Day Eighteen Wrap Up.

Dirk Kuyt clubbing his teammates over the head and carrying them back to his cave aside, is it just me, or are Brazil and The Netherlands the two most boring "dominant," undefeated teams to ever roam the face of the earth?  They make me want to throw up in my mouth!


GAME ONE:  Netherlands  2 - Slovakia 1.

I think The Netherlands' keeper's real name is Stekelenberg (and no, I'm not going to check and see if that's right), but from here on out, I'm going to refer to him as Maarten Skeletonburg.  And, for the record, Skeletonburg is quite possibly the scariest place a man could ever be from.  Fucking skeletons.

Anyway, ol' Skeletonburg was the only reason the Dutch won today.  Over the course of the game, he made a series of BALLER saves that a lesser man from a less scary place wouldn't have managed.  I've been consistently impressed with Robert Vittek during this tournament, and he came quite close to scoring a few times, if not for our Skeletonburg hero.

In the meantime, Arjen Robben was playing, again.  In the meantime, Arjen Robben was scoring, again.  In the meantime, Wesley Sjneijdjer was scoring, again.  In the meantime, the Dutch were winning.  I guess they deserved it, but it wasn't exactly a stunning performance.  Two goals behind, the aforementioned Vittek converted a penalty in the 90th minute for the Slovaks.  All in all, I'd call this a FAIR RESULT.

GAME TWO:  Brazil 3 - Chile 0.

This year's Brazil team is like a glacier: consistent, inexorable, powerful, beautiful from a distance, but ultimately, cold and desolate and slow and kind of boring.  Wait.  Check that.  REALLY boring.

Dunga is like Dunga does, I suppose.  Winning 3-0 over Chile should be impressive, but I feel non-plussed about the whole thing.  It reminds me of the Champions League Final, where Jose Mourinho sucked all the fun out of soccer and still managed to win the whole Tournament.  So.  Boring.

Chile didn't go down without a fight.  They managed a good bit of possession and offense, but it just wasn't meant to be.  It's funny:  For the past few days, I've been thinking about the USMNT's campaign (which ended in the same stage as Chile's) as a failure, and yet, I was just about to write a sentence saying that the Chileans should be proud for such a spirited showing at the 2010 Cup.  I doubt that many actual Chileans feel the same way.

Generally, I like Brazilian teams, but this year, I'm just not feeling it.  They're boring (have I mentioned that before?), they're arrogant and the continued presence of Luis Fabiano (who looks exactly like Barack Obama would if you smashed his face into a brick wall 30 times) at this tournament makes me exponentially ill.  Therefore:

When Brazil and The Netherlands play this Friday, I officially announce my support for the Dutch.

-ZGS