World Cup Liveblog: Italy – Paraguay

The defending champions are back. And Luke is here with a liveblog. LOVE US because we deliver the goods. Join us after the jump.


By Isaiah

Isaiah is a co-founder and lead writer for Barcelona Football Blog. He currently lives in the greater New York City area with his wife and daughter.

50 comments

  2. from goal.com

    “Manchester City Could Offer More Than €36 Million For Barcelona’s Dani Alves – Report
    With Maicon’s transfer being held up by competition with Real Madrid and Inter’s unwillingness to negotiate for a lower fee, City have turned to Barca’s Dani Alves…”

    €36 Million is what we paid for Dani Alves BEFORE incentives.
    someone please explain to me the logic in selling one of our most important players for a net loss?

    or selling one of our most imporant players period?

    If Villa, and DiMaria are worth €40mil, Kaka €65mil, and Ronaldo €94mil, then alves is easily worth between €55-70 mil.

  3. Pirlo’s absence will be very noticeable considering Italy’s lack of attacking midfielders. I fully expect there to be a large disconnect between the midfield and the frontline.
    Paraguay also play a tight defensive game hoping to nick one off the counter. and without Chava Cabanas, Paraguay are a weaker team. It’s all up to Nelson Haedo Valdes to run their attack.
    I see a very boring match-up and optimistically preict a 1-1.

    1. I can see it being a scoreless draw. I’m going to go watch the match at a local gastro-pub during my lunch break.

      So far, todays matches have not lived up to my expectations. I guess the Germany match really raised my hopes.

    2. I’m not very optimistic about this match either, TBH. Italy don’t have much creativily (if any, now that Pirlo’s out) and Paraguay are missing their best play IMO; Cabanas.

      I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but I ain’t holding my breath.

  4. off topic but very important.
    Rosell assured the fans that he will continue with the negotiations to buy Cesc.
    He will have a sit down with Pep within these 4 days before pep goes off on a well deserved holiday and he’ll have a talk with Laporta too.

  5. while i am a bit nervous about some of rosells ideas i think he was the best candiate and am glad he has won. i wish him good luck and am confident our club will continue to grow in positive ways….

    cant wait untill spain starts their journey!!!

  6. Ivory Coast – Portugal tomorrow

    CRUSH HIM, YAYA. CRUSH HIM WITH YOUR MIND (or your face, skill, or defensive awesomeness–whatever floats your boat). YOU’VE HAD ALL SEASON TO THINK ABOUT IT.

    GOOOOO!

  7. Am I the only one who is disappointed with the beginning of this WC?
    I cannot remember a more boring start…
    11 matches, only one match with more than 2 goals. Aside from Germany and Argentina, nobody has played beautiful football yet. Maybe I’m used to Barça football, maybe I’ve had too much pleasant anticipation for this tournament?
    Be that as it may, I hope Ivory Coast and Spain will show what they are both capable of. Allez, les Eléphants! Viva Espana!!

    1. Sid Lowe has responded to you via CBC

      *http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/fifaworldcup/blog/2010/06/goals-will-come—-just-ask-germany.html

    2. Yes Ive said it yesterday as well Helge- standard has been pretty crap so far. Too much tactical battles. God Id love the ‘you score 3 we’ll score 4’ of Barca right now.
      Italy were horrible to watch. Paul Newman has lost it.
      Argentina are Messi. Gutierez rb will be skinned.Veron is class but will be exhausted.
      Germany were a breath of fresh air- but won’t beat SP or Brazil
      And for Premier league numptys who rave about ‘English football’ and its domination of the CL- we saw what it amounted to, players not able to string passes together. Paul Scholes was the last player to be able to do this.

      I hope S korea go far for the sake of football.
      This has got me thinking, imagine a world without Barca- Gruesome

    3. Honestly, being a fan of Barca and La Liga in general, I’m getting quite tired of the let’s chuck long balls and 25m+ shots that most teams have been using this cup. (Although to be honest, I shouldn’t have been surprised.) Germany used the through ball, and see where it got them?

      The Dutch were supposed to use it, but instead they just crowded the centre of the field and kept passing sideways, until shooting from outside the box. I can’t imagine Brazil will be much different with the two holding mids, although at least they put enough trust in allowing a player to actually run at a defence (Elia did that for a little while for the Oranje, and how).

      So Furia Roja, get here now!

    4. Maybe it’s because I have low expectations, but my two teams besides Spain are the US (I’m American) and Japan (living there now) and watching them cling on and get points from opponents they were supposed to get beaten by was great to watch. The personal duel between Nigeria’s keeper and a rampant Messi was fun too. Sure, the long balls are a bother, but where would be the beauty of Spain or Barca if every team could manage tiki taka?

    6. I’m dissapointed we were all so pumped up and the teams have been mainly bo-ring, I enjoyed the 1st 15 minutes or 25 of Argentina very much. Besides I missed Germany’s game and that new dude (I really dislike Ballack so I wanna see the new Germany)… but it only has started.

      How was Germany btw?

    8. Germany were clinical, but not like the usual brutal efficiency (1st stereotype)we come to expect, more expansive short passing etc. They have a superior inner strength and mentality.Great to see a young team with ozil and muller. Id like them to go far.

  8. This thing is awesome!

    *http://www.minimalsworld.net/BrazilName/brazilian.shtml

    It’s a Brazilian Name Generator.

    If I played for Brazil, I’d be “Karinho”

    If Xavi played for Brazil – “Hernandeto” or “Xavinho”

    Yaya – “Yayando” or “Tourson”

    Iniesta – “Andriano”

    Messi – “Messinhosa” or “Lionildo”

    It’s good stuff, I’m telling you.

    1. your generator said i’d just have my last name on the back of my shirt. how boring.

      if i were to go by my mother’s last name i’d be known as “miguildo.” that sounds dirty.

    2. Haha, it really gets the best of your name. I thought my name would be absolutely impossible to turn into a cool Brazilian one, but this tourned out:
      “Weinaldo Santos”
      Sounds pretty cool 🙂

    3. If you look closely, you’ll see that De Rossi gets his left Achilles raked. That hurts, but he did make a meal of it.

  10. I repeat: Group stage matches, particularly the first ones, are alwaysalwaysalwaysalways drum tight. They are played not to lose. As the stakes get higher, teams will open up, because they will have to.

    Quite a day today. Who would have predicted Japan beating Cameroon, and Paraguay getting a draw with Italy? Tell you something else. That Van Der Wiel kid looked really, really, good. I sure hope that the rumors linking us to him are true. Wow.

    1. I agree VDW does look good but don’t you think he would be wasted in Barca? There’s no way he gets the nod over Alves and he is too good to be on the bench.

  11. The Alves situation is interesting. Sport says that he rejected our renewal offer, and Citeh is waiting and watching. I have no patience for this. Alves has achieved things that he would never have achieved had he stayed with Sevilla. He should get a deal done. If he wants to chase money at this point as does The Yaya, let ’em. Let’s get a deal done for this Van Der Wiel kid, sign a stopgap RB to tide us over while the farm kid gets fully ready, and move on.

    I’m calling bullshit on anyone who doesn’t want to be with us. If you don’t want to be here, fine by me. Get out.

  12. Most of the matches have been a drag! I blame Mourinho!! The prick has showed that u can be ultra defensive and still win trophy’s.
    May be Fifa should change the rules to whoever scores 5 goals first, wins the match. That should make the games more interesting 🙂

  13. Why is there always a liveblog for boring teams? 🙂
    Is there going to be one for Ivory Coast – Portugal? I MAY be free to run one…

  14. yaya is close to man city and we are going to sell ibra and get torres from that money according to the catalan papers.

    1. Yeah, but those same folks have us moving for Gerrard. Both are silly. Aside from being Soanish, Torres offers nothing over Ibrahimovic. He won’t score any more goals, does’t track back on defense and doesn’t help with possession. And don’t get me started on the overrated Gerrard.

    2. I can understand the notion of selling Ibra, even if I don’t agree with it.

      I can’t understand the notion of selling Ibra and buying Torres. It makes no sense. If you sell Ibra Villa should play in the center and a new LW should be bought. Simple.

    1. Dunno, he still dove to me. Why fall before the contact? He gets away with it all the time, but still.

    2. Yap, Crynaldo jumped off the ground way before there is any contact. Yellow cards might have been hard, but it wasn’t a foul either.

    3. he saw it coming.btw jnice, i think el tel meant the part when ronaldo and one african were on each others face. not the diving.
      he got booked for the altercation.
      his 8pack abs didnt help him there lol

  18. Both the Ivory Coast and Portugal are deploying highly fluid front lines with multidimensional players who are switching positions.

    There are a number of advantages to these tactics. Starting out a player like Ronaldo on the wing and then giving him freedom to cut in and move as he chooses makes him difficult to mark. Having Gervinho start in the center but then overlap to the flanks where he usually plays adds fluidity to the Ivory Coast’s attack.

    The risk with this strategy is that if the front lines don’t maintain enough positional discipline, they can lose width rapidly and narrow the pitch. And that’s what’s happening in this mach – especially to portugal. The attacking players keep clustering together and playing in each other’s space. Portugal has little width.

    Narrowing the pitch like that plays into Ivory Coast’s favor. It allows them to consolidate their defensive players and it also heightens the impact of Ivory Coast’s power.

    Portugal needs to make the pitch as large as possible when in possession but the lack of mutual understanding and positional discipline in their forwards is doing the opposite as they interchange and overlap.

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