Viva Chile!

Important-Game Eve No. 2 in the Allende household as Chile prepares for its first World Cup game since 1998 and there is excitement in beautiful downtown Mountlake Terrace. The Chileans have emerged as kind of a darkhorse to go a long way in the tournament thanks to its relentless offensive attack, outstanding coach and young, talented players.
It's been a strange World Cup so far. Outside of Germany, none of the favorites have looked particularly dominating. Group A is a mess, with South Africa pulling off a shocking tie with Mexico and France and Uruguay looking crappy to leave the group all even.
Argentina looked OK in a win over Nigeria, and South Korea looked pretty solid and may have a chance to beat out Nigeria for the second spot in the group, which would be a big surprise.
The United States' tie with England was huge, setting the Americans up to potentially win Group C if it can take care of Slovenia on Friday.
Ghana's surprising win over Serbia was one of the highlights of the tournament so far and its game against Germany should be a good one. Serbia needs a big bounce-back against Australia to have a shot in Group D.
The Netherlands did look pretty impressive in a win over Denmark and Japan's shocker over Cameroon really made Group E interesting.
The Italy-Paraguay tie was surprising as well, as the Italians just did not look very good. The path was there for first-time World Cup qualifier Slovakia to take a step toward moving on, before giving up a stunning tying goal to New Zealand in the final minute on Monday.
The Group of Death was not particularly impressive, which was disappointing. Portugal - especially Cristiano Ronaldo - looked like it was playing on ice, falling down every time someone from Ivory Coast even looked at them. I was hoping for a game featuring some great offensive play but there was never really a flow. Brazil looked OK against a North Korea team that is tough to play against because it does nothing but defend. You could tell that the Brazilians are a strong team, though, and we'll see more from them against Portugal and Ivory Coast.
Now, on to Group H. We'll get a chance to see Spain today when it meets Switzerland. It will be interesting to see how well the Swiss hang in against a Spanish squad that has some injury issues.
And then there is Chile-Honduras.
Honduras got some attention after qualifying but has not been good leading up to the World Cup and is a longshot to make it out of the group. It needs to get at least one point out of this match with Spain next up on the schedule. Chile, on the other hand, needs to get a win against what is perceived as the worst team in the group.
One thing about this match is we're going to see some offense. Marcelo Bielsa has Chile attacking constantly with a fast, young group led by Alexis Sanchez, Mattias Fernandez and Mark Gonzalez, though it remains to be seen how much we'll see leading scorer Humberto Suazo, who is recovering from injury. Honduras also goes hard on offense, led by Carlos Pavon. Neither team cares all that much about defense, so the question is, who can better get away with that strategy.
Putting my personal feelings aside, I think Chile should be able to exploit Honduras, which is older and, frankly, not as talented. I see the Chileans going after Honduras early and often and taking a lead. Honduras may strike back, but it won't matter much to Chile, which will have a lot of success on offense and will get a big win.
Let's go with Chile 4, Honduras 2. We'll see is about seven hours!