NORMAL SERVICE RESUMED

Group G: Portugal 7 North Korea 0

Group H: Chile 1 Switzerland 0 | Spain 2 Honduras 0

It took almost more than a week but World Cup 2010 finally featured three cracking ties that had goals and action that thrilled neutrals and diehards alike.

After Portugal’s toothless performance against the Ivory Coast and North Korean’s gallant display against Brazil, the utter trouncing that the Portuguese inflicted on the North Koreans was certainly surprising but only the North Koreans would be disappointed by the final scoreline. The Portuguese gave a dazzling display on how attacking midfielders should support the lone striker as their flowing one-touching passing and clinical finishing got their just reward. Even Ronaldo – who has a poor scoring record at international level – finally opened his account. Portugal is virtually through unless Ivory Coast scores a hatful against the North Koreans and Portugal gets thrashed by Brazil in the last games. Highly unlikely.

Over in Group H, Chile earned a deserved three points against a disgruntled 10-men Swiss team, the latter holding out till the 75th minute. At that point, the game exploded into life as the Swiss had to chase the game, leaving gaps for the attack-minded Chileans to exploit. Unfortunately, once the Chileans found those gaps, they seemed to run out of ideas and missed a shocking number of opportunities to make the match safe in the closing stages. Meanwhile, pre-tournament favorites Spain were made to work hard to register their first win of the competition by a dogged Honduras. David Villa’s individual brilliance (for the first goal) and fortuitous deflection (for the second) was about enough to see Spain through. However, the Spanish coach Del Bosque would not be pleased with the sheer of chances thrown away by his side, including a poorly taken penalty kick by Villa. Group H is still up for grabs amongst the four teams with Chile firm favorites to qualify and a race between Spain and Switzerland to join Chile in the next round.