Bilikiki down but not out

A lot was riding on this game. Uruguay had lost their opening game to Portugal and needed a win to get their campaign back on track; The Bilikiki boys meanwhile had surprised everyone with their resounding win over Cameroon and was at the top of Group C. Going into their second match, coach Viv Wickham had no illusions as to what to expect. Uruguay was after all, the second most successful team from South America in the beach soccer scene.

So while I was somewhat optimistic about our chances, I wasn't surprised when we lost to the better team. Actually, we were outplayed 10 to 5. That's not to say we performed poorly though. In my opinion, we did pretty well. A lack of experience and playing against a team full of talented players, we can take a lot of heart from that result. So while we let in 10 goals and didn't play as much attacking football as we would've liked, we did manage to hold Uruguay to only 2 goals in the first period and we did manage to score 5 goals of our own, consolation or otherwise.

All in all, it was a decent game against a tough opponent. Despite that set-back, I'm sure confidence will be as high as ever going into their final match against Portugal who are on the brink of qualification for the quater-finals following their emphatic 10-3 thrashing of Cameroon. While our chances of making it past the group stages a slim at this point with Cameroon looking unlikely to produce an upset against Uruguay, we can be sure that we won't finish any lower than third place in the Group. So with that being said, I wish all the boys the best and I'm sure they will do us proud even if they've already done that.

I especially like this quote from Omokirio: "...we're not out of it yet. Everything is possible in sport and we can beat Portugal.'' That's exactly the kind of belief the boys should have when they still have everything to play for. Can we expect a miracle? We'll see.

Related Links:
Uruguay back on course
Photo Gallery

I thought I should mention this. Earlier I said Naka had scored all 5 goals in the game against Cameroon which I should correct. Naka scored 4 goals and Omokirio got the other. And if you’ve got time, I recommend you read up on this article about our boys historic win against Cameroon. I laughed after reading this quote from Viv: "We have picked up a following along Copacabana beach, there was a group that stormed after us, hounding all the boys shirts and scarves." Soccer star lelebet.