Day Four - Switzerland v Ecuador

Pre Match Thoughts
Switzerland are one of those teams that seem to constantly qualify for finals these days, despite never having any world class players. It seems, like Belgium, they've benefited from being a multi-cultural country, with a large number of lads descended from immigrants from the Balkan region.

As for Ecuador, the only thing I know about them is that Antonio Valencia is one of their key players. He's not been the same player since he suffered an horrendous leg break in 2010 that seemed to rob him of a lot of his confidence. A positive World Cup from him may well impress his soon-to-be manager at club level.

Ecuador looked lively when they played England in a friendly a couple of weeks ago, but the Swiss are efficient in that Swiss kind of way, so I'll back them to win 2-1.

Drink?
Best behave myself today.

First Half
The Swiss are looking a bit out of sorts, like they'd been sampling the local night life a tad too much last night. Ecuador are doing fine, but a better team would have put away more than just the one by now. Apparently, Switzerland didn't concede a single goal from set pieces in all their qualifying, but they clearly forget how to do so. They'll never a kick up the jacksie to get something from this, but luckily for them their coach, Ottmar Hitzfeld, who has won everything in his time managing in Germany, is the perfect man to do so.

Second Half
Guess the boot up with the bum was delivered, as Switzerland scored within a few minutes of the restart. The game sort of drifted in the main part after that, though the Swiss had a goal wrongly disallowed, with my man Antonio Valencia not doing a whole lot... until the very last minute, when he finally got into space and put it on a plate for a team mate to slot home the winner.

Except, the guy made a total balls up of it, allowing the Swiss to go right up the other end and put away the winner. Exciting stuff!

Result
Switzerland win 2-1

Wow!
Yes, I finally got a prediction right!