Brazil vs North Korea

15/6/10 Ellis Park, Johannesburg

Weather: 3*

Brazil 2-1 N. Korea

Goal Scorers: Maicon, Elano [B] & Ji Yun-nam [N.K]

Air woven by the ball/a dance of golden boots/dribble by drum beat/let's play the beautiful game

Alright, that is my soft haiku, but I did expect them to play beautifully. I had my Brazilian T-shirt on, so sunny that it made me feel much happier and also warmer. I have also always wondered how cold it would be before the players had to wear gloves, and they were wearing gloves in Johannesburg, man, that was shocking! Oh, it was cold, it was let's stay in bed and watch the soccer cold. The fans shivered, hoping the Samba boys would dance the world warm, but the Brazilian boys were frozen.

Who taught them how to play soccer like that? I wished Ronaldinio was here, even if he could not blast the ball through those red soldiers so determined to defend, he could have shown us some tricks. Never mind that, they were actually rather sad and the Koreans were seriously playing football. They did not want to make mistakes, so they put the red army on the line and effectively kept the score line blank. Their confidence was highly impressive.

Kaka was not having his dream day, but I can understand because it was cold and besides he is a nice guy. Robinho has that characteristic Brazilian talent and flair, and made most of the opportunities in the game. Brazil took there their time and waited until the second half to score that wonderfully clever Maicon goal. There, finally, a Brazilian playing Brazilian soccer. I was astonished to see him cry, if anything, Korea should be proud that they made a star work so hard that he had to cry. Or maybe, it was just ice melting.

Robinho's sublime smooth as vanilla ice-cream pass that brought on the second goal, and Elano kicking it in neatly was lovely. I enjoyed this one more that the last. Then, N. Korea's Ji Yun-nam ran, beating the yellow shirts and scoring a pretty good goal. It also made it the first match where the losing team had actually scored a goal. Man, these Koreans are something.

The Group G's other three teams placed most of its wins against a tiny country, North Korea, who have not played for decades, and were suppose to trail after the players as they scored so many goals. No, they were not supposed to be good and so fell into the cradle of the small teams. Besides, tiny people do have some sort of trouble when playing soccer, they can't hold their tackles against giants and then can always just get pushed away, or out run, or jumped over. And so far S. Korea and Japan have done rather alright too. Brazil will go to the semis or the final, the others most probably not, but after some of the lackluster performances of the other teams, I do admire their courage.