Day 2 - What a day...

Day 2 of the WC was a fantastic one! Well, fantastic for some of course. Near right disastrous for others too. The crux of it though was, 3 games, 3 very differing emotions. Firstly let’s get this stupid England game out the way.

Well, what can be said? England got off to a flier with a great goal and it was all smiles from The Eng-er-land. A nice passage of passing outside the box culminated in a good through ball from Heskey (of all people!) who found Steve Gerrard bursting into the box. The captain kept his cool and slotted it home in style, past the onrushing Tim Howard.

Less than 40 minutes later and a moment of madness that stunned the nation. Clint Dempsey got the ball about 25 yards from the England goal and took a shot. The ball went straight at Rob Green, bouncing a couple of times before the keeper disastrously spilled, what should have been a bread-and-butter save and turned to watch it trickle into the England net.




He crouched for a moment in what looked like a kind of upright fetal position, seemingly instantly begging the gods for forgiveness, before bouncing back up, grabbing the ball from the back of the net and then holding his hand up apologetically to the rest of the team and all England fans.

"Apology not accepted!" I shouted out in the pub I was watching the game at! It may very well have been a sentiment echoed by the millions of England fans watching around the world. A few moments later, the ball was rolled back to him and amidst a whole ringing of mockingly nervy taunts from the band of American fans in the pub, I wondered: "Do we forgive him?"

Capello has done just that for now, declaring he will play in England's next match against the Algerians on Friday. If England fail to make it past the group stages, Rob Green will certainly not hear the end of it and will probably have to endure a barrage of hatred of Beckham-esque proportions when he gets home. Dear oh dear.

In group B, South Korea brushed aside the Greeks in what turned out to be a pulsating match (at least here in Seoul it was). Sunah and I went to a chicken and beer restaurant with 20-odd mates and the 200+ venue went off as goals from Lee Jung Soo and Park Ji Sung gave the South Korean's a deserved win.

And it could have been more had Park Chu Young tucked away his one-on-one with the keeper as well. The performance was a solid one and apart from only a couple of scary moments in the last 10 minutes or so, the Greeks had no response to the Korean's efficiency and hard graft.

The other game saw Argentina take on Nigeria and this game was all about Leo Messi announcing his arrival at this years competition. The striker was in imperious form showing off the sublime skills we're now luckily getting used to seeing. Fact is, were it not for Super Eagles super keeper Vincent Enyeama, Messi alone could have got 3 or 4 goals just himself.

As it was, the Argies were made to sweat a little and fight it out against a determined Nigeria side that, to their credit, didn't stop pushing till the final whistle. Ultimately, however, and thanks to a wonderful diving header, put away by Gabriel Heinze early on in the game, they were able to hold out and claim a well earned 3 points to go level with South Korea at the top of the group.

Phew! What a day...