Opening Ceremonies (and games)

South Africa vs Mexico
Result: 1-1 Draw (Tshabala 59'[RSA], Marquez 79' [Mex])

What a start to the tournament! Great stuff seeing the host nation somehow manage to score first after getting dominated in terms of possession by Mexico in the first half. Their defense from crosses coming in was really worrying and Mexico should have capitalized a few times the first half. South Africa's counters always looked dangerous though and it took a wonder-strike by the unknown Tshabala to draw first blood. Unfortunately Mexico took advantage of a serious defensive lapse of judgement by the South African captain and equalized it to settle the matter at a draw.

France vs Uruguay
Result: 0-0 Draw

Goodness me. What an awful game. On more than a few occasions it put myself and a few of my friends to spells of sleep. Uruguay played with five defenders and what looked like two extremely defensive minded center midfielders, forming an obstinate defense. From the start it was clear that they were looking for the draw, maybe stealing three points from a counter-attack by their powerful striker combination of Diego Forlan and Suarez. France came close on several occasions to breaking the deadlock, but never seemed to click as a team, leaving their best chances left up to individual efforts such as Gourcuff's free kick. The chance of the match had to be Forlan's miss inside the box when his teammate laid the ball off to him from a long throw-in. Didn't have the quality needed to grab the goal and effectively kill the match.

Thoughts on Group A
-Completely up for grabs, though Mexico looked most dangerous in terms of attacking football. I must say though, the gap between the best and worst team of this group is paper-thin. Next week will tell us a lot--a win would surely send the victors through to the knockout round.

Predicted finish after watching the games:
1. Mexico 7 points
2. South Africa 5 points
3. France 2 points
4. Uruguay 1 point