Round 1 Summary

Confederation Status

(pre South Africa – Uruguay game)

Confed	Tm	2R	QF	P	W	D	L	Pts	G+	G-	GD	Win%	Pts%
CSF	5			5	3	2	0	14	8	6	2	80%	73%
AFC	4			4	2	0	2	6	8	2	6	50%	50%
UEFA	13			9	2	5	2	11	2	7	-5	50%	41%
OFC	1			1	0	1	0	1	4	6	-2	50%	33%
CAF	6			6	1	2	3	5	2	3	-1	33%	28%
CONF	3			3	0	2	1	2	1	1	0	33%	22%

Intra-confederation games (e.g. Spain-Switzerland, are excluded)

AFC has got to be the surprise confederation so far. In the last three WCs, Non-Host AFC teams had only 2 wins in 30 games. In the first round they won 2 of the first 3 game and North Korea almost pulled a tie against Brazil.

Observations

Mexico needs to beat France and even that might not be enough.

South Korea has done them self proud, but the battle is just starting. They might be able to recover from a 1 goal loss to Argentina, but anything else will force them to look for help.

Slovenia is in a must win game, a win and they are through, a loss and they need to beat England in the last game. In case of a draw they might still need to beat England in the last game (assuming England and USA beat Algeria as well).

Ghana – Australia will be a very telling match, if Ghana wins they are basically in the next round, if Australia wins, race from 2^nd in the group is once more wide open.

Cameron – Denmark was expected to be the game which will determine who will advance. It is now turned into an elimination game.

Both Italy and Paraguay should be very happy at this point. Italy will need to find some scoring if they want to avoid the Netherlands in the round of 16.

Brazil needs to beat Ivory Coast if they want to sleep easy. A tie or a loss and the game against Portugal becomes a must win game (a one goal victory over North Korea is just not enough).

Biggest loser of round 1? Chili. After beating Honduras they figured that a tie against Switzerland will be enough to see them advance. Now they need to beat Switzerland by multiple goals in order to have a chance (Spain will beat Honduras by multiple goals and the game against Chile will be a do or die game for both teams).