itsbeautifuloutside

Bosnia v Iran

Salvador, 25th June 2014

Match Report

I was late back from work and the match was on ITV (Ugh!), so MrsC had nabbed the big TV to watch Wimbledon. So, to get a decent picture I decided to watch a stream on the ITV site. It is NOT user friendly. How can the BBC get iPlayer so right and they get ITVPlayer so wrong. And you have to suffer loads of adverts before anything happens.

Having had a rant about ITV, what about the game? The first thing I noticed that there was zero atmosphere in the stadium. The commentators seemed to be talking about the Nigeria v Argentina game, rather than the game they were supposed to be telling us about.

Things livened up all of a sudden when Eden Dzeko was left completely unmarked and he shot from 25 yards out. Goal. 1-0 to Bosnia.

This seemed to wake up the Iranians. The Bosnian crossbar was rattled almost immediately. You got the impression that the Iranians were throwing the kitchen sink at the Bosnians in order to get themselves back into the game.

It didn't last though and as the game wore on towards half time the steam went out of the game a bit.

The second half started as the first half did with the Bosnian's in control and in the 58th minute we were treated to a wonderful piece of individual skill from them, when Susic raced forward and slid a wonderful pass through to Pjanic. He made no mistake and it was 2-0. I like the look of Pjanic, he looks comfortable in possession and has an eye for goal.

The two sides traded attacks and in the 82nd minute they traded goals. First the wonderfully named Ghoochannejhad scored for Iran and within a minute the Bosnian full back Vrsajevic had scored his very first goal for his country.

That essentially was that. Bosnia had a consolation win, but both teams were eliminated. Of the two, Bosnia looked the more professional, but their manager Susic admitted before they set off for Brazil that there were only about 12 or 13 good players available to him.

Home for both teams.

channonite