- June, 21 2010 -

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The biggest disappointment of the World Cup so far happened today when Cameroon lost to Denmark 2-1. Cameroon – alongside Holland - were one of the favorites from this group to go through to the next stage, but unfortunately today’s defeat means they are now out of the World Cup. This was a sad day for Africa to lose another African team at this stage in the tournament, as it appears South Africa will not go through either.

Holland is now the first team to go through to the next stage after they beat Japan 1-0 – having gone through after two games. And the rest of the groups are going to go down to the last game, so we are going to have a really exciting week of action from Tuesday. Teams that have been defense-oriented are going to have to come out of their shell and attack.

Japan and Denmark have to play each other next Thursday to see who goes through. Because of goal difference, Japan will need to score at least one goal against Denmark to go through.

Ghana drew 1-1 against Australia in the second game today, which was disappointing, as had they won, they would now be on six points. Australia were down to ten men with 60 minutes left on the clock and Ghana should have taken the opportunity to score. Now Ghana needs at least one point in their next match against Germany to go through. This will be a difficult task for Ghana as Germany also needs a win to go through to the next round.

Although Holland beat Japan today and are the first team to go through to the next round, they have been getting criticized by former Dutch players and fans for not playing the traditional Dutch way, commonly referred to as “total football”. It’s a bit like Brazil who are not playing the beautiful Brazilian way of football, but they are still winning. The question is, do you want beautiful football or do you want to win? When Brazil won with Dunga on the team, the fans weren’t happy cause they didn’t play the Brazilian way. The fan's favorite Brazilian football was in ’82 when they had players like Zico but they only got to the quarter-finals. There are certain teams whose fans demand that they play beautiful football – like Barcelona and Real Madrid in the club game.