itsbeautifuloutside

Columbia v Ivory Coast

Brasilia, 19th June 2014

Match Report

The third game in this group and it's another that I'm not able to watch in its entirety; this time I'm at work, at least for first half, and although I had it on my screen, it was minimised and there was no sound – so it wasn't all bad. A couple of things I did notice while trying to work - an Ivory Coast player gave a way a foul and then had a strop and Gutiérrez missed a real sitter. From what I could make out Columbia were on top.

I was in the car and on my way home for the second half. Surprisingly there was actually a commentary team that didn't wind me up; Connor McNamara and Kevin Kilbane (I know, I was surprised too) didn't try to make themselves central to the production, they just described the action and managed to get across the excitement and colour of what they were seeing and the game sounded as though it was thoroughly enjoyable, it was very refreshing.

Another great thing about the radio is that you can let you imagination run wild; Columbia have a player called Zapata, so in my mind there was someone on the pitch with a big moustache, a huge sombrero and a couple of bullet belts slung round his shoulders, and that made me grin like a loon all the way home. Columbia scored, through James (Ham-ez) Rodriguez, just as I had to stop off to go buy some essentials - soya milk and fruit juice. I was in the shop for just a few minutes and when I got back in the car Gervinho scored for Ivory Coast. I was surprised to find out that made it 2-1, rather than 1-1 as I had assumed.

I got home and watched the rest on the TV and the difference in commentary was amazing, the description of the excitement and drama of the game was replaced by the doom and gloom of a very negative sounding Lawrenson (the radio concentrated on the fine goals, Lawrenson on the defensive mistakes).

Columbia withstood a late Ivory Coast onslaught to win the game, and I have decided that I like them, they are now my team for the World Cup - Viva Zapata!

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