june 1st 2002
14.30 – Welcome to another month on A R S E B L O G. Summer officially starts now. Hurrah.
Well, Ireland kicked off their World Cup this morning with a credible 1-1 draw with Cameroon. On the first half performance, it was hard to see how Ireland would get anything from the game. However, a much improved performance in the second half saw Matt Holland score a fine equaliser, and Robbie Keane smack the post late on.
It was easy to see that Ireland missed the other Keane in the middle of the park. Taking nothing away from Kinsella and Holland, who both played well enough, they’re just a bit too similar for my liking. Elsewhere, Cameroon’s pace up front scared the shite out of Breen and Staunton. Eto’o can run the 100 in 10.5 seconds or something like that. Breen and Staunton could be on motorbikes and they still couldn’t move that fast, so that’s something we have to be more aware of in future games. All in all though, a decent start.
Arsene Wenger has said France’s English based players were too tired to perform properly against Senegal. The 1-0 loss was one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history, but I expect France to move up another gear now. They need Zidane back though. In normal circumstances, they would have had Pires to play in that role, but without either of them, France don’t look as good.
For those of you into World Cup charts and all that stuff, you can download one from All things footie.
