Saturday, June 10, 2006
Opening Night
phew, am knackered. The opening games, after a shaky start, turned out great:
Gremany 4 - Costa Rica 2
We escaped work at 4.45pm to watch this at O'Neills on Carnaby St. When we turned up we found the dreaded "Reserved" signs plastered all over the best tables. I think this is pretty shit, tables should be allocated on a first come - first served basis, if people can't be bothered to get out of work early then they don't deserve a table. So to "Chris" who had a table booked for 4.30pm but clearly had better things to do, you're a spanner.
Anyway, to the game. Thought the Gremans were very good in possession, didn't do anything fancy but kept the ball well. Everyone thought their fourth goal was amazing but I thought it was a bit of a fluke, he just smashed his foot across the ball and it happened to swerve the right way for him.
Final Score: Gremany 4 - O' Neills Carnaby St 0
Poland 0 - Ecuador 2
We then walked on to Holborn to try and find a place for the Poland v Ecuador game, the idea was to head to Na Zdrowie but when we arrived there they weren't showing the game and honestly, I've seen more poles in a disused fire station. Instead, we headed over the road to The Ship Tavern which was awesome - they had saanwiches in cling film at the bar, free nibbles on the tables and a really nice plasma screen which berks didn't stand right in front of like at O'Neills. Our suspicion was that it would be a refuge for Poles from across the road but when Ecaudor scored it turned out we were in a hotbed of the London Ecuadorian community.
It was a bit of a suprising result to me, certainly based on the first half, Poland had much more of the ball it seemed but could do nothing in the final third. They hit the woodwork twice later on though and if those had gone in it would have been a fairer reflection.
Not many photos from last night as I forgot to chaarge my camera batteries, here's one of Kev gaying up Mike at O'Neills:
On the whole I don't think any of Costa Rica, Poland or Ecuador would pose many problems for us if we get through. The Gremans would be another story and until "The Big Man" is more match-fit we'd want to avoid the more decent teams. Right, I might get some food in the belly before the main event starts, awesome.
Pooch
x
// posted by littlelixie @ View Post - 
