Mexico-South Africa

[Renew Deal]

Should be an exciting match between two open teams. South Africa will have 90,000 Vuvuzela blowing fans going nuts. Enjoy!

http://www.fifa.com/live/competitions/worldcup/matchday=1/day=1/match=300061454/index.html

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/preview?id=264031&cc=5901&ver=us

[Upton]

1. I thought they were going to ban those damn horns

after they ruined the Confederations Cup. Match hasn't even started yet and they're already blowing them. Those things are REALLY annoying. Hopefully this noise won't extend to the other matches not involving SA..

[Renew Deal]

2. Not only did they not ban them

Every fan has one now. :crazy:

[tridim]

3. What the hell are those things? They sound like Bees.

Terribly annoying to the point that I want to turn off the game.

[Auggie]

6. Annoying is an understatement. I have it on mute.

[Renew Deal]

4. The offside call that took away the goal was CORRECT! The announcer is an idiot.

The attacker was behind the second to last defender. The defender happened to be the goalie, but that doesn't matter. He's still a player.

[Indianademocrat91]

5. I bet

that the Mexican president is going to complain that those horns were the reason for that offsides call scratching out their goal..:evilgrin:

[El Supremo]

7. >>>

[nickgutierrez]

8. If I had known SA was so athletic...

... I would have picked them in this match. That kind of team - athletic and physical - gives Mexico fits, especially when they don't have the altitude and smog of Estadio Azteca to fall back on.

[Irritable Liberal]

9. Bafana

Bafana are incredibly fit. The SA Football Federation compacted the domestic season to allow 4 months of training camp for the locally based players. Parreira, the coach is a fanatic about fitness and it showed. Bafana have loads of talent but also have an erratic defense and little strike power up front.

Their next 2 games are at altitude against teams that are not used to it. The altitude also carries the ball further so look for a lot of crosses and lofted balls carrying to far. It's easier to adapt to the altitude physically than to get used to the slightly softer touch you need on the ball.

[nickgutierrez]

10. Argentina looked like they struggled with it with their long passes.

A lot of them were just slightly overhit, and they had a few shots go over the bar that might not have otherwise.