It’s halftime in the opening match, and Senegal have taken a 1:0 lead in the opening match against France. Opening goal by Papa Bouba Diop - set up by African Footballer of the Year El Hadji Diouf. I haven’t coughed up the $19.95 that Yahoo wanted for the live highlights, so am following it on the “poor man’s” part of the site - more updates as recquired…
That gets most of us (including me) off to a fairly poor start as far as the prediction game 2002 is concerned!!!
Gp
Yeah, thanks France for diong your best to make me start off the prediction game with a loss.
grimpixie, if you are looking for something better than what Yahoo has to offer, go to the ESPN World Cup site.
You’ll see a link in the middle of the page for the GameCast. Much more entertaining and live than most other places.
And it’s over…
And the only one of us who came close was woolly with his prediction of a 0-0 draw!!!
4-0 - 
I mock myself!!! (along with Watermelon Man, mullinator, Jack Batty, ObiWan and others who were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off target)
Gp
I’ve never been a sports fan at all, but I’m really digging this World Cup already. I even got up at 6:00 AM to watch the game on ESPN2.
Wooo! Fun game. I thought for sure France was going to at least tie it in the second half.
At this point, it would be wrong of me to gloat…
…but what the hell. Wahey Senengal - well done lads!
And I’m out drinking tonight with a french mate too - thank you God!
Does this mean England might have to lose to Argentina (ermm…on purpose) to avoid France in the next round ?
Ehmm…
This proves Turkey has a chance against Brazil as well, no???
:rolleyes:
wow, I have never seen such a team of passengers as France.
LeBouf, Petit, Djorkaeff, Wiltord… I cant believe that they made the squad.
LeBouf had problem through out the game. He’s like 70 years old by now? Surely they’ve got a better player somewhere.
I don’t think France played all that bad actually. The last passes were always to soft or off the mark though.
But most important in this game: Senegals midfield kicked arse!!! They went from defense to attack faster than you can say “un baguette”…
London_Calling, I’m sure you agree that losing against Argetina would be a bad move after losing the opener to Sweden.
Nostradamus 67 verse:
In the country of crappy boose and smal waggons
The people from the North will engage the people that eat grey food
On a field of green the norse shall stand victorious
By two to none spheres in the net-thingie
2-0 to Sweden (I’ll see if I can dig up a link for that)
France were très disappointing. They didn’t link up properly, didn’t give each other space, and appeared to have severely underestimated Senegal. Plus, they were really missing Pires and Zidane. Pires would have made a huge difference. Although they should have used Anelka for some pace in the centre, I reckon. Actually they should just have played not like shite. They played like Arsenal play when everyone decent is injured and they’re left with the second string. Henry appeared to be having on of his little sulks.
Senegal were bloody good. Very, very well organised in defence. If Diouf hadn’t kept getting himself offside, it’d have been about 5-0 to Senegal. I’m looking forward to Uruguay-Senegal. That one’s going to be a cracker.
Well, there go my SDMB World Cup first round predictions - for group A at least!
Vieira backed the wrong horse today. He must have wished he could change shirts at half-time. Good start for the Africans - hopefully Cameroon don’t continue the run tomorrow.
Let’s just hope the squad hasn’t been too disupted by the whole Keane thing. I’m getting mixed messages about how it’s being recieved in Ireland, what’s your feel as the man on the ground manwithaplan
or anyone else from Ireland really
As far as the World Cup goes…
I am now ruing the fact that I didn’t pick games based on my initial criteria - choose the team with the coolest named player. That would have easily led me to Senegal. I’ll come storming back when the 2nd round of picking starts up.