World Cup Group Stage: Round 3

-Game of the round: USA: 1 – Algeria: 0

For the second round in a row, the United States were involved in the most entertaining game, this time a nail biter against Algeria. Needing a win to advance, the US knocked on Algeria's door for most of the game, scoring an dubiously disallowed goal in the first and carving a host of other chances. But the Algerian, through a combination of tough defending, good goalkeeping and just plain luck, hung on until the very death. In the 92^nd minute, Landon Donovan pounced on a rebound and sidefooted home to send the US through and their supporters into delerium.

Runner-Up: Slovakia: 3 – Italy: 2

-Worst Game: Paraguay: 0 – New Zealand: 0

Paraguay were already through and needed only a point to top the group so they were happy to sit back and let New Zealand try and beat them. New Zealand may have played the role of spoiler in its first two games, but lacked the quality to break down Paraguay's solid defense. A recipe for an extremely drab encounter.

Runner Up: Switzerland: 0 – Honduras: 0 (a mystifying lack of drive from the Swiss when a victory might well have sent them through)

-Biggest Upset: Slovakia: 3 – Italy: 2

Slovakia knocked out the holders with a barnstorming performance, showing all of the desire that the Italians lacked throughout the competition. They opened the scoring in the 25^th minute through Robert Vittek and didn't look back. They didn't just sit back after the first either, scoring two more goals, which in the end, proved crucial.

Runner-Up: Australia: 2 – Serbia: 1

-Best Performer (Team): Japan

Very few people fancied Japan to advance against Denmark with the Danes coming off a good win over Cameroon. But the Japanese completely nullified Denmark offensively and maintained possession well in the early stages. They then proceeded to score two beautiful free-kicks which knocked the stuffing out the Danes and hung to ensure their qualification for the knockout stages.

Runner-Up: Spain

-Worst Performer (Team): France

France took the worst performer category to a whole new level this year. After their torrid campaign, I wonder if even French fans might be secretly wishing the referee had spotted that Thierry Henry handball against Ireland that allowed them to qualify. Their players acted with a shocking lack of professionalism and national pride and deserve all the criticism they have been getting. However I do think that the French Soccer Federation deserves its fair share of blame for sticking with a coach who they should have fired after their disastrous performance in Euro 2008. Raymond Domenech had become a whipping boy of the media over the past two years with his every decision questioned as the poor results continued to stack up. The Federation then appointed Laurent Blanc as his successor before a ball had even been kicked at the WC, making even more of a “lame-duck” coach. With that kind of leadership, everything that has happened seems a lot less surprising.

Runner-Up: Italy (how often have both the finalists of the previous edition not even made the knockout stages?)

-Best Performer (Individual): Robert Vittek, Slovakia

Vittek forever etched his name into Slovakian footballing lore by scoring a brace against the Italians and sending his team through in their first ever World Cup as an independent nation. Vittek proved himself a very cool customer with two clinical finishes in the game, first slotting a low shot into the corner of the net from outside the area, then nipping ahead of an Italian defender to get on the end of a cross and flick it home.

Runner-Up: Lionel Messi, Argentina

-Worst Performer (Individual): Thomas Sorenson, Denmark

A game to forget for the Danish goalkeeper who conceded two free-kicks, the first of which (while still a great strike) he might have saved if he hadn't moved in the wrong direction. He almost had a catastrophic blunder in the second half when he practically fumbled a high ball into the net after mistiming his leap.

Runner-Up: Nikola Zigic, Serbia (a spearhead of Serbia's attack looked blunt throughout the tournament, and was particularly dull against the Socceroos)

-Best Goal: Mehsut Ozil, Germany:

Possibly the best goal of the tournament so far came from the boot of Germany's pint-sized playmaker, Ozil, against Ghana. A quarter of an hour into the second half, Germany's Thomas Mueller dribbled down the right-hand side before pulling the ball back to Ozil just outside of the penalty box. Ozil's first touch lifted the ball slightly off the turf as it sat up nicely for him to hit. He hammered it with his left boot out the goalkeeper's reach into the top left-hand corner.

Runner-Up: Keisuke Honda (a fantastic long range freekick that Honda hit absolutely perfectly.)

World Cup Group Stage: Round 2

-Game of the Round: USA: 2 – Slovenia: 2

Not even close on this one. This game had a bit of everything. A couple great goals, a feisty atmosphere, a dramatic comeback, and a hotly-disputed disallowed goal at the end. Slovenia was devastatingly clinical in the first half, scoring twice on what seemed to be their only two chances. The US came roaring back in the second to equalize and were probably robbed of the winning goal by the referee at the death.

Runner-Up: Cameroon: 1 -Denmark: 2

-Worst Game: England: 0 -Algeria: 0

I'm not one of those people who thinks you necessarily need goals for an encounter to be exciting, but how about some chances? Or some decent attacking play? This game got exactly what it deserved: a big fat zero (two of them in fact).

Runner-Up: Holland: 1 – Japan: 0

-Biggest Upset: New Zealand: 1 – Italy: 1

Who would have thought that New Zealand not Australia would be the Oceania team making the splash at this year's World Cup? Yes, you can argue that the Italians are notoriously slow starters, but they are still the defending champs while New Zealand's soccer pedigree is virtually non-existant (though the first first piece of it may well be created if they can somehow squeeze their way out of this group). New Zealand clawed and fought for everything they got in this game, defended valiantly and fully deserved their point.

Runner-Up: Germany: 0 -Serbia: 1 (not because Serbia's a bad side, simply because the Germans had looked so good in the opener)

-Best Performer (Team): Portugal

The Portuguese bounced back from a very bad game against the Ivory Coast to blow North Korea away 7-0 and put themselves (thanks in part to the Ivorians's loss to Brazil) back in the driving seat to qualify, or even potentially nip the top spot in the group. Portugal ran rampant in the second half, giving us a full display of their offensive firepower, particularly on the counter-attack. That being said,I don't think we should read too much into the severity of the scoreline. Scoring a bucket-load of goals on the counter against a weak opponent doesn't necessarily translate to scoring that single crucial goal in a tight game against one of the competition's better defenses.

Runner-Up: Argentina

-Worst Performer (Team): England

Really a toss up between France and England for this honor this week (I didn't have the heart to consider the North Koreans. Bad enough that their first televised game under the reign of Kim Jong-Il ended up a 7-0 thrashing). I went with England simply because, while they may not have lost as France did, the quality of the opposition wasn't comparable. Mexico are actually an above average side, whereas Algeria (no matter how hard England tried to make them look it) aren't. Both France and England have had dressing room rifts since their respective poor results and now stare elimination in the face going into their final group game.

Runner-Up: France

-Best Performer (Individual): Diego Forlan, Uruguay:

Forlan has so far shown himself to be the heart and soul of this Uruguay side. He scored two goals against South Africa but that was only of the tip of the iceberg with regards to his contribution to the team. He created chance after chance for himself and others and was very unlucky to not complete his hat-trick late in the game.

Runner-Up: Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal

-Worst Performer (Individual): Sani Kaita, Nigeria:

Soccer is a team sport of course, but in some cases one individual mistake can end being extremely costly for the team. In the case of Sani Kaita's red card against Greece, it ended up costing Nigeria their place in the competition. Nigeria perhaps weren't cruising, up 1-0 with 33 minutes gone, but they certainly looked the better team. Kaita's moment of madness, lashing out at Vassilis Torosidis, forced the Nigerians to play two thirds of the game with 10 men. The Greeks got a second wind from the sending off and came back to win the game 2-1 and knock the Super Eagles out.

Runner-Up: Wayne Rooney (was expected to be one of the tournament's stars but has looked woefully off the pace in the first two games)

-Best Goal: David Villa, Spain:

Villa was stellar against Honduras. He totally outclassed a defense that couldn't keep up with him, and was one missed penalty away from the World Cup's second hat-trick. On his first goal, he received the ball out wide on the left hand side about forty yards away from goal. He drove towards the corner of the penalty, split two defenders with quick feet and a burst of speed, and held off another just long enough to hammer the ball across the face of goal into the top corner. A great strike from quite possibly the world's best finisher.

Runner-Up: Luis Fabiano, Brazil (And no, not the one where he clearly handled the ball while juggling around and over three Ivorian defenders....though the handball spoiled an otherwise delightful strike.)

World Cup: Group Stage Round 1

-Undoubtedly the main headline from the first round of group game was the lack of goals.

Here's a little taste for you:

Teams not scoring:13

Teams scoring once: 15

Teams scoring twice: 3

Teams scoring four times: 1

That's 28 out of 32 teams, either not troubling the scorers or hitting the back of net only once. Not exactly the free-flowing, attacking soccer we all live to see. It seems to me that many of the teams approached their opening games with a good degree of cageyness, far more fearful of what losing might entail than industriously trying to carve out a victory.

The perfect example of this was the Portugal-Ivory Coast game. Both teams knew that they would probably going to be competing against each other for the second spot in their group (behind Brazil) and therefore they seemed loathed to give the other a three-point lead and hardly took any risks. Many of the games so far have reminded me of the first leg of a Champions League knockout match-up: the teams are ready to take advantage of any mistake or opportunity but hesitant to really press the issue.

The good news for the fans is that all of that cageyness should evaporate in the next set of games as the teams that lost their first games start staring elimination in the face. And who knows, that dreaded Jabulani devil-ball might finally start playing tricks on goalkeepers.

-Game of the Round: Spain vs. Switzerland

This must be why my dad always rooted for the underdog to score first in a soccer game. The Swiss goal seven minutes after halftime completely opened the game up. Spain turned on their offensive firepower, made some lovely flowing moves and created a boatload of chances, which somehow didn't translate into any goals. Meanwhile the Swiss looked industrious and threatening on the break and had a couple opportunities to put the game away.

Runner-Up: England vs. USA

-Worst Game: Algeria vs. Slovenia

A football game almost entirely devoid of any real quality. A total absence of goal-scoring opportunities, and the game was ultimately won by Slovenia (much to the disappointment of the American and English disappointment) thanks a poor piece of goalkeeping from the Algerian keeper that sum the whole game up.

Runner-Up: Ivory vs. Portugal-Ivory

-Biggest Upset: Spain vs. Switzerland

Credit to the Swiss for holding onto their slender lead in the face of the Spanish onslaught. It was a huge step towards qualification for them while for Spain, a lot of work remains to be done, particularly if Chile can replicate the form they displayed against Honduras.

Runner-Up: Brazil vs. North Korea (not that it actually happened but this deserves a spot simply because of how big the Koreans (who haven't been to a World Cup since 1966) taking a point from the Brazilians would have been.)

-Best Performer (Team): Germany

Are we really that surprised? An unheralded Germany side doing better than predicted: hardly a real shocker. But not only did they play well, but they also produced by far the best soccer of the tournament in a 4-0 demolition of Australia. They created chance after chance, exploited every one of the Socceroos' weaknesses and were hardly threatened themselves. Maybe Australia will turn out to be a worse team than expected, but that was still a strong message sent out by the Germans.

Runner-Up: South Korea

-Worst Performer (Team): Portugal

Okay, so maybe Algeria or one of the other losing teams played worse, but this category is evaluated in terms of performance versus expectations. Portugal has often produced fast attacking soccer teams in recent times, but they were anything but against the Ivory Coast. They sat back and played ultra-cautiously. Their attacking game plan seemed to be: wait until Cristiano Ronaldo comes up with a moment of individual brilliance to give us a win (which he almost did, by the way, with a thunderous strike from 30 yards that came back off the post in the first half). They may still make it out of the “Group of Death” but on that form they shouldn't be a factor in the latter stages of the tournament.

Runner-Up: Greece

-Best Performer (Individual): Mesut Ozil, Germany

Maybe my vision was blurred because I haven't seen much of him before, but Germany's newest playmaker, Ozil, looked like a stud against the Aussies. He may have been booked for a dive in the first half, but he also showed a passing finesse and play-making ability that will have soccer fans salivating for years to come. No wonder the Germans didn't seem too worried about losing the aging Michael Ballack to injury before the tournament started.

Runner-Up: Tim Howard, USA (kept England out with a series of great saves)

-Worst Performer (Individual): Robert Green, England.

How much really needs to be said about this? If you haven't seen Green's goalkeeping howler yet, then you probably don't know there's an oil spill going in the Gulf of Mexico right now either. Here's the Cliff Notes on both events. Expect Green to be riding the pine against Algeria and boycott BP.

Runner-Up: Nicolas Lodeiro, Uruguay (two yellows in his first twenty six minutes of World Cup action)

-Best Goal: Siphiwe Tshabalala, South Africa (now there's a mouthful).

Last World Cup, Philip Lahm opened the scoring in spectacular fashion, and Tshabalala continued the tradition this year with a stunning opening strike against Mexico. A lovely counterattacking move ended with a blistering “across-the-keeper-top-corner finish” to send the home fans into delirium.

Runner-Up: Thomas Mueller, Germany.