2012 Olympics: Brazil, Mexico Advance To Semifinals

Great Britain’s hopes for a medal in football have been dashed at the quarter-final stage after South Korea won 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 draw. Daniel Sturridge missed the deciding penalty kick, with his penalty saved by substitute goal-keeper Lee Bum-Young, proving once again, that stutter run ups in penalties are dumb. After that, Celtic’s Ki Sung-Yeung stepped up and smashed his penalty into the top of the goal to send South Korea into the semi-finals and, at least, the bronze-medal match.

South Korea dominated the initial proceedings, with their high-pressure game wreaking havoc on Great Britain’s passing game. The pressure and rutted pitch made the British passing suffer, and they looked extremely flat compared to South Korea. A couple of long shots, though, was South Korea’s only result from their dominance until Ji Dong-won’s 29th minute hard hit shot went through Jack Butland. The chance came after Ki Sung-yueng’s brilliant side footed layoff, and was a well deserved lead.

Brazil had the best of the early exchanges, with Leandro Damiao flashing a shot past Jose Mendoza’s left post and Neymar nearly managing to latch onto a lovely through ball from Oscar a few moments later. But the atmosphere around the match changed in an instant when Honduras took a shock lead in the twelfth minute.

Brazil responded by... sulking. Gone were the silky passages of play -- instead they gave us forced short passes, failing to take advantage of any of the opportunities that the Honduras defence presented. But a bizarre series of decisions by Wilmer Crisanto just after the half-hour mark gave the favourites a way back into the match. Shown a yellow card for a foul on Hulk, the defender responded by kicking out at Neymar all of thirty seconds later, and was rightly dismissed for his complete loss of discipline.

Mexico are through to the semifinals of the London 2012 Olympics men’s soccer tournament, and have a chance to capture a medal for the first time. They jumped out to a 2-0 lead in their quarterfinal match against Senegal, but threw that lead away and were forced into extra time. In that extra period, Senegal’s defense made two terrible mistakes, gifting El Tri the 4-2 victory.

Senegal fired back and got into the match just seven minutes later when Maccabi Tel-Aviv’s Moussa Kounate scored his fifth goal of the tournament. Aquino was withdrawn for Hector Herrera in a slightly defensive move in the 75th minute, and that switch backfired. Immediately after the substitution, Senegal substitute Ibrahima Balde headed in the equalizer that would eventually force extra time.

Although they worked their way back into the match somewhat, a similar situation in the 41st minute caused Egypt even more problems. Substitute Manubu Saito, on for Nagai following an injury, was played through the back line and was bundled over by Saadeldin Saad as he bore down on goal. It was outside the box, but a clear red card offence anyway, and Egypt were reduced to ten.

A couple of Shuichi Gonda spills were probably Egypt’s best chance of drawing level, but there wasn’t much they could do against a reasonably organised Japanese defence. Their attempts at scoring, however, opened up space for the counterattack, and Japan were able to turn one of those forays up the pitch into a second goal when Maya Yoshida glaced a free kick past Elshenawi to make it 2-0 in the 78th minute.