The official grand opening will be tonight, but the football tournament (a sport that maybe only in the Olympics does not play the leading role), is already in full swing with the first matches of the women's national teams two days ago and, above all, last night with the most eagerly awaited men's teams. If for the first day the episode to report was the exchange of the flag of North Korea with that of South Korea, on the big screen when the formations were read, which infuriated the Asian players who demanded that it be resolved the misunderstanding and that delayed their match against Colombia by almost an hour, yesterday in the first day of the men's tournament there were already the first surprises with some unexpected results.
If Brazil and Uruguay can party, the same cannot be said for Great Britain and especially Spain. The yellow-greens, a national team that with various Neymar, Pato, Hulk, Lucas, Thiago Silva is a formation that could easily aim to win a World Cup, got rid of Egypt 3 to 2, even though life was complicated in the second half and risked mockery in the final, while Cavani's Albiceleste beat the Arab Emirates 2-1 in comeback thanks also to a feat by Bologna's Gaston Ramirez. The disappointments came from the home national team of Great Britain (which is then made up almost exclusively of English players, 14, plus 4 Welshmen, including the two overage Giggs and Bellamy), which did not go beyond the 1-1 Senegal and Spain which was surprised by Japan.
The Iberian national team, which has dominated international competitions at any age level in recent years, was penalized by having played almost an hour of play outnumbered due to the expulsion of defender Martinez, but must thank the poor aim in front of goal by the unleashed Japanese otherwise the defeat could have been heavier than the 1 to 0 final. As for the other matches: in group B there were two draws, Mexico-South Korea 0-0 and Gabon-Switzerland 1-1, in Brazil's group Belarus narrowly overcame New Zealand while in Spain's group it ended 2 to 2 Honduras-Morocco. Unfortunately, the Italian national team is at home as a spectator…
