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The perfect cure for a Mavs’ hangover, and Mexico is in some trouble
June 21, 2006The minute I walked through the door last night, my wife knew something was terribly amiss.
“What’s wrong,� she said. I could only muster these three words — the Mavericks lost.
Dallas, in my opinion, blew the series badly. They played four of their worst games all season at the most inexplicable time.
I mean, they shot 37 percent last night. Take it to the basket. I guess you have to give the Heat, and especially megastar Dwayne Wade, credit.
It wouldn’t be so bad except Dallas had this series in the bag up 2-0. Everybody knew it. People were more worried about whether or not the Mavericks were going to win this thing at home or on the road. Oh well.
Nothing can totally rectify my disappointment, but you know what could be a temporary tonic.
A U.S. victory over Ghana on Thursday, coupled with an Italy win. And I think this can happen (just like I thought the Mavs were a shoe-in for the title).
Ghana is without its top two strikers, and let’s face it, even though they whipped the Czechs, they probably are the worst of the three teams the U.S. has faced.
And the Americans have to start scoring goals sometime, right? Plus Italy is a little peeved it couldn’t whip the U.S. the other day when it fielded an extra man, so they’re just chomping at the bit to knock off the Czech.
So wake up at 9 a.m. and call in sick to work. It ought to be interesting.
Mexico has major problemas
If you’re Mexico, you aren’t in the best of moods right now.
First, you can’t score a goal in tying Angola 0-0.
Then you lose to Portugal today 2-1, in a game that a) had Portugal resting five starters with yellow cards; b) saw Bravo blow a penalty kick, and c) had your team play a man down for 30 minutes because of a stupid red card.
For a short time Wednesday, it looked like Angola had a chance of advancing over our southerly neighbors . They went up 1-0 on Iran and was pressuring for the second goal, which would have tied up goal differential.
But Iran knotted up the score 1-1, and the country of Mexico can breathe a little easier now.
Now Mexico meets Argentina in the second round. Muy mal, indeed.
Argentina the wrong game to watch
It was billed as the best game of group play. But today’s Argentina-Netherlands match wasn’t even the best of the afternoon.
Argentina looked like the better side, but the game ended in a 0-0 draw. While that was playing out, Ivory Coast topped Serbia-Montenegro in a riveting 3-2 contest.
That one was entertaining. Serbia takes a 2-0 lead in the first 20 minutes. Ivory Coast comes back and converts two penalty kicks and scores another goal.
Two red cards, fluidity, an impressive comeback and late drama. And all of this from two teams who had already been eliminated.
Nice.
Stat of the day: Serbia-Montenegro, whom I said earlier will be breaking up after the World Cup, allowed only one goal in 10 WC qualifying games.
In three World Cup games, they allowed 10.
Looking ahead: It’s the day of reckoning for the U.S. team as they take on Ghana. And let’s cross our fingers for a Italy victory over Czech Republic in the other morning game.
In the afternoon, we have Brazil-Japan and Australia-Croatia, which will determine second place. An Aussie tie sends them into the next round.
My soccer-viewing quest: It’s pretty incredible (or just plain ridiculously sick) that I’ve only really missed two games (and those I watched the last 20 minutes of). Sure I’ve caught a couple of games 15 minutes in, or taken brief 5-minute naps (you gotta sleep sometimes).
The only bad thing is I found out next Wednesday and Thursday, there won’t be any games. And those are my days off.
Oh, what to do. What to do.
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