Beautiful Goals and High Drama

Today offered two matches that ended in high drama and one that featured a couple of beautiful goals by Nigeria's Ahmed Musa. 

Nigeria were under constant pressure from Iceland in the first half.  Tiny Iceland had become the darlings of the tournament and the Norsemen were in full control of the game from the start.  They seemed destined to pillage the Nigerian goal at some point but as they applied more and more pressure they left themselves vulnerable to the great speed and skill of Ahmed Musa.  Have a look at his amazing skill to control the ball and then lash it into the net in this first goal. *(After posting, I saw that FIFA won't let you watch these videos directly from this website.  Some of these are great goals, so it is worth clicking the links to watch these on YouTube if you haven't seen them yet.)

And check out how he uses his incredible speed to blow past his defender and then shows such composure where many others have failed in this World Cup to put the game out of reach with his second.

The win is huge for Nigeria but is also a lifeline for Argentina.  If the South Americans can win and Croatia beat Iceland, Lionel Messi will play in the next round.  Based on what I've seen though, I'd much prefer to see more of Ahmed Musa.

Switzerland gave up a very early goal to Serbia and were still down 1 - 0 in the second half when Granit Xhaka did what Granit Xhaka loves to do, score from a distance.  Watch his long curving blast past the goal keeper in the blink of an eye.

Both teams really wanted all three points and were aggressively pushing for the winning goal when Serbia got a bit out of balance and Switzerland's mighty-might Xherdan Shaqiri broke away and scored this in the 90th minute.

In the opening game Brazil were extremely frustrated by Costa Rica for 90 minutes.  Brazil knocked on the door, then pounded on the door but Costa Rica would not let them in.  Finally brought in the demolition equipment and Costa Rica's goal couldn't hold up in the added time when Brazil struck not once but twice.  Philippe Coutinho scored Brazil's dramatic and well deserved goal when it looked like they would have to settle for their second draw in a row.

Minutes later when Costa Rica threw caution to the wind in an attempt to keep from being eliminated from the tournament, they left themselves open to this Neymar death blow.

Before the goals went in, Neymar didn't bathe himself in glory.  First he dramatically fell over in the penalty area only to have the penalty overturned by instant replay that showed him to be a huge faker.  Minutes later as it looked like Brazil wouldn't score, Neymar picked up a yellow card when he volleyball spiked the ball to protest the referee's decision.  His frustration turned to desperation but ended in relief as Brazil took a big step towards securing a place in the next round.  They aren't out of the woods yet and still need a good result against Serbia in the next time out or they will be sent home early.

For the BISERGS, no one had a better day than Annika.  Brazil and Switzerland gave her a truckload of points and she has become the second player to reach 20 this summer.  She has been perfect in her three second round games and sits just a half a point behind Rachel.  Iceland's loss ended Kelley's remarkable undefeated run and now every BISERGSer has had at least one defeat.  Josh got wins from Brazil and Nigeria to double his score within a couple of hours.  Nigerian success provides a huge differential for Josh since he is the only one that had faith and used a draft pick on the Super Eagles.  The BISERGS Bot also saw something in Nigeria that the rest of us missed when it selected them for Matt S.  In a humiliating acknowledgement of my own struggles this summer, I see that both participants that were assigned teams randomly (Andrew and Matt S) are ahead of me on the BISERGS table as we move deeper into the World Cup's second week.