What can I say about Luis Suarez that hasn’t already been said?\u00a0 I mean, this was the third time in the last four years that he’s bitten an opponent during a match.\u00a0 Not sure how much he can complain about the world labeling him as a sociopath.\u00a0 He’ll serve\u00a0a suspension, and then he’ll play again, for Liverpool or some other big club, and for his country.\u00a0\u00a0 He’ll score a bunch of fantastic goals, he’ll say and do all the right things for a while, and crowds will sing his name at Anfield (or at the Camp Nou, or the Bernabeu, depending on which transfer rumor you believe).\u00a0 We’ll read about how he’s turned a corner and sorted himself out and that he’s a complicated, tortured\u00a0guy, but maybe he’s got a decent core undereath it all.\u00a0 And then he’ll do some\u00a0other outrageous thing\u00a0and we’ll start all over again.<\/p>\n
In terms of this World Cup, though, we’ve almost certainly seen the last of him.\u00a0 From a purely sporting perspective, that’s a shame.\u00a0 He deserves whatever punishment he gets, of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that soccer games are more fun to watch when Luis Suarez\u00a0plays in them.\u00a0 Uruguay had a\u00a0taste of life\u00a0without Suarez\u00a0 in their opener against Costa Rica, and it wasn’t pretty.\u00a0It’s hard to think much of their chances with0ut him.<\/p>\n
Even aside from The Bite, Tuesday was a pretty eventful day in Groups C and D, so without further ado, let’s see how I fared with my picks:<\/p>\n
GROUP C<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n My prediction:<\/p>\n Winner:\u00a0Colombia Actual result:<\/p>\n Winner:\u00a0Colombia Colombia completely justified my faith in them, as they roared through this group with a perfect record while outscoring their opponents 9-2.\u00a0 The Ivory Coast, on the other hand, let me down, as they conceded a penalty in stoppage time that wound up sending them home.\u00a0 The manner of their exit may have seemed harsh, but the bottom line is that they just weren’t good enough here.\u00a0 They struggled against a frankly rotten Japanese side, and they gifted Greece both of their goals (the\u00a0aforementioned penalty, and a wayward backpass that created a two-on-one situtation right in front of their goal).\u00a0 The penalty call looked correct, and the Ivorians have only themselves to blame for their early departure from Brazil.<\/p>\n Greece was the beneficiary of the Ivorians’ generosity, but they still really haven’t answered the question that I asked at the start – namely, where are these guys going to find goals?\u00a0 The two that the Ivory Coast presented to them on a silver platter are the only two they’ve scored so far.\u00a0 I appreciate that they spent a fair bit of the Japan game playing with ten men, and that 0-0 was a good result under those circumstances, but they’re going to need some offense if they want to keep going.<\/p>\n GROUP D<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n My prediction:<\/p>\n Winner:\u00a0Italy Actual result:<\/p>\n Winner:\u00a0Costa Rica This one took everyone by surprise, so at least I was in good company in getting\u00a0it wrong.\u00a0 I’m guessing that even the\u00a0guys on the Costa Rica team\u00a0didn’t think that they would\u00a0pull it off.\u00a0\u00a0In a year where\u00a0underdogs have acquitted themselves pretty well, the Ticos took the cake.\u00a0 Maybe they were lucky to face Uruguay without Suarez, but they fully deserved the results that they got.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0at the other end of the table, England spent the\u00a0tournament doing\u00a0what England usually does – playing hard and\u00a0looking pretty good at times,\u00a0but never\u00a0quite managing to convert their chances into goals.\u00a0 Throw in one or two defensive lapses, make sure that a ruthless finisher like Suarez is on hand to capitalize on those errors, and it all adds up to an early flight back to London.\u00a0 Somehow, this manages to be surprising\/disappointing\u00a0despite being utterly predictable from the start.<\/p>\n Italy are more difficult to evaluate.\u00a0 They looked quite good against England, but\u00a0flat against Costa Rica and Uruguay.\u00a0 In that last match, they were a little unlucky to see Marchisio\u00a0sent off.\u00a0 It was a bad challenge, but under the circumstances, I thought that maybe the referee could have let him off with a yellow card.\u00a0 But that’s the game.\u00a0 Between the red card and Suarez’s bite, which went unpunished, Italy may have felt wronged, but they simply didn’t do enough to get through.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ROUND OF 16 MATCH-UPS (PREDICTED WINNER IN BOLD)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Colombia <\/strong>vs.\u00a0Uruguay Even with Suarez, Colombia looked like a tall order for Uruguay.\u00a0 Without him, this isn’t a hard pick to make.\u00a0 3-1 to Colombia.<\/p>\n I’m always wary of Greece.\u00a0 They’ll keep it tight, and they can always nick a goal and steal it.\u00a0 I think Costa Rica will score here, but so will Greece.\u00a0 I’m thinking 1-1, and Costa Rica advances on penalties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What can I say about Luis Suarez that hasn’t already been said? I mean, this was the third time in the last four years that he’s bitten an opponent during a match. Not sure how much he can complain about the world labeling him as a sociopath. He’ll serve a suspension, and then he’ll play again, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-cup-2014"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nRunner-Up: Ivory Coast<\/p>\n
\nRunner-Up: Greece<\/p>\n
\nRunner-Up: Uruguay<\/p>\n
\nRunner-Up: Uruguay<\/p>\n
\nCosta Rica\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0vs. Greece<\/p>\n