Liam Hoden’s World Cup Watch: Everyone’s favourite dark horses gallop into view

This World Cup has been about not counting chickens. The Dutch and now the Deutsch have shown already they should not be counted out.

But there have been plenty who have been quick to dismiss the Spanish, the Argentines, the Brazilians who should not be so quick to count those chickens.

Germany joined the ranks of potential winners with their complete demolition of hapless Portugal yesterday.

Thomas Muller grabbed the competition’s first hat trick with Mats Hummels adding a superb header.

Their goals helped keep the average per game tally high and it finished yesterday at 3.14, the highes

The Germans showed a tremendous amount of composure to beat Portugal, though the comfort of their half time lead certainly helped.

The talking point of the game, inevitably, was the sending off of Pepe.

After making very little contact with Muller’s face with a swinging arm, Pepe took exception to the striker’s reaction and delivered a gentle headbutt to the prone German.

Thus, a debate was sparked, centring on Muller’s theatrics. There seemed very few defending red card machine Pepe however.

His dismissal meant things went from bad to worse for his side

Whether Portugal can pick themselves off the floor for the remaining two group games remains to be seen.

With Fabio Coentrao ruled out for ten days and Ronaldo clearly lacking fitness, Portugal’s main threat from the left has been nullified. And there is not a great deal of depth in the squad to change things around.

The USA will be licking their lips with glee at the prospect of facing Portugal next, with the opportunity to book their place in the knockout stages.

The Americans impressed in their 2-1 win over Ghana and while most will agree with boss Jurgen Klinsmann’s assertion they cannot win the World Cup, plenty will believe they can advance from the group.

A late goal from John Brooks gave the US the win. They scored after just 29 seconds through Clint Dempsey and were largely in control until Andre Ayew levelled eight minutes from time.

Michael Bradley, Kyle Beckerman and Jermaine Jones all impressed in midfield with plenty of energy to restrict the rather disappointing Ghanaians.

It seemed pretty easy for the US to control the game against predictable Ghana.

The introduction of Kevin Prince-Boateng gave the African side more threat and helped them to level. He should be pushing for a start against Germany on Saturday.

There seemed a grim inevitability that the first draw of what has been a thrilling World Cup would turn out to be a complete dud.

And so the goalless draw between Iran and Nigeria delivered just that. The Iranians seemed pretty excited about it though.

Iran were always going to set out to stifle and so they did, with admirable excellence. They could have won it with the two best chances of the game.

Nigeria have had trouble breaking teams down and that was laid bare last night against Iran’s brick wall.

For a group of talented players, Nigeria seemed to lack the drive or quality to unpick the lock. It looked like Shola Ameobi of all people would be the man to do it for them at one stage.

The (lack of) spectacle will have made pleasing viewing for Bosnia who’ll really fancy their chances of a round two spot.

Highlights

- Carlos Queiroz displaying the shirt unbuttoned style of a the owner of a restaurant in a Portuguese holiday resort – while wearing a big coat

- A rather enthralling and slightly angered debate between Lee Dixon and Patrick Vieira over Thomas Muller’s ‘dive.’ Dixon telling Vieira a man in his position should be telling kids it’s wrong was a particular high point, especially as Fabio Cannavaro smirked in the background.

- Kyle Beckerman’s dreadlocks

TONIGHT’S GAMES