Today I spent my lunch hour (well, two hours) at the Oracle gym watching the World Cup. It was an exciting game between England and Sweden.
England haven’t beaten Sweden since 1968 and with the result of this game being a 2-2 draw, that streak remains intact. With this result, England and Sweden both progress from Group B to the second round, the first time in World Cup history that the same 2 teams have progressed from the same group in two successive World Cups.
The game started off with a tragedy for England: star striker Michael Owen collapsed with what looks like a badly damaged knee. I seriously doubt he’ll play again in the World Cup no matter how far England goes, and I’d be surprised if he even plays at all for several months. Knees just don’t bend that way.
The Man of the Match for me was Joe Cole. He scored an amazing first goal, a rifle shot from long range, and had the assist with the second goal which was headed in by Steven Gerrard. The two Swedish goals were off set pieces – one from a corner kick that was nearly cleared off the line by Ashley Cole, and a throw in that bounced around in the box and before anyone knew which way was up, was in the back of the net. But there were plenty of near chances in this very fast-paced match.
The interesting thing for me was not so much what was going on on the screen but rather what was going on around me. Until now all the World Cup games that I’ve seen have been at home, either alone or with my wife Holly. But here I was at work with a few dozen other Oracle employees. About 70% of them were cheering for England while the rest supported Sweden. I was for England, being a fan of many of the players from the EPL as well as myself being 1/4 Norwegian.
I’d been to viewing parties before, but only for the San Jose Earthquakes away games. There, everyone who was watching the game was cheering for one side. But today we had a mix of people who would alternately chear and moan for opposite sides as the game progressed. Still, it was an amicable crowd – perhaps helped by the fact that the outcome would almost certainly be both teams advancing to the next round no matter who won. A draw seemed like a fair result.
In the other game that was happening at the same time (which ESPN showed the last couple of minutes of, since our game ended sooner), Trinidad and Tobago finished their World Cup without a goal. I was disappointed, since T&T had two Major League Soccer players and were part of the CONCACAF contingent, and everyone’s favorite underdog to boot. But I guess that’s why they were underdogs – they were destined to lose.
Thursday is the big game for the USA. They need to defeat Ghana and hope that Italy defeats the Czech Republic to move on – but then they will most likely face Brazil. It’s doable, but will be a big challenge.
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