Sweden v Trinidad & Tobago

Sweden 0-0 Trinidad & Tobago (HT)

Still watching this game but through the first half, this has been
great. Really high tempo, and pretty physical but there's a flow to the
game that was really missing in England-Paraguay. Sweden is creating a
huge number of chances with nothing going in, but the chances they're
getting, especially by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, have been fun as hell to
watch. Trinidad is getting some opportunities, but the action was so
heavy in their half of the field that this is really Sweden's game...
Shaka Hislop is single-handedly keeping T&T in the game with some
beautiful saves. Now the possible turning point, as Avery John is sent
off with a second yellow card on a pretty harsh call. T&T are down to
10 men, which can be a disadvantage or an inspiration. I'm guessing T&T
will get an emotional lift, because they are a dynamite team, but the
closing minutes out of exhaustion give up a late winner for Sweden.

(45 minutes later)

UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE. The Soca Warriors hold on with 10 men against the
Fish for a 0-0 draw and a point in their first ever World Cup game.
Sweden apparently has this weird record going where they've lost or tied
their first game every world cup since 1958. This is a nice bit of
evidence for the claim that many Americans have been making, that
CONCACAF is not nearly so weak as people imagine. A great result for
T&T and for Leo Beenhakker (whose accomplishments include winning
Euro'88 as coach of the Netherlands and succeeding Alan Greenspan as
Federal Reserve Chairman) to make their mark early. The record of
Caribbean nations in the WC Finals has now improved to 4 points
(1-1-5). There's sure going to be one hell of a party in Port of Spain
tonight.

What's incredible is Sweden really blew such a stunning number of great
chances, a lot of which was down to Shaka Hislop turning into fucking
Batman, that with a little luck or a slightly worse keeper they could
have won 5-0. Some of Zlatan Ibrahimovic's shots looked like he was
auditioning for the Swedish-language version of Shaolin Soccer, when
he'd take a cross of his chest then lean back into a funky spin kick;
the guy looked just lethal. And now he's probably pissed off, so in his
next game against Paraguay he may take Aldo Bobadilla's head clean off.
I'd expect Sweden to score a lot more in the next couple games, but on
the other hand, last WC France had the leading strikers of three of
Europe's biggest leagues, and after they put everything off the posts
and the crossbar in their first game, everybody chalked it up to bad
luck and figured they'd finish better in the next couple games, but they
didn't score a goal in the entire tournament.

BTW, which joke was worse, the Swedish Fish, T&T are dynamite, or Leo
Beenhakker/Ben Bernanke?