Yes, but I suspect he is dreaming about playing soccer at the time :)

Sepp Blatter spoke in the ref's earpiece and told him to send off Gourcuff, lol. Now he needs to do the same and get Dos Santos sent off in the other game. :D no, i'm not ashamed.

And thus my need to get up in the middle of the night/early morning to watch Oz play has disappeared. Just needed Ghana to knock out Germany and we'd be through.

Oh well. The 4-0 caught up with us. 2 good performances to end. Drawing with Ghana with 10 men for 3/4 of the game was a gutsy performance.

Yeah, spindles, I feel you. SA were in a similar position, needing Uruguay to knock Mexico out. The 3-0 loss caught up with us.

On another note, the USA got cheated out of a clear goal this time, but the "USA u got robbed" thread is silent. Maybe because they won at the end of the day, and are topping the group.

That seems about right Vaultboy, its hard to feel cheated when you've won the game and are in first place in your group. The last game not only would have been an amazing comeback but could have cost the US a trip to the next round. This one, while annoying, doesn't really have any effect on anything. If they'd lost or tied...well it probably would have been a different story :D

Anyway, from what I've been able to watch of the world cup so far its been a pretty great tourney, it should start getting really interesting when it moves on to the next round. With less games and most airing a little later in the day I hope to keep up with the next round a little better.

This might seem random, but in all of the decade or so time span I've known of and seen Landon Donovan, America's best spokesperson for professional footy (other than Mia Hamm) it never really occurred to me he was so adept and cordial at speaking Spanish. I I didn't even notice it at first, up until I saw him being interviewed on his game-winning goal, and then saw that I could only pick up every other word he was saying.

Most USA supporters have accepted the fact that refs will effectively never rule in our favor...

i was very pleased to have been able to follow the italian side as they were bounced out of the world cup this morning.

this is of no consolation whatsoever for a france fan.
rather it was a separate pleasure, almost a compensation.

it was a bit disappointing that new zealand could not manage a goal, but there we are.

tomorrow's are the marquee events of this round, yes? portugal/brazil and chile/spain.

i'm picking portugal and chile.

The only problem is that portugal and brazil are already in. I don't think this match is going to be nearly as exciting as if they had played each other earlier in the tourney.

turns out you were correct, sir. the portugal/brazil match had a moderately interesting first half but then it continued.

holding out some hope for chile/spain.

I'm just going to be a total homer here and post this. Go USA, beat Ghana!


P.S. I'm going to be watching tomorrow with some Ghanian dudes. Should be fun.

Every neutral fan will be cheering on the black stars, but US arent a bad side.

Personally Im already starting to feel nervous about tomorrows game. Just pray it doesnt go to penalties...

Oy. We sure didn't get robbed there. The US sure as hell won't advance in a tournament when every first half is a terrible one.

Tuff luck for the usa team..

We won't need penalties :)
Roony will have to go home without scoring a single goal.

Abject

that was sweet.
4-1 plus revenge for Wembley ;)

awesome game. too bad for the bad call on england. I don't think it would have mattered though.

Germany on for another roll. I want to see a Germany - Brazil finale.

Seriously, what is wrong with the refs? That was about as off-sides as you can possibly be when he scored that goal. Unreal.

2 bad call in 1 day. This is getting bad for the FIFA! let's have a 30sec replay. It's all we need. 1 official looks, then it's set.

I'm hoping for an Argentina-Brazil final but we'll see... I still want my Netherlands to make a stand against brazil...

Blitskrieg....

Finally getting to see the Dutch play this morning. Yay, tie game!

GO ORANJE!!!

Wow, kinda shocked the Dutch took out Brazil.

Quoted for truth.

Hup holland!!!

Go Spain!

Ah, the Suarez intentional handball raises the point yet again about penalty goals being awarded, when a goal is prevented and the punishment (red card) does not do the offense justice.

Suarez has also proven himself to be quite the unsporting player - a diver, a niggling tackler, and now an intentional handballer. I hope Fifa don't reward him with a spot in the World XI.

OK THEN! Paraguay vs. Spain, who's winning? I have my bet on Spain.

YES!!!!!!! The Orange Men did well. :thumbsup: I'm so glad. :) Hope they can go the distance, but boy is Germany strong!

Yeah they should have a goal tending rule like in basketball. Ghanna should have advanced not Uragay.

go Germany! this was a great match.

and as for the spain game, the other team was robbed a goal ... AGAIN! they really need something for the unfair goals.

well, spain should not have won. but uruguay should not have either. so there we are. bullshit decisions shape the outcome. it's like a lesson in the unfairness of things.

so it looks like holland, the world's dullest great team, is handed a pass to the finals because suarez is out for uruguay after cheating ghana out of an obvious goal that would have put them through. so fuck uruguay, even though they are a lovely dangerous team. but god how i loathe the dutch side. anyway, in the other more interesting space, it's germany vs. spain.

and this is a great match-up and should be an awesome game that could go either way.
but i'm thinking germany.

what do you think?

German - Dutch Final?

Avante Celeste!

Sure, people don't like what Suarez did. But at least he was caught, punished within the rules, and gave away a PK.

Much better a case in which a team is insufficiently punished because the rules dictate so (just like when teams kill a counter attack with an intentional foul in midfield) than one where the rules are ignored or misapplied.

True dippin. However, in most such cases there is a chance at goal. In the case of Suarez, the goal was guaranteed. You can argue that there is hypocrisy and inconsistency in that, but I look at Suarez (who has dived and bitched more than anyone else so far) and I consider it sad that he was paraded around like a national hero by his teammates after they won. Is winning at all costs the lesson we want to teach our children? In a game that is follwed like a religion, and where "fair play" is the slogan, I think we should endeavor to set a better example. The IFAB need to go back and think about this one, but also many other instances where there is a need for stronger rules and better enforcement.

Ghana can't complain about diving or flopping. There was an instance early in the game where a Uruguayan and a Ghanaian player were arguing and the Ghanaian player just dove to the ground.

And I understand that, as a South African fan, Uruguay wouldn't be your favorite team. But Suarez is far from being the worst diver in this world cup. Ronaldo and Sneijder have been just as bad if not worse. And Uruguay will be missing Fucile next match because of a Ghanaian dive.

First of all, Oranje Boven!!

I'm in two minds about the whole Ghana saga. I feel they deserved to have that goal 'allowed', something akin to a penalty try in a rugby game. The red card sending off is a given in my opinion, but there should be some kind of guarantee that a team committing a foul of that nature will get punished in the game.

Then they got the penalty and screwed that up. I was so pissed off at them. Game-winning penalty, right at your finger (toe) tips, and he puts it over the bar. And to make matters worse, they proceed to take the worst set of penalty kicks I've seen in a long time. What was that guy thinking with his two-step penalty?

I really hope the Nederlanders massacre those Uruguay punks come Tuesday evening. It'll be sweet revenge for both Ghana and Bafana. A Dutch-Deutschland final would be awesome to watch.

Till then, hup Holland, hup.
von healer

I still don't understand why Uruguay are the "punks" in this story.

The first dutch goal came off a foul where Robben clearly dove and pretended to be injured, but was barely, if at all, touched.

And Robben himself committed a clear penalty on Kaka in the first half which would certainly change the game.

So it is still mystifying to me why Uruguay are the cheaters when they actually were punished according to the rules.