Now all of those competitions are hard to follow since the matches are started either in the middle of the night or during lunch break so it's almost impossible to catch a complete match. Fortunately there are replays on TV so I was able to get a glimpse at some matches.
In Canada I was very impressed by the performance of the japanese team who came out on top of their group after the first stage. The match against Scotland was brilliant, their passing und ranning play with their wonderful technique was a pleasure to watch. The USA also played some nice matches, but they ran into trouble when the played against South Korea who play a similar style as Japan does. Brazil also looked fine but lost their first match against Poland which was the surprise of the tournament.
Meanwhile Japan lost their 2nd round match against the Czech Republic 5-6 after penalties. They led the Czech 2-0 after 70 minutes but lost it in the closing minutes after two penalties and were taken to extra time. That ended scoreless so they had to find a winner on a penalty shoot out which the Czech Republic won.
Surprisingly the Austrians also advanced to the quarterfinals. The senior team who will be the co-hosts of next year's Euro Championship have been the laughing stock of European football for the past few years. And now the U20 team is having a great campaign at the World Cup. Interesting.
This is the match-up in the 2nd round:
Austria - Gambia 2:1
USA - Uruguay 2:1 a.e.t.
Spain - Brazil 4:2
Japan - Czech Republic 5:6 a.p.
Chile - Portugal
Zambia - Nigeria
Argentina - Poland
Mexico - Congo
A little bit down to the south in Venezuela the oldest international competition, the Copa América is taking place. Brazil, who are the defending champions, started poorly into the tournament by losing 0-2 against Mexico, but they got up on their feet again and with a grand performance by Robinho in the quarterfinal against Chile the stormed into the final where they will meet their archrivals from Argentina. The Albiceleste hasn't lost a match in their campaign and kicked Mexico out of the competition in the semifinal (3-0), a rematch of last years World Cup 2nd round match-up and what I still consider to be one of the best matches of the 2006 World Cup. Mexico certainly had one of the top players in their squad. Nery Castillo, who play for a Greek club, left his mark on the scene, especially with his goal against Brazil.
Apart from the matches Chile caused some concern when their players celebrated to hard and where caught a little bit off guard in their match against Brazil. Perhaps they should have waited with their celebrations until after the tournament.
The final will take place on Sunday.
And last but definetely not least the Asian Championship has started last Saturday. This year there are four co-hosts for the tournament with Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. Defending champions Japan started their campaign with a disappointing 1-1 draw against Qatar. Striker Takahara Naohiro said after the match that the team left out too many chances.
An interesting fact is that Australia is taking part in this year's competition looking for more fitting opponents, something they don't have with their Oceanian Federation. They also drew their first match against Oman 1-1.
It's hard to make any predictions on who will win the whole thing. Japan's coach Osim has complained that the J-League didn't give him enough time to prepare for the Championship. China made it to an emotional final against Japan in the last tournament and started their campaign with a convincing win over Malaysia (5-1) but I'm not sure of their actual strength. Iran could be in there as well. There are a lot of teams I never even heard any results of. Co-hosts Vietnam started with a 2-0 win against the United Arabian Emirates. So this could be an interesting competition.
And on Monday the Uefa U19 Championship will kick off in Austria. So there should be enough football ver the next weeks. Thank god, we're saved...
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