World Cup Diary - June 11

With just a day to go before Brazil 2014 kicks off, the excitement is building, but 16 years ago today I was settling down to watch two more entertaining games as group B got under way. The 4:30pm kick off involved my favourite team Italy, with a classic South-American side, built to attack, in Chile. A lot was made of the last time these two teams met at a world cup back in 1962 when Chile were the hosts. It went down infamously as the dirtiest game of football and was later referred to as the 'Battle of Santiago', as Chile kicked Italy all over the pitch, and the Azzurri retaliating in kind. This edition though was completely different as both team seemed intent to attack the ball and not each other.

Italy 2 - Chile 2
Italy started superbly, passing the ball around as if it would take only a few moments to score the goals that would have wrapped up the match against a nervy, scrambling Chile side. Italy took the lead on ten minutes with a classic counter-attack. Zamorano lost possession, Maldini lofted the loose ball down the left, Baggio flicked it inside and Vieri slotted it low past Tapia into the corner of the net. Chile's famed strike-force were starting to come alive. Salas ran at the Italian defence only to be halted by the massed-ranks. Then Zamorano nodded back a cross and Salas headed over the bar. Zamorano's ability to spring above his markers should have alerted Italy to their defensive fallibility but somehow it did not. From a corner right on half-time, Zamorano again rose to head the ball back and Salas held off Cannavaro to stab in the equaliser.

Four minutes after the interval, with Italy still shellshocked, Salas put Chile ahead. This time the cross flew in from the right and Salas soared above Cannavaro to head into the top corner. Italy coach Cesare Maldini responded by ringing the changes. The introduction of Inzaghi was an improvement on the sluggish Vieri, but it was Roberto Baggio, making the most of Alessandro Del
Piero's absence through injury, who came to the rescue. Baggio had remained tactically static on the left of attack in the first half. Now he began to roam across the breadth of the pitch, searching ceaselessly for both the ball and the opening to turn the game against the increasingly more confident and composed Chileans. Five minutes remained when he switched to the right and his attempted cross was blocked by Fuentes' hand. Baggio's insistence on taking the contentious penalty recalled the spectre of 1994, when he missed the decisive kick in the Final shootout against Brazil. Tapia, guessing and diving right, got to the ball but sheer power forced it into the net. Baggio thus became the first Italian player to score in three World Cup tournaments.

Italy (4-4-2) - Pagliuca - Cannavaro, Costacurta, Nesta, Maldini - Di Livio (Chiesa 60), D Baggio, Albertini, Di Matteo (Di Biagio 56) - Vieri (Inzaghi 70), R Baggio
Chile (4-4-2) - Tapia - Reyes, Fuentes, Margas (Miguel Ramirez 62), Rojas - Villarroel, Acuna (Cornejo 81), Estay (Sierra 80), Parraguez - Zamorano, Salas

Cameroon 1 - Austria 1
This was probably the most disappointing game so far but still had its moments despite the cold and wet conditions in Toulouse. Cameroon were playing with five at the back with Ndo and Wome operating as wing-backs. The young Cameroon side posed the greater attacking threat during the game, with Wome linking well with Angibeau down the left flank. Austria were able to contain Cameroon for much of the game, but their attacking efforts were lame and were much like Norway in that they lined up in a 4-5-1 formation. With 12 minutes remaining Cameroon's young centre-back, Pierre Njanka collected the ball in his own half and advanced unchallenged towards the Austrian area. There, he eased past Pfeifenberger and turned inside Schottel, before composing himself and shooting to the left of Konsel. It was a goal good enough to win any game but an equaliser in injury-time from captain Toni Polster secured an unlikely and fortunate draw for the Austrians. His shot from a set-piece was powerfully fired home to earn them a point.

Cameroon (3-5-2) - Songo'o - Njanka, Kalla, Song - Ndo, Simo (Olembe 66), Mboma, Angibeau, Wome - Omam Biyik (Tchami 85), Ipoua (Job 66)
Austria (4-5-1) - Konsel - Feiersinger, Schottel, Pfeifenberger (Stoger 83), Pfeffer - Cerny (Haas 83), Kuhbauer, Mahlich, Herzog (Vastic 83), Wetl - Polster