Portugal Downs Angola/World Cup Recap

Angola gave Portugal a much harder time than the European power had expected, but any hopes the onetime African colony had of beating its former ruler were dashed on Sunday with a 1-0 Portuguese win.

The opening Group D match had Portugal, with veteran star Luis Figo and young Manchester United phenom Christiano Ronaldo, heavily-favoured, and they proved why in the opening minutes.

The country’s leading striker, Pauleta recorded his 47th goal for Portugal in just the fourth minute of action, after just missing a successful strike off the first touch.

Despite drawing some jeers from the partisan Portuguese crowd for their sluggish play down the stretch in the second half, they extended their unbeaten run to 16 games over the past 16 months. Still, against a much lower ranked team in a tournament where goal differential can be a determining factor, they undoubtedly hoped to do better.

Angola is one of the major underdogs in the 2006 World Cup, and they showed why in this one, occasionally testing the jittery Portuguese defence but clearly lacking the sophistication in midfield to really make their opponents pay.

In other action, the same could perhaps be said for Iran, who had a chance to make headline news for something other than uranium enrichment, but simply couldn’t take advantage.

The Middle Eastern nation was handled in their Group D opener Sunday, as the heavily favoured Mexicans scored twice in the last 15 minutes of a 3-1 win.

Mexico got two goals from Omar Bravo, the second of which reclaimed the lead at 2-1 in the 76th minute.

“Maybe the players thought that after two or three substitutions, Mexico is going to be much easier or something,” said Iran coach Branko Ivankovic.

But that wasn’t the case, as three minutes later Zinha headed in a cross for the clincher.

“In the first half, everyone was very nervous,” Mexico coach Ricardo Lavolpe said. “We weren’t getting possession of the ball. In the second half, the team stabilized. We had more possession and that’s why we won the game.”

Yahya Golmohammedi scored Iran’s only goal in the first half, but also made a bad pass just moments before Bravo’s second goal, leading to the winning Mexican strike.

Once Mexico had all but wrapped up the victory, the main talking point of the match became the physical play. There were 45 fouls in the game, 26 on Mexico.

It was only the second victory for Mexico in a World Cup game in Europe, the other coming by a score of 3-1 over South Korea in a 1998 match.

Elsewhere, in what’s widely considered the toughest group in the World Cup, the Netherlands is off to an excellent start.

Thanks to a goal from the speedy Arjen Robben, the Dutch won their first Group C match over Serbia & Montenegro Sunday by a score of 1-0.

The first half goal, which Robben scored in the 18th minute, came after winger Robin van Persie sent a long ball in from near midfield. Using his blazing speed, the Chelsea striker did the rest.

“I was lucky he was on our side today,” Netherlands coach Marco van Basten said. “We always create a lot of chances, but not a lot of goals.”

From there it was just a matter of time before the 43,000 strong sellout crowd at Zentral Stadion could celebrate, as the partisan Orange crowd clearly understood the importance of an opening victory.

“This is a very important victory,” said Dutch midfielder Phillip Cocu. “Especially since the Argentines won, too.”