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World Cup Daily Recap: Portugal strikes for seven, Spain and Chile win

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Photo by ISIphotos.com

By TRAVIS CLARK

After a goalless draw in its World Cup opener, Portugal needed to score, and score often, to boost the chances of a second round berth. A glut of goals ensued, leaving a beleaguered Korean side wondering what hit them in a 7-0 romp on Monday.

A spirited performance against Brazil by the North Koreans — holding the five-time world champions to just two goals — must have rang the alarm with the other nations in Group G. But when the Koreans adopted a more attacking approach in Monday’s clash, the Portuguese capitalized and punished them for opening things up.

Jong Tae-Se struggled to get anything going against a stout Portugal defense, and the floodgates opened in the 53rd minute. Three goals in seven minutes — Simao, Hugo Almeida and Tiago respectively — put the result out of reach for the North Koreans after Raul Meireles opened the scoring in the first half.

Not looking to let up, Portugal continued to carve up the North Koreans. They piled on three more, including a Cristiano Ronaldo tally in the 87th minute. The goal differential will prove significant with Brazil on the horizon and Ivory Coast three points behind, now needing a miracle to advance.

Here are the match highlights, as well as action from the rest of Monday’s games:

Spain wasteful in 2-0 win over Honduras

With their backs against the wall in just the second game of the World Cup, Spain dealt with the pressure behind David Villa’s goal-scoring prowess, defeating Honduras 2-0.

Villa’s brace came on either side of the half, and while it was a comfortable win for La Furia Roja, Spain’s attack was profligate in front of net. Fernando Torres missed a hat trick of chances in his first 2010 World Cup start, and Villa couldn’t score a late penalty that would have earned him a hat trick.

Honduras threatened Spain’s defense on very few occasions, and were clearly lacking the technical proficiency in the final third to truly trouble the Spanish defense.

Here are the match highlights:

Chile top ten-men Switzerland 1-0

Another tightly contested Group H match — the third ending in a 1-0 result — was marred with another red card as a Mark Gonzalez goal kept South America cruising in South Africa.

Switzerland saw their shutout street come to an end, and had a mountain to climb when Valon Behrami was sent off for a stray elbow to the face of Arturo Vidal in the first half. The Swiss bravely held on to set a new shutout record at the World Cup, but were undone in the 75th minute by Gonzalez’s header.

The Swiss then proceeded to waste a chance at a point when Eren Derdiyok fired wide at the top of the box in the game’s final moments.

Here are the match highlights:

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What did you think of Monday’s action?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Yes, Portugal’s display was truly disgusting. They are nothing but capitalist pigs! I think we can all agree that it is time to end this evil capitalism in soccer and declare special goal taxes on the better teams. We must redistribute the goals!

    Before the game even started Portugal should have had to pay North Korea a tax of three goals.

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  2. no, goal diferential counts, you’re in the World CUp lrn2play!!!!

    nobody here bitched when Germany put 4 passed australia…..

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  3. FIFA is extremely corrupt — we know this. Some in the media try, but most hide because it will ruin their careers. Meanwhile, if a government were to try to intervene, their national team would be shut down.

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  4. I would’ve done anything to get my goal, too, if I were playing for Portugal. You sound like a Communist — shall we distribute goals evenly to everyone, for the greater good?

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  5. Honestly, I think this whole line of thinking about how the North Koreans will be put in jail, punished somehow or even put to death when they get home is ridiculous. They didn’t even participate in the World Cup the last 44 years, sometimes not qualifying, other times not choosing to play, etc. Were the players on those teams that didn’t even make it to the World Cup put to death or punished in some way? Probably not.

    I mean, don’t North Korean athletes participate in the Olympics every four years? Do people really think that if the athletes don’t come back victorious that they’ll be punished?

    Come on, people. When they get home, I’m guessing they’ll be welcomed with open arms and a parade honoring the team.

    And you know what they should be. They played a great game against Brazil and never stopped trying to score against Portugal. They could have defended with 11 men behind the ball after the second or third goal was scored but they didn’t.

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  6. Chile and Spain is shaping up to be a great game. Spain is better in the attack but Chile showed it has a ton of grit despite being out-sized. If Spain plays against Chile like they did against Honduras they will tie or lose. Let’s go Chile.

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  7. I think the North Koreans actually played with honor and purpose by choosing to play attacking football and go after a result rather than just sit back and try to limit the damage.

    They could have slowed the game to a crawl and perhaps suffered a 2-0 result without ever giving themselves a chance. Instead, the chose to go for it,and stayed in it for about 50-55 minutes. They deserve credit knowing they were outgunned and still going all out.

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  8. Yet again I reiterate. You actually gain more from. Being humiliated. Teaches you to not slack off or take anything for granted

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  9. That is the biggest problem with our sports society. Both teams are full of paid professionals, and if your not good enough to stop other teams from scoring you deserve to get humiliated. That is why we can’t even win at basketball anymore. We should stop feeling bad for people getting crushed.

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  10. Spain/Chile will be the most exciting game of football in the group games. I’ll be interested to see if Bielsa goes with his 3-3-1-3 against the almighty Spaniards. I still can’t see how Spain loses this must-win game. 2-1 Spain.

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  11. Yes Phil, you’re the only one! Goals are a tiebreaker and Portugal is playing Brazil next, which means there’s a good chance goals will decide who advances. . They needed all the goals they could get. It would have been unprofessional not to score as many as possible. What, you think if they had stopped at 5 that the Ivory Coast would be nice enough to stop at 4 if they have a chance to score more?

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  12. Am I the only ones who think Portugal were complete assholes for scoring 7? I get the fact that they need to get a result, but SEVEN? I dunno….

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  13. I enjoyed it. I think its more insulting to not even play the game and just knock it around, I’d rather have them come at me.

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  14. Exactly right, it doesn’t matter how hard you hit someone in the face, you have to be in control of your body at all times.

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  15. I truly felt bad for the N. Koreans. But like Jeff said, it’s the WC and point differential is vital. Better safe then not.

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  16. Not an intelligent statement…..goal differential is vital in World Cup play. Don’t turn this into a “shameful” accusation

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  17. what do you think about Portugal hitting seven against North Korea? I know it was an awesome display of firepower, but isn’t it also shameful? They had the game in hand and even in the final minutes kept going goal. Wouldn’t it have been enough to simply knock the ball around and run out the clock once Portugal was up by four or five?

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  18. For all I know a few of ’em could walk into the NYRB’s starting XI, NYRB could really use all the help they can get.

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  19. Let’s pull the U.S. bus up next to the North Koreans and “liberate” them! Perhaps we could drop them off at the South Koreans’ hotel, or maybe in Koreatown in LA or New York.

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  20. How did you get all of that from my comment? Also, we were talking about the red card in the Switzerland vs Chile match. Why did you wait to until now to make this silly comment?

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  21. Dude, you need to get some sleep or something before the next USMNT game. I can’t imagine how your imagination will be flowing for that one. The conspiracy theories, the corruption and the all the hidden agendas will drive you crazy. I’m worried about you…

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  22. In the clip attached above the announcer says Behrami can have no complaints for getting sent off. He made contact with two Chilean players faces. Maybe it should have been a yellow but a red is not an outrageous call with no merit. The assistant referee and the referee were both watching the whole play.

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  23. hopefully the north koren government doesnt send the players and their next 3 generations to jail forever! its a shame, some of these players can probably play in europe and have good careers.

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  24. It’s almost hard to envision Chile not being eliminated with six points! That’s a shame because I love the way they play. (For the most part.)

    I just saw the “outrageous” red card that reduced Switzerland to 10 men. I’ve only seen it once so maybe I need to see it at least one more time, but it doesn’t seem that bad to me. The acting is bad, that’s a given, but given how much the Swiss player had his hand in the Chilean’s face it would certainly seem like it’s worth at least a yellow.

    Now here’s where I can understand it being a red. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a red card, but you have to be consistent with the refereeing. I can’t remember the game, but I saw an African player get red carded for lifting his leg up as if he was going to kick at someone, but then, not only did he come nowhere near kicking the player, but he actually stopped the kick in mid motion so that it was like a slow motion kick at the air that wasn’t even close to the player. How is this a red card?

    If this IS a red card, then certainly the hand actually up in the Chilean’s face causing the Chilean to have to lean back and move his face out of the way of the flailing hand is definitely a red card. It’s dangerous and shouldn’t be there in the first place. Of course, the Chilean also needed to be carded for acting.

    On a separate note, I think we’re all a bunch of suckers who enable FIFA. Much like the U.N., FIFA is a very corrupt and clueless organization. International soccer somehow succeeds in spite of them, and not because of them. As fans we have the power, but haven’t used it yet.

    FIFA is arrogant and think they are so far above what I’m sure they refer to as commoners that there is no way they will ever change, in fact they seem to be getting worse and worse. We need to find a way to join together and punish them. They make a total mockery of the game and the fans. No matter how bad the calls are, and how much they ruin games and the world cup, they seem to think it’s amusing and seem to almost take pleasure in ignoring the outcry of the fans.

    A referee cannot be above the laws of the game. It’s insane how many times you see referees not only make horrible calls that cost a team a game, or possibly even a world cup, and get away with it. In some cases you can clearly see that the referee has an agenda from the beginning to the end of the game. Referees like this need to be thrown out of the game altogether, not protected or subjected to lengthy reviews that go nowhere and then the ref and FIFA have a good chuckle. What if there was a world cup and no came? Or maybe world cup qualifying when no one came?

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  25. Depressing as a Swiss fan, but they have the ability to make it through, they just have to beat Honduras and hope not to get screwed.

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  26. I hope that either Spain does not progress or the do and face brazil and get destroyed. When I see Spain play, it’s like watching a team full of Ronaldos acting like they’ve been hit by a sniper, waving their hands around to get other players booked. It’s unprofessional.

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  27. Both Chile and Spain were very wasteful with their chances. It will be interesting to see if it will come back to haunt them for goal differential purposes.

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