Argentina Beats Mexico in OT

The second round of the 2006 World Cup started today, with no sight of the United States team.  I'm not even going to go into the Ghana game -- the time-wasting, the horrible penalty call, Landon Donovan's lack of ... well, lack of anything....

I'll concentrate on today's games.  The Mexico-Argentina night match was a game for the ages.  At times, it wasn't pretty, but this was truly a game that could go either way.

The commentator on ABC, J.P. Dellacamera, said of the game, "Mexico certainly played well enough to win."  Indeed they did.  It seemed at times that they deserved to win.  But it took one blast of brilliance by Maxi Rodriguez to down Mexico in the second round for the fourth-consecutive World Cup.

The scoring opened up early.  In just the sixth minute, Rafael Marquez put Mexico up 1-0. Off of a  corner kick, a Mexico player flicked it over to Marquez, sitting on the back post.  Marquez, the Mexican captain, calmly put the ball past Argentina's keeper.

Just four minutes later, off another corner kick, Mexico experienced some bad luck.  With Argentinian striker Hernan Crespo's boot in his face, Borgetti accidently put the ball past his own keepr, to tie the game at one.  From then on, it was a battle of attrition.

For extended stretches of time, Mexico dominated the play.  But they couldn't score again.  In fact, no one scored again in regular time.  It took overtime -- two 15 minute halves -- to settle it.

Gone are the days of Golden Goal (aka Sudden Death) overtimes.  Instead, when Rodriquez scored in the 98th minute off a spectacular shot, Argentina had to hold on for another 22 minutes of play.  Rodriguez chested the ball down, and hit a rainbow ball towards the far post, giving Mexican goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez no chance at saving the ball.  It was one of the best goals of the tournament.

The goal seemed to deflate Mexico's will, and Argentina held the ball for nearly the entire second overtime period.

The first game of the day pitted host-country Germany against Sweden, one of my favorite teams.  Within fifteen minutes, it was all over.  In the fourth minute, Lukas Podolski put in a rebound for the first goal.  Eight minutes later, off a brilliant feed by Miroslav Klose, Podolski put in his third goal of the tournament and his second of the game.

If it wasn't over by the second Podolski goal, it was over when Teddy Lucic received his second yellow card in the 35th minute.  Definitely by the time Henrik Larsson missed a Penalty Kick -- badly -- in the 51st minute.

Germany is looking strong and will face a tired Argentina squad in the Quarterfinals. 

Tomorrow: England vs Ecuador and Netherlands vs Portugal.