Saturday 12 June 2010

South Africa vs Mexico

Mexico vs South Africa - The Report

Its a tornament that has had a long and spectacular build-up, but now is the time to see the brilliance of South Africa hosting the amazing World Cup. The first game being South Africa the hosts versus Mexico who lost to England in the pre tornament friendlies. However proud the South Africans may be, none of them expected a win for South Africa, but it could happen. The players came out to the sound of 80,000 vuvuzelas. You could feel the tension between both sides. For South Africa they did not expect to get through to the second round but had to please the crowd. Mexico however still had a chance but they had to win upsetting the whole of South Africa. During the first 20 minutes, as expected, both sides were tense and made many mistakes. The first chance came to Mexico. After many missed tackles from the South Africans the ball was played in the box, Khune the South African keeper push it away but straight into Dos Santos who nearly scored an open goal but Mokoena gets an important block and sends it wide. The second chance also came to Mexico, showing there dominance to the whole world. A run by Aguilar came to a halt with an amazing tackle from number 15 Thwal which put the ball out for a corner. The corner was swung in to the head of Mexican Franco who hit it way over the bar. After an off the ball tackle by a Mexican on Tshabalala a free kick was awarded to South Africa in a great position. Pienaar got it up but couldn't get it down again. The first yellow card came to Juarez who commited hand ball. The resulting free kick was not good but found its way to the half way line where Mexico had time to break - it was 2 against 2. Dos Santos had a massive hit and missed. The biggest miss of the game so far came to the mighty Mexicans. Aguilar had the ball, passed to Vela who chipped it over defenders into Francos path who nearly scored if it wasn't for goalkeeping heroics from Khune. Mexicans were keeping the pressure on South Africa. From some classy passing a corner was given to Mexico. It was swung in the corner, a head of a Mexican hit pushed it over to Vela who put it in the net! But it was disallowed correctly.The Mexicans were fouled and had a brilliant free kick position to swing into the box. It swung into the box and number 9 Franco headered just over. Finally a chance for the South Africans! A lovely pass to Tshabalala who crossed it in and skimmed the head of a South African, just a slight touch and that could have gone in. South Africa kept the pressure with two corners following the near goal before a lovely head nearly went in. The last chance of the half and the team talk in each dressing room may be the same - just score!!!

Just ten minutes from the restart the South Africans have the ball, some classy passing finds its way to Tshabalala who hits it in the top right corner for a spectacular goal!!! The whole stadium goes crazy to the sound of roars, cheer ands vuvuzelas. Can South Africa keep this scoreline? Mexicans on the move again, Dos Santos has the ball near the corner flag, gets round a player and rifles it towards the goal and a world class save is pulled off by Khune. What a hit! A Mexican corner is taken short, some sloppy passes and then a cross is swung into the box, misses everyones head and falls to Marquez who places it in the net, superb finish, rubbish build-up.
In the final few minutes Khune, the South African goal keeper hits the ball long, over the defenders to the speedy Mphela who takes the ball down and hits the bar, so close. The final whistle blows. To sum up the game you have to look at the shot count. You could easily say that Mexico had at least double the amount of shots compared to South Africa and Mexico also looked the most likely to score. For most of the game they were dangerous and South Africa defender well. For South Africa they can only look at the positives. They got a point against a good side and were good on the break. I can't seem them getting any points at Uruguay or France so I feel they had to win this game which they didn't. Mexico 1, South Africa 1.



Petersocool 2010 ©

1 comment:

  1. A good start! Hope you keep writing this throughout the competition :o)

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