World Cup Results: Day 15

Brazil 0, Por­tu­gal 0

Brazil topped the prover­bial “Group of Death” with rel­a­tive ease with Por­tu­gal fol­low­ing them into the knock­out rounds cour­tesy of a 0–0 draw.

It was a day when two of the most pro­lific offenses in the game cre­ated a fair amount of chances and half-chances but couldn’t fin­ish them off. Brazil­ian striker Nilmar’s close-range effort was pushed onto the post by Por­tugese goal­keeper Eduardo for the only close call of the open­ing half.

But what the first half was full of was yel­low cards, seven play­ers were cau­tioned dur­ing the open­ing period as these long­time rivals played phys­i­cal soccer.

The sec­ond half offered a few chances but Brazil’s Julio Cesary and Eduardo showed why they are two of the best keep­ers in the world.

Brazil­ian man­ager Dunga was not impressed by Portugal’s defen­sive setup ““We played to win, but our oppo­nent didn’t,” Dunga said. “We always tried to attack, but they only tried to take advan­tage of our mistakes.”

Ivory Coast 3, North Korea 0

The Ivory Coast was unable to over­come near-impossible odds to qual­ify for the round of 16 but ended their World Cup cam­paign on a high note with a 3–0 defeat of already-eliminated North Korea.

The Ele­phants knocked in two early goals. Yaya Toure opened the scor­ing in the 16th minute with a fan­tas­tic shot from the top of the box. Romaric added one two min­utes later on a rebound when Didier Drogba’s bul­let ric­o­cheted off the post. The Ivory Coast couldn’t score again until the 82nd minute when Salomon Kalou scored his only goal of the tournament.

“Our World Cup is over today,” Ivory Coast cap­tain Didier Drogba said. “But I think we can be proud of what we did against Por­tu­gal and against Brazil, even if we lost, and today.

Spain 2, Chile 1

Spain sur­vived their first-round scare to win group H and avoid a sec­ond round date with Brazil with a 2–1 over Chile, the first South Amer­i­can team to lose in the tournament.

David Villa cap­atal­ized on a Chilean goal­keep­ing error with a shot from 45 yards out into an open net in the 24th minute. Andres Ini­esta added one 37 min­utes later to dou­ble Spain’s lead.

Marco Estrada was sent off dur­ing the goal cel­e­bra­tion for a sec­ond yel­low card for trip­ping Fer­nando Tor­res and Chile was reduced to 10 men.

Rodrigo Millar’s shot deflected off Ger­ard Pique’s shin and into the net to bring one back for Chile but that was the last offen­sive moment of the game as both teams knew they would advance with a 2–1 result.

Switzer­land 0, Hon­duras 0

Switzer­land could not con­quer Hon­duras and both teams are going home in the first round despite Switzerland’s sur­pris­ing defeat of Spain.

Switzer­land needed a two-goal win to advance out of group G but showed their offen­sive inep­ti­tude when they are unable to coun­ter­at­tack. Hon­druas sal­vaged some pride by fin­ish­ing the World Cup with at least a point. It was a game of few chances with nei­ther team look­ing like they wanted to make an offen­sive push.

“We had an incred­i­ble Diego Benaglio who kept us in the game,” Switzer­land coach Ottmar Hitzfeld said. “But as far as our cre­ative play, that’s not some­thing I can be happy with. I’m not happy with my strik­ers, either.”