Sunday 13 June 2010

Greece vs South Korea

South Korea vs Greece - The Report
This game could be important. This group is tight. Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea and Greece could all go through to the second round. Argentina are favourites to win it as they have Milito, Messi and Tevez in their squad. Nigeria have got a good chance due to their all round squad. South Korea are speedy and have great passing abilities. Greece are the underdogs because as of late they have won few games out of many losses. South Korea were favourites for this battle, they should win but Greece are always a threat.

It was a calm start with Greece getting the closest to scoring. However you could see by watching just the first 4 minutes that South Korea had a great chance of winning with their overlapping on the flanks. This all paid off when on one of the runs down the flank they got fouled and South Korea had a
free kick. The free kick was taken only feet away from the corner flag and was nearly a corner but from the free kick it flew past all of the players and landing in the feet of number 14 Lee who placed it in the goal. A goal within 8 minutes will ease the nerves. The game grew older and South Korea grew stronger. A South Korean ran into the penalty area, flicked the ball over the Greek defender but was pulled back so he couldn't reach it. But no foul... no penalty!?! Greece slowly got back into the game. 2 corners in a row showed some kind of threat yet on the second corner it was an easy header away from goal for South Korea. Greece attacked once again but this time showed no support. Gekas had the ball in the penalty area but no one was in the penalty area with him so he had to just give up. A better team would have made a chance out of it. South Korea had a major blunder just 2 minutes later to add to their recent misery. A long lob by Greece was too long so no Greek players chased after it yet a South Korean headed it behind for a corner. Why?!?! Then South Korea's form returned. A great break and a nice pass made it easy for the striker to score but instead of scoring he scuffed the ball so badly it went wide by 5 metres. So far in this World Cup the referee decisions have been good up until now as the referee says he saw a South Korean trip up a Greek player but on a closer look he clearly loses his footing. South Korea should have scored in the 26th minute however, after a great break a South Korean player is 1 on 1 with the goalkeeper. His shot is not good enough to score and the goalkeeper pushes it away for a corner. From here on the play slowed down dramatically. Both sides looked poor and we had to wait till the 40th minute to finally get a shot from either side. This shot came from Park Ji Sung, the Manchester United player, but was over the bar by quite a distant. The half ended with no added time and 15 minutes Greece must of been waiting for. Greece need to polish their passing, and create better crosses, and stop losing the ball - could they create a turn around, or is this just too hard.

The game began quietly. Simple passing between the South Korean players keeping the Greek players at bay. A blatant foul on South Korean number 17 Lee stopped the passing and gave South Korea a very helpful freekick. In the 51st minute a break from South Korea gave them a goal. Greece were passing the ball around, quite happily when Park Ji Sung intercepted the ball ran straight down the middle, held of the defenders and slotted in style. Surely this game is over. The game was always going to be South Korea so when they got the ball back from the restart there were no surprises. In the 55th minute a foul by Greek player Torosidis on a South Korean resulte
d in a yellow card - are the Greek players going to get reckless? In the 62nd minute the most delightful cross was produced by Cha into the penalty area but Park Ju Yung headered it 1 foot over. Greece started to get more attacking, making me laugh. One shot was an overhead shot which failed and the second shot, a header, was so soft the goalie could have saved without looking! It took till the 80th minute to have a good crack at goal from a Greek who's shot need the goalkeeper to save. Moments later a goalkeeping error when a long shot from South Korea the wide yet the goalie parried. Not needed. The final moments of the game produced a nice run down the flank from Park Ju Yung who's shot has little power but accuracy so it needed to be parried. Another shot identical to it came from the South Korean number 17 on the opposite side of the penalty area who's shot also was about accuracy and little power but a parry was need by the goalkeeper. The corner resulted in a thunder shot wide by South Korea. The final whistle blows and South Korea know it is a perfect start.

South
Korea won the game with style but if they want to get further in the competition they need to beat Nigeria or Argentina which will be a lot harder than this game. I feel they can win against Nigeria if they play like this. It would be great to see South Korea in the second round and I feel it is likely, but I do not feel they can get to the quarter finals like in 2002. Greece however had no style and few shots, they cannot beat Nigeria unless they up their game.


Petersocool 2010 ©

1 comment:

  1. I didn't see this one but you make it sound interesting.

    ReplyDelete