No Score for Cristiano Ronaldo and Drogba
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HIGHLIGHTS-Ivory Coast 0 Portugal 0
Highlights of the opening game in World Cup Group G which saw Ivory Coast and Portugal draw 0-0 at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Tuesday.
6 - YELLOW CARD - Ivory Coast's Didier Zokora is cautioned early in the game for tripping Cristiano Ronaldo and sending the Portugal captain sprawling.
11 - Ronaldo rattles the post with a swerving long-range strike that beats Ivory Coast goalkeeper Boubacar Barry's full-stretch dive.
14 - Ivory Coast fullback Siaka Tiene curls a left-footed free kick over the wall but wide in their first attempt on goal.
17 - Ivorian midfielder Cheik Tiote cuts in from the left and hits a right-footed drive from distance over the bar.
21 - YELLOW CARD - Ronaldo and Ivory Coast right back Guy Demel clash off the ball and are both booked by Uruguayan referee Jorge Larrionda.
45+1 - HALFTIME - Ivory Coast shade a tight first half, with few chances falling to either side.
47 - Ivorian attacking midfielder Gervais Kouassi gets past his man on the left side of the penalty area and hits a powerful drive from a tight angle which Eduardo pushes behind.
54 - A good move down the Ivorian right and the ball is fed to Salomon Kalou on the edge of the penalty area, but his low side-foot shot is straight at Eduardo who saves comfortably.
55 - SUBSTITUTION - Portugal make a change bringing on forward Simao Sabrosa for Danny.
58 - Portugal's Deco puts in a looping cross and Liedson makes a great leap but his header fails to trouble Barry.
62 - SUBSTITUTION - Midfielder Tiago replaces Deco in Portugal's second change.
66 - SUBSTITUTION - Striker Didier Drogba enters the fray for Ivory Coast in place of Chelsea team mate Kalou.
80 - Ronaldo lets fly with a free kick from some distance but cannot keep the ball down and it dips over the bar.
82 - SUBSTITUTION - Another change for Ivory Coast as Kouassi is replaced by midfielder Abdelkader Keita.
85 - SUBSTITUTION - Ruben Amorim comes off the bench for Portugal in place of Raul Meireles.
89 - SUBSTITUTION - Ndri Romaric replaces Emmanuel Eboue in Ivory Coast's final change.
90+4 - FULL TIME - The match finishes goalless after a hard-fought contest in Group G's opening game.
Ivory Coast hold sluggish Portugal to draw
Didier Drogba made a substitute appearance and Cristiano Ronaldo hit a post but the clash between Ivory Coast and Portugal in a World Cup Group G match on Tuesday finished in a goalless draw.
Portugal's Ronaldo rattled a post with a vicious long range free kick in the 11th minute but his team never came that close again to scoring against their African opponents.
Ivory Coast striker Drogba, who broke an arm just before the tournament, appeared as a 66th minute substitute wearing an approved plaster cast, but was also unable to put his name on the scoresheet.
Semi-finalists at the 2006 finals, Portugal struggled to make a serious impact and made their job of advancing from a fierce Group G -- which includes Brazil and North Korea -- no easier in a fluid match that yielded only a handful of goalscoring chances.
The draw will boost the confidence of the Ivory Coast, which enjoyed most of the possession and always looked dangerous with smooth passing and plenty of energy going forward.
"I thought our team should have won. It was us who had more chances, I think we were organised all 90 minutes. It's a point, it would be better with three, but we played well and handled it well," Ivory Coast coach Sven Goran Eriksson told reporters.
"Both teams played like they didn't want to take big chances and lose. If you start to attack frantically against Portugal, they will kill you," he added.
The mood in the Portuguese camp was less upbeat.
"Of course, we're disappointed. We needed this win and we had chances to win. It's our first game, we're nervous, we're anxious. We knew it was an important game, but we need to focus on the next one now," midfielder Deco said.
Gervais Kouassi, better known as Gervinho, proved himself a constant menace for the Portuguese defence with penetrating runs into the area that left Ricardo Carvalho and Bruno Alvez scrambling.
For Portugal, Danny started on the wing in place of the match-weary Simao Sabrosa and never found his feet, despite good form in warm-up matches.
He was replaced by Simao shortly the break.
Portugal stepped up a gear later in the game without looking likely to score, with Ronaldo's darting runs failing to deliver against a resilient Ivory Coast defence.
"I'm extremely happy with the quality of our defending, we weren't perfect but we were very, very good," Eriksson said.
Ivory Coast's next opponents are Brazil on Sunday at the Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg while Portugal faceWRAPUP 4-Ronaldo, Drogba cannot break goal shortage
* Africa's World Cup low on goals
* Draws in Portugal v New Zealand, Slovakia v New Zealand
* Secretive North Korea to meet Brazil
(Updates with Ivory Coast v Portugal, police, detail)
Neither the globe's most expensive soccer player nor one of its most prolific marksmen were able on Tuesday to remedy a worrying shortage of goals at Africa's first World Cup.
Both 80 million pounds ($123.7 million) striker Cristiano Ronaldo and goal machine Didier Drogba drew blanks when Portugal and Ivory Coast played out a goalless Group G encounter to add to the paucity of goals in South Africa so far.
After 13 matches the net has bulged just 20 times, an average of 1.54 per game -- way below the 2.30 average for the whole of Germany 2006 and higher figures in previous years.
Portugal's Ronaldo came closest when he hit the post in Port Elizabeth with a thundering long range shot and Drogba came on as a second half substitute for the Ivory Coast despite a fractured arm.
The day's earlier match produced only two goals when Slovakia and New Zealand drew 1-1 in a Group F game.
That clash of the outsiders in Rustenburg gave each their first points in a World Cup as cold temperatures and pouring rain hit the only winter edition of the tournament since 1978, even extending to the tropical port of Durban.
Only the German side has shown real World Cup class so far with a 4-0 drubbing of Australia on Sunday that will have surely struck fear into their big name rivals.
While South Africans continue to exude pride and excitement at hosting the tournament, there was tragic news from elsewhere on the continent.
Residents of anarchic Somalia said Islamic militants had killed two people and arrested 35 for breaking their strict ban on watching the tournament on television.
BRAZIL GOALS?
Spectators around the world will be looking to five-times champions Brazil to correct the dearth of goals later on Tuesday when they meet World Cup hermits and the tournament's lowest-ranked team North Korea.
But the Samba Boys have struggled recently against the kind of packed defence North Korea is likely to play, which can stifle their open game.
Predictions over the Brazil-North Korea game range from a feast of exciting goals from the super-talented Brazilians led by Kaka and Robinho to another struggle by Dunga's men against an ultra-defensive team.
The North Koreans are no exception to everything else about their reclusive state -- little is known about them except they have trained for a marathon four months, are very fit and defensively minded.
That could be a worry for Brazil, who have lost some of their famous flair under coach Dunga, whose team choice has been castigated in the domestic press. Even at home they failed to breach the defensive walls of lowly Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia in World Cup qualifiers.
North Korea are trying to emulate their successes in their only previous appearance 44 years ago. Then they reached the quarter finals after humiliating the soccer aristocrats of Italy who were pelted by tomatoes by disgusted fans when they returned home.
While this tournament has largely been problem free and filled with joy despite the lack of goals, about 2,000 stadium stewards in Durban who clashed with riot police in a protest over wages early on Monday were paid off on Tuesday.
Police said they were taking over security at Durban, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth stadiums because of the dispute.
Dispute hasn't been restricted to labour issues, however, and controversy is growing among players and coaches over the World Cup's new ball, called the Jabulani.
Crosses, free-kicks and long-range shots have been skying over their targets in the thin air.
Another issue is the incessant whine of the vuvuzelas with teams now experimenting with sign language, especially when goalkeepers are trying to organise a defensive wall.
But the plastic trumpet clearly has some fans. An iPhone application that copies the drone that has been compared to a swarm of giant bees has been downloaded more than a million times.
Even though the app was designed in the Netherlands, this is unlikely to please Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk, the tournament's chief curmudgeon and most vociferous critic of the South African fan instrument.
Italy vs Paraguay Final Score Updates for World Cup 2010
taly wasn’t the first to score the match as many have expected. Paraguay was able to score with just 6 minutes before half time was called. Antonlin Alcaraz scored for Paraguay which then lifted the crowd under the rain. With over minutes after half time, Italay was able to get back to their form and finally score one to set the match on a tie. Daniele De Rossi was the player who scored for team Italy. The final score for the Italy vs. Paraguay FIFA 2010 World Cup match is 1-1.World Cup 2010 News
FIFA World Cup 2010 – Ivory Coast vs Portugal. To start out the matches for the feared Group G is the pride of Africa team, Ivory Coast and the Portugal team from Europe. This much-awaited match will start at 16:00 local South African time in Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
When 2 strong forces collide, chaos happens. That is what we will expect from this 2 teams who will show us what football is all about.
There are no underdogs in tonight’s game. But Portugal is not living up to expectations. They have been under-performing up until now. Their main superstar Cristiano Ronaldo failed to score in their qualification campaign. They also had a recent 0-0 draw at home to minnows Cape Verde Islands, and it would be fair to say that Carlos Queiroz is under as much pressure as any coach at the finals.
On the other hand, Ivory Coast also has its shares of problems. Their main star, the talismanic striker Didier Drogba is out with a broken arm acquired from a friendly play in Japan. It is not clear if he will be able to play this match but if he will play tonight and in the rest of the World Cup matches, then Ivory Coast would be a strong team to beat.
Both teams have their strong and weak points and this match will mostly likely go down as a draw.
Here is the line-up of both teams:
| Ivory Coast | Portugal |
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| Coach : Sven-Göran Eriksson | Coach : Carlos Queirós |
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|
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| Goalkeeper | Goalkeeper |
| 1 Barry Boubacar Copa | 1 Eduardo |
|
|
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| Defender | Defender |
| 20 Guy Demel | 3 Paulo Ferreira |
| 4 Kolo Habib Touré(C) | 2 Bruno Alves |
| 5 Didier Zokora | 6 Ricardo Carvalho |
| 17 Siaka Tiéné | 23 Fábio Coentrão |
|
|
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| Midfielder | Midfielder |
| 21 Emmanuel Eboué | 20 Deco |
| 19 Yaya Touré | 8 Pedro Mendes |
| 9 Cheick Tioté | 16 Raul Meireles |
| Forward |
|
| 10 Gervinho | Forward |
| 15 Aruna Dindane | 7 Cristiano Ronaldo(C) |
| 8 Salomon Kalou | 9 Liedson |
|
| 10 Danny |
| Substitutes |
|
| 23 Daniel Yeboah | Substitutes |
| 22 Souleymane Bamba | 22 Daniel Fernandes |
| 18 Abdul Kader Kéita | 21 Ricardo Costa |
| 16 Aristide Zogbo | 19 Tiago |
| 14 Emmanuel Koné | 18 Hugo Almeida |
| 13 Romaric | 17 Ruben Amorim |
| 12 Jean-Jacques Gosso | 15 Pepe |
| 11 Didier Drogba | 14 Miguel Veloso |
| 7 Seydou Doumbia | 13 Miguel |
| 6 Steve Gohouri | 12 Beto |
| 2 Benjamin Angoua | 11 Simão |
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| 5 Duda |
|
| 4 Rolando |
