Champions Go Through

Another day, another frenzied ending that potentially could've seen favorite Spain go home.  While Croatia and Ireland played their hearts out, it will be the familiar faces of the '08 EURO and '10 World Cup champs Spain and '06 World Cup champ Italy progressing to the knockout stage.

Spain and Croatia started off in the driver's seat (and if they wanted to be a part of Italy's match-fixing scandal, they could've agreed to a 2-2 tie and both would be in regardless how Italy did) but Italy got an early goal which put Croatia on their heels the whole game against Spain.  Spain weathered the storm and seemingly made one too many passes on several good opportunities.  And Spain should've been worried because a Croatia goal would've knocked them out of the tournament but an 88' minute tap in gave the defending champs the top spot of Group C.  Italy sealed the win

Gordo Scores! Twice!

Croatia was on their heels as Italy had opportunity after opportunity but after they finally put one away, they sort of tried to protect that lead and we know what usually happens when you do that, especially as early as they did it, Croatia took advantage of one defensive lapse and tied it up.  The tie meant 13 got it correct and Walleye moved back all alone in 1st. Kona Coast Sliders' 4-match winning streak was stopped.

Spain started Gordo, er Fernando Torres, and in the 4' he scored (the first of 2 on the day), ironically, off a Gordo play as the IRL player whiffed on an attempted clear and Torres took it and quickly scored.  IRL GK was peppered all day long as the Irish are the first team to be eliminated.  Spain woke up today with the 4-0 rout.  In the most lopsided pick, 36 of 39 picked ESP leaving Walleye on top with 20 pts.  12 went 2-0 while Mikeonthemike and V2 Divorce Court (now on a 5-game losing streak to remain in last) were the only ones to go 0-2.  Mikenjo was the only to pick IRL but he had the CRO-ITA tie correct.  Sisyphus and Absolutely Clueless are on 4-game win streaks.  Four had picked IRL to at least make the Quarters and will lose points there.

Of the second-tier teams, Poland, Denmark, and Croatia have impressed me.  It's amazing no one has punched through to the Quarters yet (and just one of 12 with no chance).  Tomorrow we'll see if France are for real, if England can play beautiful soccer, if the usually high-scoring Sweden can strut its stuff, and if the co-host Ukraine can punch a ticket through.

The Gordo Group

In a chippy match, Italy struck first with a great chip but then a beautiful pass and a beautiful finish brought Spain even.   Both goals were great one-touch finsihes.  Then it was watching Gordo, I mean, Fernando Torres's follies as he had several great opportunities and did nothing with them.  Italy had their own Gordo, as Mario Balotelli never let up after the ref warned him, according to him four times (he counted to five) and gave him a yellow card on careless persistent fouling and then had a breakaway and just did nothing as the defender caught up to him to poke the ball away.  Both GKs had a bunch of excellent saves (9 saves combined) in what was a truly first class match between the last two World Cup champions.  What was interesting, that despite Italy's heritage, no one picked Italy (the only other two matches where a team wasn't picked was yesterday's Portugal vs Germany and Ukraine vs England).  But eight correctly picked the tie which put Sisyphus13 and Walleye in first.

In the second match, there was no luck of the Irish.  Ireland had a great pass... to Croatia for the eventual game-winner and then a ball went off the right post and off IRL's GK's head into the net for the final score as Croatia won 3-1 to lead Group C.  So it looks like captain Robbie Keane will be coming back to the struggling LA Galaxy earlier than expected.  27 picked CRO which means that Walleye (1 of 5 to go 2-0 today) is in sole possession in first with 10 points.  Also, Mikeonthemike is now in sole possession of last place (0-for-6 thus far) as Blue Panther finally got on the board with CRO's win.  And boy, I hope the French come through as my second entry SiemkoStrimkoPlinko! is 1 of 6 with just one win thus far.

And what is with security?  Yet another firework was thrown into the field after CRO's second goal.

Issue # 2.0.2 "The Reign in Spain Falls Mainly in the..."

Less than 24 hours left to enter!  We are up to 22 entries which is about what I expected so with a late push, hopefully we can speed past 30.  Good luck!  Make sure to follow us on twitter!

http://www.hwci.com/euro/2012/e2012_02.htm
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SPAIN STRUGGLES MAKING GERMANY THE FAVORITE Web Entry is up and less than 24 hours to go; Deadline 9 am Friday

Gaining steam

We're slowly gaining momentum like Mexico (2-0 win over Brazil) but not like Spain (last-minute 1-0 win over China at home with a full squad).  We're up to 9 entries with more than 3 1/2 days to go and are on pace to surpass the 21 entries we had in our first HWCI World Cup pool in 1998 and the 23 we had in 2002.  Topping 44 in 2006?  Not likely, but maybe you all will surprise me.

So will we see a Spanish dynasty or will Greece win again.  I read someone's tweet that France missed the European Championships for 24 years before winning in 1984 while Greece missed 24 years (5 tournaments) before winning in 2004.  Which team's last European Championship appearance was 24 years ago?  Ireland.  Let's see how many pick them to win it all!

In the PDF fill-in form, Michael G. (FC Spermicidals) noted that he couldn't save... so if you only have Acrobat Reader, then you need to either do a print to PDF (e.g., CutePDF) or print and scan/photo and email.  Sorry about that.  Or you can just enter on-line which seems to be work reliably thus far.