I’m fed up waiting for someone to start this thread, so I’m damn well going to start it myself. So what have we learnt already? Let’s see…
Germany and Costa Rica failed to read the increasingly ignored part in the script about how the opening game is supposed to be dull. Their gentlemen’s agreement to not bother defending certainly helped add to the excitement, as did the obligatory New Ball which appears to defy the laws of physics.
We’re once again wondering why Poland go to all the trouble of qualifying every time, only to put in abject performances at the finals and go straight home.
Team coaches are unlikely to lose any sleep tonight worrying about Group B teams, judging by the England-Paraguay snorefest and the exciting but hardly high quality Sweden-PluckyLittleTrinidad game. If Group C is the Group of Death, and the early exchanges in the currently-in-play Argentina vs. Ivory Coast indicate that it might well be, then Group B is presumably the Group of Robust Health.
Ivory Coast have a headache-inducing orange strip.
Any further thoughts and observations? Post away.