FIFA: Slovenia and Ghana scrape wins; Germany impress in opener

Robert Koren scored the winning goal for Slovenia in their 1-0 victory over Algeria

Day three of the FIFA World Cup began with another contender for the Most Boring Match award, at least in the first half anyway, as Algeria and Slovenia played out a pretty dull forty-five minutes of football with each team having just one major chance each. Rafik Halliche had a great oppotunity to put Algeria ahead from a corner in the 36th minute but his header bounced wide of the far post. One minute before the break and it was Slovenia’s turn to register their first meaningful shot on target when Valter Birsa shot from long-range dipping at the last moment to force keeper Faouzi Chaouchi into making a great TV save, tipping the ball over the bar. Sadly the same couldn’t be said about Algeria’s custodian late on in the game. Algeria were already at a disadvantage in the 72nd minute upon having substitute Abdelkader Ghezzal sent off just fifteen minutes after coming on due to gaining a second yellow card through handballing in the box. Seven minutes later Robert Koren sealed the game for Slovenia when hitting a shot from 25 yards out which Chaouchi allowed to bounce over him and into the back of the net. Slovenia held on to the lead to secure their first win at a major football tournament and now have a two point lead over both England and the United States in Group C. The next games in this group both come on Friday, June 18th with England facing Algeria and the USA meeting up with group leaders Slovenia.

Group D got under way in the second game of the day between Ghana and Serbia and just when we thought the competition needed a shot in the arm to really kick start it in to life this game sadly failed to provide it. Save for free-kick opportunities for Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan and Serbia’s Alexsandar Kolorov the game saw precious few chances of any note and, like the pattern set in most of the games in the FIFA World Cup so far, we had a goalless first half. The game opened up in the second half but it was still a tactical stalemate with both teams cancelling each other out but then came a red card for the aforementioned Kolorov for a foul on Gyan in the 74th minute. Eleven minutes later came the pivotal moment of the match when Serbia’s Zdravko Kuzmanović handled the ball in the box and thus set up Gyan to score from the spot to give the Black Stars victory. A disappointing Serbia lost their first game of the tournament and it is difficult to see how they can pick themselves up for their next game against Germany on Friday, June 18th.

Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski were amongst the scorers for Germany in their 4-0 hammering of Australia

Speaking of Germany they sent shockwaves through the footballing world tonight with a mesmerising performance against an Australian team with plenty of experience but lacking any quality in attack. The Socceroos‘ best chance of the match came very early when Philipp Lahm cleared a Tim Cahill header off the line in the 4th minute with Richard Garcia unable to dispatch the rebound. From then on die Mannschaft took over with Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose, whose performances and form in the German Bundesliga this season led many to question their inclusion in the squad, scoring the goals to put Germany 2-0 ahead at half-time. Most of the plaudits in the morning, though, should and will be set aside for Mesut Özil whose creativity and ability to run into any free space allowed by the Aussie defence means that he should be taken seriously by future opponents as a major threat. In the second half Germany were playing champagne football and a chance for Thomas Müller should’ve seen them further ahead before Australia’s Tim Cahill received a harshly given red card from Mexican referee Marco Antonio Rodríguez in the 56th minute. But, in any case, Müller got his goal in the 68th minute to make things comfortable for the Germans with Cacau coming off the bench to make it four just a couple of minutes later. There were no further goals but there was a demonstration of just how well Germany can keep possession when they put their minds to it and should they meet any of the favourites such as Brazil or Spain later in the tournament then they shouldn’t fear them. Australia have a chance to make amends for this ghastly defeat on Saturday, June 19th when they meet Ghana in Rustenburg.