Day 6 - How did they do THAT?

Well, well. So now we all know the answer to one of the most burning questions asked to any football fan. What do you get when you put Real Madrid and Barcelona on one team? You get Málaga CF! No disrespect to Málaga CF of course but the club fought long and hard to stay in the extremely uncompetitive La Liga last year.

Last night saw one of the great upsets in World Cup history (am I being too dramatic here?). Switzerland, underdogs and outsiders to progress from Group H showed true grit and determination to beat the highly fancied Málaga CF 1-0 and put themselves joint top of the group with Chile.

It was a game of two halves with, basically, Málaga CF attacking like bumblebees in both of them, seemingly spurred on by the sweet-sounding, home-calling vuvuzelas. But it was the Swiss who parked the honey bus in front of goal, defended like men against bee-girls and got that sweet tasting nectar to drip down their tongues in the end ;)




Amazing stuff really. It must be said, Málaga CF did do all the attacking as their 22 shots at Diego Benaglio and 66% of possession will show, but for all their endevours, their little flicks and through passes and all their pin-point, cross-field balls and driving runs, they were unable to find a way through. Even bringing on the not-so-fit-yet Torres couldn't save them. And the more the game wore on, the more it looked like the Swiss might get a goal on the counter too.

And so it was. A route one punt up field in the 52nd minute and world held it's breath. Mayhem at the back with Puyol and Gerard Piqué unable to clear and the good old Swiss pounced and got their goal through Gelson Fernandeson. Once that happened, they cunningly stuck the The Alps in between both countries (knowing full well that the Málagans didn't know how to ski), and held them off for their first ever competitive win against their Group H rivals.

It rests now to be seen, whether Málaga CF have any chance of coming out top of this group. But to say they're unscathed? No way. They'll be licking their wounds in the next few days and, well, they'll probably bite back even stronger. Still, once again, just a reminder, Switzerland 1, Málaga CF 0! ;)

The other group game saw an exciting one with the Red Hot 'Chile' Peppers taking the spoils with a deserved 1-0 win against the Hondurans, who probably thought they were still back home, soaking up some well deserved summer sunshine.

I was quite impressed with the Chilean performance actually and the way the previous game went, who knows who'll get through from this stage. Jean Beausejour's scored in the 34th minute to give La Roja their first WC victory in almost 50 years! And once they score, they never really looked like letting go of that lead either.

The Honduran side did threaten a couple of times from set pieces but if anything, it was Chile who were desperately unlucky not pull further ahead. A crossed ball was met by the head of Waldo Ponce who couldn't believe his eyes as Noel Valladares saved his Honduran side, once again, this time with the save of the tournament so far.

With Alexis Sanchez and Sporting Lisbon's Matias Fernandez running the show in the middle of the park, Chile simply had too much for Honduras and they'll have to produce something pretty special in their next game if they're to have any chance of getting something from this group.

Finally, in the late kick off of the day, Uruguay showed a real assured performance to out-class and out-do the Bafana Bafana in Pretoria with Diego Forlan putting on a world class performance. It was a bit of an unfortunate thing to find the Uruguayan’s in such good form, but it has to be said that the South African’s didn’t really turn up today.

In the end, Uruguay ran out worthy 3-0 winners, in a game with one major talking point. South Africa were down 1-0 and in the 79th minute and then Luis Suarez, the young Uruguayan striker was brought down in the box by Itumeleng Khune.

It's actually the second match I've been a bit annoyed by the little front man. Contact was minimal, but he made it look like he'd been spun round by a tornado, flipping and rolling over a couple of times before he realized he'd got what he'd obviously been looking for.

As a result, the South African keeper was sent off and even that was a little dabatable as Suarez had knocked the ball, back into an area with other players and therefore wasn't on his way to score. Anyway, whether it's worth appealing for or not, I'm not sure.

Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira later complained about the referee, Massimo Busacca, stating that it was the worse performance by an official at this year's WC so far and that he “doesn’t deserve to be here”. I can't say I fully agree with him but then again, I'm not South African.

The Bafana boys now have it all to do in their final match against France, who play later today against Mexico, but with all the twists and turns that have happened in the tournament so far, I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't the last we'd heard of the hosts.