Midnight to 6 am saw non-stop World Cup Soccer China time zone, once the post match analysis and then the next up,pre-match analysis filled the one hour gap between games. Just enough time to get coffee! In action were Mexico v Cameroon, Spain v the Netherlands and Chile v Australia. How to choose if the needs for sleep prohibit watching all three games?

Group relevance comes into it. Since I am supporting Brazil as my second team, their ease of passage depends in part on other results in their group so Mexico v Cameroon from Group A was the key game for me. I mentioned poor refereeing in the opener and like all fans, I was hoping that the standard improved for the next game. Sadly it did not. Mexico wee denied at least two goals in the first half, and 0-0 at that point was a travesty as the side from the North American continent should have been well-set by then.

Referee team ahead of the kick-off. They did a poor job in Mexico's match

Assistant referees have a hard job, but surely the World Cup is about goals? Give the balance of the doubt to the attacker. The referee had little choice but to rule out Mexico's first goal once the flag had been raised by his colleague - but it was a very marginal call at best. However the second disallowed goal was a terrible refereeing decision. The ball is swung in from a corner and no-one offside, it then reaches a striker who is ahead of the defender AT THAT POINT. He sticks it in, the flag goes up to show that the Mexican scorer was in an offside position. It is then the referee's job to tell his colleague that the ball reached that striker either off the head of a Cameroon defender or directly from the corner, and thus there is no offside and it was a perfectly legal goal! The referee did not. I guess he did not see it clearly - oh for video technology in these situations.

However, one has to give credit to Mexico for not ranting about these decisions. They started again after half time and Oribe Peralta scored a deserved goal that no officials could deny. Javier Hernandez had time to come on for Mexico in the second half and showed why he is not first choice to start. He wasted a golden opportunity to make the score line a better reflection of the match by blasting over with only the goalkeeper to beat. And yes he would have been onside, as the ball was pulled back to him. Mexico held on to their lead to win 1-0 and justice was done.

Mexico finally score the only goal of the match

Mexico join Brazil on 3 points and Cameroon players are probably glad they finally got their bonuses for qualifying - they do not look like getting any more.The lions of Cameroon were poor and are not the force they once were. Samuel E'to is not the striker he once was. On this showing, don't unpack too much! It still hangs on the result of Mexico v Croatia for 2nd place. Brazil will be happy with an early 3 point lead over the teams in the 'relegation places"

Some of my students joined me in a cafe to help watch Spain v Netherlands at 2 am - An amazing 5-1 win for the Dutch side after 1 - 0 down. After that to bed, and while I slept Chile beat Australia 3-1 to join the Netherlands at the top of group B. Exciting early morning!

Some CAPA students in W C Cafe coffee break before 2 am game this morning. Go Netherlands!

By ColinSpeakman

International Educator, Economist, goal of helping to increase understanding of China by the West

 

 

(Opinions of the writer in this blog don't represent those of China Daily.)