World Cup Update : World Cup gets serious. Semi-final play begins.
In the first of two semi-final rounds, the Netherlands kick-off Tuesday against underdog Uruguay, the sole remaining South American squad in the tournament. Sixteenth-ranked and out-manned by just about every measure, the surprising Uruguay squad looks to upstage the Dutch squad by scoring the championship’s biggest upset. The Dutch boys expect to continue their winning ways, buoyed by their surprise quarter-final victory, and encouraged by several million South African partisans, who suddenly have rediscovered their Dutch heritage.
Wednesday, in the clash of the Titans, Germany tangles with Spain in what easily might have been the championship match-up except for the quirks of bracketing. Devotees will savor every precious semi-final moment, setting aside their fear that Saturday’s final may become a grand antic-climax, but still wondering, “Does anyone really watch the third-place consolation game?”
The Germans ride into the semi-finals on the tide of a brilliant victory over an extremely talented and highly motivated Argentine squad that many of the soccerati had predicted would go home with all the big prizes and precious hardware. While the pundits remain convinced that Argentina and Germany were evenly matched man-for-man and position-for-position, they willingly acknowledge the German coach’s strategic brilliance. German coach Joachim Loew has been tagged as “the man to beat” throughout the tournament, and experts predict he will turn-up the volume even higher as he goes into the hotly contested match against the Spaniards. Spanish partisans, meanwhile, hope their squad will snap out of their sleepwalk and recover the spark and technique that drove them through the European qualifying rounds; the Spanish seem to have been stuck in cruise control since they landed in South Africa.
India loves the Cup.
On the eve of the semi-finals, media watch groups reported early Tuesday that India has devoted more television time, more internet space, and more print-news column inches to World Cup coverage than any other nation on Earth. The much-vaunted but short-lived “soccer fever” reported in the United States barely blipped the radar, but Indian devotion to the games has rocked the ratings meters for all media. FIFA officials hope that the surge in Indian interest will support football’s development in the burgeoning Asian powerhouse nation. Indian football fans simply hope their nation will put a team in the next World Cup finals.
