Day 14 & 15; Group stage is over, now let's move on.

The group stage is now over, and so is that delightful honeymoon period of the beginning of the World Cup, but unlike the stereotypes of many post-honeymoon relationships, our love affair with the World Cup should get even better now the initial stages have concluded. Through reasons which mainly circulate around the sheer depressing nature of England's campaign, motivation to write, talk, or even talk about football has been at somewhat of a low, thus the entwining of days 14 and 15 as I try to, unlike England, get past the group stage and enjoy the remainder of the tournament, and as quickly as possible.

Time to change my phone background?

Before this could happen though, groups E to H had to be resolved, whether teams had already qualified or booked plane tickets home or not. Wednesday saw last sixteen anticipating France, met Ecuador, with chances of qualifying still very much possible, hinging on fellow hopefuls, Switzerland's match against 'next-flight-home-Honduras.' Out of all four teams on display, only one team managed to trigger the Goal Line Technology, and only one player, Xherdan Shaqiri. The Bayern Munich winger, built like a solid muscular cube, and linked with a transfer to a number of clubs, one of which wears a red kit on Merseyside, put in one of the individual performances of the competition to date, and providing it with it's first hat-trick, displaying a range of attributes in all three goals. 

The first was undoubtedly the most pleasing to the eye, initially showing ridiculous strength as the seemingly three-foot tall young man held players twice his size off the ball, and then, moving away from goal, outside the box, hammered a shot past the Honduran between the sticks to put his country one up. Half an hour into the game he had his second, this time catching the opponents on the break as he tore up the ground with silly pace to make himself available for a simple pass, to finish a one on one with composure I'd love to liken to Michael Owen if you'd all let me. After scoring, he insisted on over-complimenting the seemingly simple assist, pointing at his team mate several times to make the crowd aware of the part he played in the goal, heartwarming, but somewhat awkward as Shaqiri and Drmic exchanged points and smiles as if to say; "this guy!" "No no, THIS guy."

Drmic and an apparently drunk Shaqiri, exchanging points  

Meanwhile, France and Ecuador were playing out a nil-nil draw, enlightened only by the odd penalty appeal and another red card for Antonio Valencia, who on the back of his red card worthy-tangle with Raheem Sterling in the pre-tournament friendlies, seems to having be having a mid-career crisis, trying to reinvent himself as a 'no nonsense hard-man.' His namesake and nothing more, Enner Valencia, seemed the most likely to score for the South Americans, and not just because he's their only player to score in the competition, but also because of his gigantic leap when attempting to win headers that were, to quite Andy Townsend, 'in and around the box.'

But elsewhere, Shaqiri alone was continuing to supply everything the France-Ecuador game didn't, goals, he completed his hat-trick with a third left footed finish, and second unselfish celebration, as the Swiss team pointed and hugged themselves into the second round, alongside the previously free-scoring and now deadlocked, French.

Earlier on this day, Argentina who had ready qualified with much help of Messi's brilliance on the biggest stage of them all, added further momentum with a 3-2 victory over Nigeria, with much help of Messi's brilliance on the biggest stage of them all, creating a general consensus that this may really be the World Cup where he reaches the legendary status of Maradona, although hopefully without heartbreaking handballs 'from God,' severe obesity, terribly presented Argentine television programmes, and cocaine. Lionel's most impressive moment of the fixture was his free-kick, which curled into the top corner in a manner which could've only been sent there by a player on top form, with pretty much everything he's touching going right. However for Vincent Enyema, touching things appeared to the problem, as he watched the free-kick glide past him, barely moving a limb. The Nigerian goalkeeper seemed to beaten by the fact that the free-kick was taken by Messi, rather than the actual quality of the strike.

Enyema joined the thousands in the stadium and millions at home, as he watched Messi score.

'OMG ARE U LIONEL MESSI?'

The other, dramatically less viewed game was Bosnia versus Iran, in which the European side (that's Bosnia for those of you without a big enough brain or atlas) with nothing to play for, sunk their opponents who still had fairytale dreams of escaping the captivity of the group stage. Edin Dzeko hit a ball in a goal, after having the worst shots to goal ratio in the tournament beforehand; A very high number of shots : 0 goals.

At 2 nil down, the outstandingly surnamed Ghoochannejhad gave Iran hope on 82 minutes by pulling one back, only to have their dreams torn up and handed back to them a matter of seconds later as Bosnia reinstated their lead, and that was day 14.

The day after saw USA under German, Coach Klinsmann, meet their now Californiacated manager's motherland, Germany, in a match that if a draw occurred, both teams would qualify at the expense of Portugal and Ghana in the formerly known; 'Group of Death,' and now referred to as the group with 'Everything to play for.' But the worry was that the only thing USA and Germany would 'play for' would be a draw, fuelled by a similar situation in 1982 when Germany met best buds Austria and conjured a German victory, the stereotype that Germans are awfully slimy characters and the Illuminati.

Illuminati.

But the contest was well fought, with Müller's ridiculously technically efficient side-foot shot into Tim Howard's net the only difference between the two sides. Well not the only difference, as USA also had a couple of players with dreadlocks, not to be found in the German ranks. Despite the loss, Ghana's shortcomings and Ronaldo's inability to score more than one goal per World Cup finals meant his Portugual side were eliminated, despite a 2-1 victory over the African nation, lead by Asamoah Gyan, the richest man with the number 3 etched into the side of his head. Portugal ultimately paid the price for their poor opener against Germnay/Pepe being a nonce.

Group H was by far the least entertaining group, bucking the trend that this World Cuo has been the most enjoyable yet. The fixtures responsible for providing one last Group H snoozefest, sharing the blame with Capello, were Algeria versus the Italian's Russians, and lightly shaded horses, rather than dark, Belgium, against South Korea. 

When so called 'Russian Golden Boy,' Kokorin, nailed in a header in the sixth minute, Capello must've thought his World Cup misery was finally ending, looking somewhat excited in his little red sweater vest. But normal service was resumed, and again Algeria were making the best paid manager in the tournament look silly. Slimani's equaliser was enough to put Algeria through into the last sixteen, whilst condoning Russia to elimination and Capello to join Hodgson and Prandelli, as the least successful but most rich managers in Brazil. 

Belgium yet again bored us for most of a match, with rare excitement provided by one of their midfielders seeing a red cats for a randomly over aggressive challenge. The over aggressor in question was Steven Defour, whose surname sounds like that of Jermaine Defoe, being pronounced by a Jamaican. The team whose pre-tournament hype has meant they were stripped of their 'surprise package' tag, did still steal three points as Spurs centre-back and Belgium left back followed scored a rebound in the 77th minute, another late(ish) goal for the not-so-much-surprise-package-more-like-expected-delivery-which-arrived-on-time-and-was-pretty-much-what-we-anticipated-if-not-are-a-little-underwhelmed-by-it. 

Verthongen after scoring for the dark horses with a red and yellow diagonal stripe through them.