Greece 2-1 Nigeria
In truth Greece were assisted by the sending off of Nigeria's Sani Kaita on 33 minutes. With his team one up after Kalu Uche's free-kick on 16 minutes, which followed Socratis Papastathopoulos's foul on Peter Odemwingie, Kaita had foolishly kicked out at Vassilis Torosidis following a touchline spat. Referee Ruiz had no option. (Pronunciation of) Papastathopoulos, especially, was giving David Pleat trouble on the radio, but all in all he (Pleat) was good value. As he noted just before Kaita's sending off,
Greece are the most pedestrian team of the tournament.
Of course he meant 'is' and not are (Greece is only one team after all) but we all knew what he was driving at. Anyway, just before half time Dimitris Salpingidis's shot from the edge of the penalty area took a deflection off Haruna Lukman to loop high into the corner of the goal. Truth is, the goal had been coming and not just in the context of the game, it's Greece's first ever goal in a World Cup finals tournament. As the game ebbed and flowed throughout the second half, it took a mistake from Enyeama in the Nigerian goal to gift Vassilis Torosidis the winner on 72 minutes. Blame it on Jubulani? Well possibly.
Greece now go level on points with South Korea but behind on goal difference, whilst Nigeria are still in with a chance despite having null points so far. The last pair of games loo to be very tasty - a win for Nigeria against the Koreans and with Greece playing Argentina there's likely to be three teams with 3 points. Told you football was all about goals...
