World Cup blues

Oh woe it is for the prima donnas of football who are now back in their countries licking their wounds. Did the bubble simply burst for the French -- no it didn't, it exploded with the biggest bang coming from Senegal.

Don't cry for me Argentina showed the entire planet how to launch wave upon wave of attacks on their opponents, but whoever wrote the script forgot the bit about scoring goals. Batistuta showed us exactly why he is considered by his mother as being one of the most feared players in world football, picking up yellow cards and being substituted when he ran out of gas half-way through most games.

Italy made it by the skin of their teeth, after being crushed by the Croatians and then mesmerized by the Mexicans. When will the Germans play a team that seriously wants to win, as their progress to the last 16 could have been achieved by the Cayman Islands.

Hats off though to Japan and South Korea, and sincerely hope they enjoyed this rather fortunate honeymoon period. I could have made a small fortune on those two teams if I was a betting man, but my money (small as it is) is on Brazil. They scored the same number of goals as did France, Argentina, China, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Russia and England put together.

In fact the first stages produced a total of 130 goals in 5,318 staggering wonderful minutes, which is a goal every 41 minutes -- now that's what I call world class!.

Highlights so far must include the late goal scored by the Irish against Germany, the noise of which was simply deafening -- and there wasn't an Irishman in the pub! Getting a red card when one has not even set foot on the pitch has to rank as one of the greatest achievements by any world-class player, and a story he can tell over and over again to his grandchildren.

I lost count of the number of fouls committed, but would guess this could be in the region of 1,300. That is 10 times the number of goals scored, and a foul every four minutes. If a foul stops play on average for 30 seconds (this takes into consideration quick free kicks and carrying off the dead and wounded) then we are looking at 650 minutes of no action, or just over seven games!

DAVID WALLIS

Medan, North Sumatra