itsbeautifuloutside

Match Report :

IBO Reporter: THE BEAST

Really good engrossing first half, full of all the cynicism, suppressed violence, sneaky aggression and explosive penetration that Uruguay can do so well. Mixed with France and its truly awesome depth of talent, the pure sneakiness and inventiveness of the world-class forwards they possess (and Giroud).

It was like watching cat and mouse, except these were mutant cats and mice, they were all as quick, sneaky and powerful as each other.

Some standout performers for me from the first half were Southampton's very own Martin Kack-ears who was excellent in both defence and attack (he nearly scored an equaliser for Uruguay a couple of minutes after France scored theirs, if it wasn't for Hugo the spud he would have) and Antoine Athletico, feck me he's good!

Anyway, Uruguay were quite content to let France come to them and try and break them (physically, mentally and in the footballing sense by breaking away and scoring), largely Uruguay had the best chances in the first half but, as often happens, there was a beautiful free kick by Antoine Athletico and Raphael Madrid glanced in a gorgeous header to put France in the lead, the second half will be epic.

You can tell I wrote the last bit at the end of the first half, well the second half did in fact disappoint.

Uruguay, who had been combative with a slight threat up to that point, disintegrated into a shower of shit in the second half. Niggly, dirty and, towards the end, embarrassingly emotional but with no ability to penetrate without skull face Paris (who I liked before this World Cup) who wasn't in the team.

It all started with the second goal, Fernando from Turkey delivering one of those classic goalkeeping blunders that will make sure that he doesn't get his dream move to Watford this summer and that he will be in all the football blooper reels for years and years to come. Basically, he fannied about with the ball when it was kicked straight at him and it looped off his floppy hands (when he could have easily caught it) into the back of the net.

After that, all bets were off with Uruguay and the cagey, almost clandestine, physical and mental battle turned to full out war. Killian cost-too-much-money-but-he's-good-as-well pulled a little trick and then Christian the thug punched him in the belly, which the always to be relied upon ITV commentator (I think it was Kevin Kilbane?) Basically said he deserved for taking the piss out of a losing team… Somewhat like blaming a girl for wearing provocative clothes and completely fecking ridiculous!

Anyway, the long and the short of it was that Uruguay went out, as they should have, because let's face it they were a great defence with totally world-class fitness coaches and Edison Skull Face, ultimately that's just not enough.

France on the other hand played this game perfectly, the one thing they couldn't do was go behind because then they would never breakdown Uruguay, they didn't, they scored an excellent set piece goal and Uruguay just turned into a parody of themselves and South America as a whole.

Roll on the France vs Belgium/Brazil game, that should be very entertaining indeed…