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arwebb

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Gets more interesting: South Korea beats Portugal 2-1 with two unanswered goals to advance to the Round of 16 over Uruguay. Despite Uruguay beating Ghana 2-0 at the same time at the revenge match from July 2, 2010 in Johannesburg's Soccer City.

If you remember from that game, Luis Suarez committed a handball deep in front of the goal in the dying moments of regulation that earned him a red card...and Ghana's Asamoah Gyan missed his penalty kick that Suarez celebrated in the back. That led to penalty kicks that Uruguay ultimately won and advanced over Ghana, then the last remaining African team in the entire tournament with many Africans, South Africans included, cheering them on and later dejected. Suarez remains unrepentant about this and even says he will never return to Africa alone because of this (Ghana's Black Stars players themselves even warned him NOT to return to the continent)  

Anyway, I guess there is some karma involved because with that game as Uruguay got eliminated from knockout round contention and its Pyhrric victory--and Suarez left today's game in tears when he knew the Celeste won't advance. Surely Ghananians and the players themselves are enjoying a field day with that image right now.  

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PS: What are the odds of again not seeing Italy's Azzurri in the World Cup and Germany not advancing out of group stage--and losing again to an East Asian nation in the latter's part to boot--for the second consecutive World Cup campaign? Germany surely can't be rapidly losing its playing quality right now.

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Controversies aside with the host nation etc I must say that the games in the group stages have been superb, lots of drama and suspense and some really great football.

This is why the WC is truly one of the greatest sporting events.

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The Round of 16 are set:

Throughout the knockout stage, the final 16 will look to earn the eight spots to the quarter-finals, then the semi-finals for four spots and the final for two spots.

For the knockout stage here they are:

Netherlands vs USA

Argentina vs Australia

Japan vs Croatia

Brazil

South Korea

England vs Senegal

France vs Poland

Morocco vs Spain

Portugal vs Switzerland

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Not Belgium

It’d always be nice to see a non-traditional team make it, but that’s also always a hard ask against the powerhouses. If pushed, I’d like to se the Netherlands finally finish better than runner-up. But probably Brazil in my crystal ball.

Edited by Sir Rols
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4 hours ago, Sir Rols said:

Not Belgium

It’d always be nice to see a non-traditional team make it, but that’s also always a hard ask against the powerhouses. If pushed, I’d like to se the Netherlands finally finish better than runner-up. But probably Brazil in my crystal ball.

Belgium's is out of the group stage. Maybe Morocco.

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1 hour ago, baron-pierreIV said:

I'm still rooting for Spain.  But I think Final 4 will be Argentina, Brazil, England and France.  

Yeah...This looks like what it could become...But England is known to completely fk things up about now at a World Cup.

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