then, both of Greece's goals were fairly weak. The first came via a huge deflection off a Nigerian defender, and the second was off a rare mistake by Vincent Enyeama, who let a standard shot bounce off him and right onto the feet of Vasilis Torosidis. Even then, Nigeria might have managed a draw had not Chinedu Ogbuke missed an open net from eight yards away.

Oddly, Nigeria still have a perfectly reasonable chance to win the group. With Argentina at six points and likely to beat Greece, and South Korea and Greece both at 3, Nigeria need only defeat South Korea to advance. That could be a very good game assuming South Korea don't count on Argentina beating Greece and play for a draw.

Mexico 2-0 France

Players who prominently appear in Nike's "Write the Future" ad: Didier Drogba, Fabio Cannavaro, Franck Ribery, Wayne Rooney, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo. Total record of those players at the World Cup so far: 0-5-1 (Ronaldinho, of course, is not even on the Brazil squad this year). Ribery now becomes the first of the group to suffer a loss, and it becomes clear how much Zinedine Zidane meant to the French. With Zidane, the French won the 1998 World Cup, as well as Euro 2000, and made the final game in 2006; without him, they crashed out of the 2002 World Cup without scoring a goal (he did play in the third game but was never fully fit). And here we are again - while they may score against South Africa, France are almost certain to crash out of the World Cup, thus cementing an impressive alternation of win, crash out, make the final, crash out, in four straight Cups. Hard to do.

Meanwhile, the Mexican win means Mexico and Uruguay are almost certain to advance; both would move on with a draw in their final game, while even a loss by one would require a significant shift in goal differential to allow either France or South Africa to pass through instead. This sets up one of two intriguing rematches in the second round - either a rematch of Mexico/Argentina, one of the better games of the 2006 second round and ended on Maxi Rodriguez's wonder goal, or Uruguay/Argentina, a tantalizing border war as well as a rematch of the first ever World Cup final from 1930.

Tomorrow: the moment of truth for the Americans. Outside of CONCACAF qualifying, the US are pretty unaccustomed to being the favorites, and while neither a draw nor even a loss would completely end things, it would certainly leave us needing help. It's a must-win. Shudder.