Paddy Power wasn’t happy to see Brazil exit, he had €50 on them to win, but today’s another day and he thinks it could finally be the day Messi scores.
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Melo Out
Yes, I’m now adding my own headlines. I need to do something to cheer myself up after yesterday. I’m not laying the entirety of the blame at Felipe Melo’s thigh-stomping feet but he didn’t bloody help, did he?
Brazil were in control of the game up until he and Cesar conspired to hand Holland an equaliser and as much as I can sympathise with his desire to make Arjen Robben cry, it was a dumb move and it left his team-mates struggling to get back in to the game.
Even so, Brazil were disappointing and though the Dutch deserved to go through, I can’t help but mourne the loss of the Brazilians from the competition. Not as much as the jobless Dunga, but I had €50 on them to win outright. Ah well.
From a brainless sending off to some admirable cheating. You can say what you like, but you can’t deny that Luis Suarez’s handball wasn’t the right move for his team. Poor Gyan, though, he had a chance to put Ghana through to the semi-finals, where it wouldn’t have been beyond the realms of possibility for them to beat Holland. But he missed, so that’s that.
Uruguay needed more than the 90 I thought would suffice, but I did at least get paid out on my Forlan last goal bet. They’ll miss Luis Suarez in their semi-final but they have a semi-final to miss him in and the number 9 had a massive hand to play in that.
Sorry, I couldn’t help it.
My bet with a friend that Brazil would absolutely, positively get further than Germany because they’re dead certs to win the competition and no team is good enough to beat them, is now looking in embarrassingly serious jeopardy. The texts have already started. Worse still is that I think Germany have a great chance of making it past Argentina.
Both sides have question marks over their defences, particularly in the centre, and they both have pace and creativity in attack. After yesterday’s games I’m hoping for an open and exciting game with plenty of goals. Over 2.5 is even money. The footballing gods owe us a great game and I’m hoping this is it.
Messi still hasn’t scored but he’s come close in every game, he’s 13/10 to score in 90 minutes, if you’re interested. The most important battle in this game will be in midfield, if Germany can close down Veron and cut the supply line to Messi their 21/10 price to win in 90 minutes is going to look huge. Argentina are 11/8 themselves if you think the South Americans have too much firepower, and both teams are 10/1 to go through after a penalty shoot-out. Germany have never lost one in a World Cup by the way.
Then we have the last South American side you would expect to be playing for a place in the last four. As hard working as they are it’s going to take a poor display from Spain for Paraguay to go through. Which is very possible.
Spain do have a long history of choking at the World Cup which makes me a little nervous about taking them on at 1/2 but then I’m not convinced by Paraguay enough to take them on at 13/2.
What I do fancy is David Villa scoring again and even though he’s a short favourite at 3/1, he’s also one of the best finishers in the game. For some reason I don’t see this as being the most exciting of matches but I could be wrong. I’m building quite the track record these days.
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