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100% record

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Through a remarkable twist of fate, a day working from home on endless conference calls requiring little attention, I make it to the end of day 2 having taken in every game of the tournament so far....

And what a day. I must have been on a really dull work call, but I actually enjoyed Game 1 and thought Mexico were pretty decent.... Here's my take on the day:

Great 3-0 win for Mexico....still waiting for the scoreboard to catch up. Hoping bad officiating doesn't become the recurring theme

Dutch delight..... Really thought RvP's header was tremendous and worthy of winning any game. History tells me spanking wins in the first game usually don't compute to future success deep in the tournament. Quick word for pantomime villain Diego Costa..... The man had every trick in the book:

Turn back on host country desperate for historic success? Yup
Win cynical non-penalty against the team clearly favoured by said hosts? Yup
Get away with off the ball head butt? Hat-trick!

Will be interested to see the Spanish response....they looked broken for the last 20 mins of the game. A win win for me, with a side investment on Chile getting out of the group, or the prospect of a rebounding Spain play Brazil in round 2 on the cards..

Last but not least, game 3.... One for the World Cup purists, the technically superior South Americans vs the athletes from Down Under. Huge clash in styles. Chile were the better team, but was a close run thing at times, and a big shout out for Timmy Cahill - 34 years young, still doing his thing.....

The sad highlight of the day was watching a squirming Bobby Brown Shoes being asked to analyze the aftermath of the Spanish shambles while sat next to a beaming Ruud van Nistolrooy (sp) whose head seemed inexplicably even bigger than I remembered.....hope he got a couple of extras in his ESPN appearance fee for his troubles....

Onto the weekend, and the start of my troubles - family wedding obligations mean it's TiVo all the way through the weekend, and no build up for Roy's Boys storming the jungle. For what it's worth, this may be a good thing....if I look to recoup some of my money from Mr Ladbrokes, (and with Messi already 2 goals behind, it's not looking good!), I think 0-0 is nailed on tomorrow - bad pitch, searing humidity, goal fests already in the bag from today, slow starting Italians and ultimately not quite good enough England. I think we all know that he won't turn completely to the young players until game 2 or 3 when things probably look a little dicey for us.....so we'll get to see Jordan Henderson's "great energy" nullify the aging Pirlo, and that will be that.....

On that optimistic note, good night!

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