In another disappointing in terms of quality World Cup 2010 match, the Ivory Coast and Portugal settled with yet another goalless draw in Port Elizabeth. Both teams definitely have the star players and big names to offer an exciting game, but it seems they decided to go down the road of most World Cup 2010 games in South Africa until now – combined with a dose of stress for their opening game of Group G, played at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
So pretty much the entire first half of the game between the Ivory Coast and Portugal had only two plays: Cristiano Ronaldo’s 25 meter shot that almost broke the post of Boubacar Barry, and Gervinho’s interesting attempt that was shut down by Paulo Ferreira with an excellent tackle. But even in the second half of the game, the most exciting part was when Didier Drogba came into the field for the Elephants. Coach Sven-Göran Eriksson decided to take the risk and throw his (injured) captain and biggest star player in the game, probably hoping for a psychological boost of the entire team.
But with Drogba practically absent from the game not much could change for the Ivory Coast. On the other side Cristiano Ronaldo was also having a mediocre performance, and apart from a nice Salomon Kalou shot that forced a great save from Eduardo, the rest of the second half finished like that.
