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Geography lessons

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 I'm writing this as Cape Verdi's masterplan is 9 minutes in, versus the mighty (but missing some players) Spain. They are the second nation (after Curaçao) that I didn't even know was a nation - and I have a degree in geography. So, let me share my learning.

Curaçao, a Caribbean island has been a country in its own right since 2010. Prior to that, its the usual depressing story of European colonisation, abandonment (when the Europeans realised it wasn't stacked full of precious metals), reinvigorated interest (slave trade) and finally a degree of independence. 

Cape Verdi on the other hand is a country (Island nation off the west coast of Senegal) that is older than I am, so I feel I should know better in their case. Again it has history of being a European colony and is another epicentre of the slave trade. 

With this in mind, the needle matches to look out for later in the tourney are Curaçao vs Netherlands and Cape Verdi vs Portugal. After Curaçao's outing last night, progression to the knock-out phase is looking rather unlikely. Humped 7-1 by Germany, they actually brought a lot of joy with their performance. It was gung-ho, attacking in intent and they definitely favoured some attacking fun over and above protecting any kind of goal difference, and hats off to them.

In the other games last night, we saw Japan and Netherlands share the honors in their 2-2 draw, an infuriating exercise in watching Cody Gakpo run forward 5 yds down the left, cut back and pass inside literally 1000 times. Ivory Coast snatched a last minute winner vs Ecuador in what was a pretty high standard game. The team who dared won. And then Sweden, with their weird combination of two proper strikers and not a whole lot else, pumped a weak looking Tunisia 5-1. 

I've had a day off today, which meant I could watch the two night-time games 'as-live' this morning, which worked a treat. I was all caught up by 11:30am. How life moves on, I remember booking 13 half days off work in a previous tourney to facilitate total watching - not an option any more for this very responsible parent....

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