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Argentina vs. Brazil First Half Running Commentary
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Good morning to anyone out there. I'll admit it, I couldn't get up for the first game. When you go to bed at 1:30 a.m. on the West Coast, 1.5 hours isn't enough. So here we go, I'lll update this thread every few minutes or so. Chime in with the commentary.
6th minute- Messi dances along the edge of the box and set sup teammate with a good opportunity. Open game thus far, which should be fun if it continues. And dear God, we have these American announcers again. I swear Marcelo Balboa will be the end of me. There we go: "It's like Kobe against Lebron." Unreal.
11th minute- Balboa alert, you don't want players with good ball skills running at you.
12th minute- Rafinha nice move down the wing, cross into the box is behind his man and slips through the box.
12th minute- Aguero beautiful move but then pulls his shot wide of the right post. Too bad, should have done better with the space that he had. Also the crowd is going crazy everytime Ronaldinho touches the ball. I think it's safe to say he's a celebrity over there.
15th minute- Nifty move by Messi. He's just so elusive. As Balboa would say, you don't want to let him run at you. Still a very open game, easily could be 1-1, as both teams had very open opportunities in the box, although only Argentina got a good shot off.
AND WE HAVE A COMMERCIAL BREAK. You have to be kidding me. MSNBC is probably going to get great ratings from this matchup - unreal.
18th minute- Well now we're bck, finally. Ronaldinho switches the field to Rafinha, but he chips it over the goal. This is open enough that I wouldn't be surprised if we see three or four goals today if not more. I think we see a goal before the 35 minute mark, too.
19th minute- Breno picks up a yellow, questionable, hope it doesn't come back to hurt Brazil.
20th minute- Messi free kick right to goalie. Great crowd atmosphere so far. Olympics or not, these two teams are fun to watch.
25th minute- Ronaldinho has space in the middle of the field, you'd think Brazil would try to get him the ball a little more there. Brazil is a little more compact back in their defensive end, and Messi isn't touching the ball too much.
28th minute- Beautiful, beautiful individual sequence by Ronaldinho on the left sideline. Between the legs, tapping it backwards and dancing around the tackles coming at him, he must have beaten three defenders by himself before putting a great ball through that didn't result in anything productive.
31st minute- Messi fouled just outside the box on the top-right corner. Riquelme takes the kick, went for the goal. Then the ball made it back to Messi in the box, nice ball through past the mouth of the goal but no one there. Can't believe we don't have a goal yet.
36th minute- Macelo has had some nice moves for Brazil, but Anderson has been pretty non-existent, which is a little surprising.
41st minute- Messi great move on the right, beats multiple defenders and gets a nice shot off that the Brazil keeper parries away. Then a free kick goes to the keeper. Even with that sequence, not as open of a game as at the beginning of the first half, both of had plenty of opportunities though.
As great as Ronaldinho's ball skills are, he's not making speed runs, and it seems like there's enough space at times to do just that.
HALFTIME, 0-0
