Game of the Day: South Africa 1, Mexico 1
Obviouslywith a fairly boring 0-0 draw as the only competition, this game would win game of the day, but it was a game that will stand on its own as an entertaining match to open the tournament. The game was an up and down attacking feast even though only two goals were scored.
Player of the Day: Giovani dos Santos of Mexico
No goal for dos Santos but he was threatening from the start being denied in the second minute and had a screamer of a shot saved midway through the second half
Goat of the Day: Nicolas Lodeiro of Uruguay
Entering as a sub and being sent off with a red card after just 18 minutes in a scoreless draw is a sure way to end up on this list. Honorable mention to France coach Raymond Domenech who, as usual, did nothing right and saw his team get some sort of result in spite of him. France will be much better for it as soon as he is gone after the World Cup.
Future Outlook for Group A: Everyone is on level pegging at this point. The advantage will go to whichever coach can make the best adjustments going forward. That spells trouble for France while Mexico coach Javier Aguirre needs to realize Blanco isn't going to help anything at his age. While the attack gets stronger with him in the game, the already weak and inconsistent defense gets exposed to counterattacks because Blanco is too old and slow to get back on defense. It's really anyone's group now.
Outlook for tomorrow: There are two highly anticipated matches and one dog with flees. Those of you living on the West Coast shouldn't feel any need to wake up at 4:30 am to watch Greece and South Korea play a boring game with even less excitement than the Uruguay-France snoozefest earlier today. Argentina-Nigeria will be very interesting because of what Maradona might try to do. The final game of the day is the highly anticipated US-England game where the US has a very good chance to win, particularly if Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard are forced by injuries in the England team to play as a tandem in central midfield. In case you didn't know, the two of them don't particularly like each other and they have a very similar skill set that tends to negate them both when they are paired together.
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