Football Corner

The World Cup group stages have finished. Sixteen teams qualifying for the 2nd round stage. The ties will be played between the 24th - 27th of June with eight teams progressing to the Quater Finals. In the post I will review each group and then give you the 2nd round ties. Among those qualified nations sit each option in our poll which has been running since April. Of course, 5% of our readers chose "Other," but - just to be nice - we'll presume that the Other team have also qualified. Expectedly, Brazil top the poll with 33%, while England finish second with 29% of the vote - although this tells more perhaps about our reader demographics than it does about the World Cup!

Group A: Group A was won by the hosts Germany who took maximum points from their three group games, beating Costa Rica 4-2, triumphing over Poland 1-0 and finally seeing-off Ecuador 3-0. Their best player so far has probably been Miraslav Klose who is, at the moment , the leading goalscorer of the tournament. Ecuador also went through in the group taking six points. They beat Poland 2-0 then beat Costa Rica 3-0 but then lost to the host Germany 3-0. They have certainly been one of the surprise packages in the competition. Poland and Costa Rica both bowed out of the competition with Costa Rica taking no points and Poland taking only three.

Group B: Group B was won by a less-than-impressive England side who were perhaps lucky to take seven points from their three group games, beating Paraguay by just one goal, before managing a 2-0 win against Trinindad & Tabago, while being held to a 2-2 draw by Sweden in their final group clash. Their star player, so far, has probably been Joe Cole. Sweden snatched at the second qualification spot, taking a mere five points; drawing 0-0 with Trinidad & Tobago then luckily seeing- off an average Paraguay side 1-0, before drawing with England 2-2. Trinidad & Tobago and Paraguay were both knocked out, but they gave a good account of themselves in the tournament.

Group C: The group of death many people labelled it but it went according to the form book with Argentina topping the group with seven points by beating Ivory Coast 2-1 in their opener and then they really turned on the style with an impressive 6-0 win over Serbia & Montenegro but could only manage a 0-0 draw with Holland who also progressed with seven points beating Serbia & Montenegro 1-0 and then just scrapping past Ivory Coast 2-1 and getting their 0-0 draw with Argentina gave them second place. Serbia & Montenegro went home with no points and Ivory Coast went home with just three.

Group D: One of the most predictable groups went exactly to the form book with Portugal topping the group with maximum points seeing off Angola 1-0 before going on to beat Iran 2-0 and finishing off the job with a 2-1 victory over fellow Group D qualifiers Mexico who only took six points from their three games. First, they impressivley beat Iran 3-1 but surprisingly enough they only managed a 0-0 draw against Angola and then were defeated at the hands of Portugal 2-1. Iran and Angola both go out of the tournament with 1 and 2 points respectivley.

Group E: Group E in my view was the toughest group to get out of but Italy managed to qualify taking seven points from their three group games. They started with a decent 2-0 win over African side Ghana before been held to a 1-1 draw against USA in a game that produced three red cards. They finished the group off with a comfortable 2-0 win over Czech Republic. Ghana were the other team to qualify through Group E taking an impressive six points and becoming the first African team to qualify for the 2nd round this year. They started with a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Italy before impressivley seeing off Czech Republic 2-0 and then guarenteed their place in the 2nd round with a 2-1 win over USA. Czech Republic were very unlucky to be knocked out in the group stages after a superb 3-0 win in their first game over USA who are also going home early.

Group F: Unsurprisingly Brazil were the winners of Group F although they were less than impressive. They started with a unconvincing 1-0 win over Crotia and were made to work very hard to get all three points against Australia although they won the game 2-0, but Brazil being Brazil they turned on the style in their last group game with a 4-1 win over Japan and another plus for them in that game was that their "out-of-sorts" striker Ronaldo scored twice to equal Gurt Muller's all-time World Cup goalscoring record. The other team to progress in the group were Australia who took four points from their group games. They had a superb come back in their first game against Japan scoring three goals in the last ten minutes to win 3-1 before losing to Brazil 2-0 but they managed to get the point they needed to qualify in their last game against Croatia which they drew 2-2. Croatia and Japan just weren't good enough to go through and now they are going home early.

Group G: Switzerland topped group G collecting seven points from their three games. They started with a woffil 0-0 draw with France before seeing off Togo 2-0 and they went on to top the group by beating South Korea 2-0. France also qualified from the group but they were less than convincing from my view. They started with a 0-0 bore draw with Switzerland before going on to draw their second game 1-1 against South Korea but they managed to qualify by beating Togo 2-0. Togo were one of only three teams to end up with no points but South Korea claimed four but they still just couldn't manage to progress to the knock out stages.

Group H: Group H was won by the group favourites, Spain who impressivley took maximum points from their three group games scoring 8 goals in the process. Spain got off to an absoloute flyer beating Ukraine 4-0 before going on to beat Tunisia 3-1 and finishing the job off against Saudia Arabia in their last game 1-0. Ukraine also progressed from Group H taking six points from a possible nine. They got off to a shocker losing 4-0 to Spain but that seemed to kick start their campaign because they went on to beat Saudi Arabia 4-0 and saw off Tunisia 1-0 in their last game. Saudi Arabia and Tunisia both only managed a point from their three group games.

2nd Round Fixtures (to be played between the 24th-27th of June)

Germany V Sweden (24th June) (Munich)
Argentina V Mexico (24th June) (Leipzig)
England V Ecuador (25th June) (Stuttgart)
Portugal V Holland (25th June) (Nuremburg)
Italy V Australia (26th June) (Kaiserslautern)
Switzerland V Ukraine (26th June) (Cologne)
Brazil V Ghana (27th June) (Dortmund)
Spain V France (27th June) (Hannover)

By the way I am starting a new poll to see who you think will win the World Cup Golden Boot so please vote!