Quick, which team has finished third in the World Cup the most times? Time's up, it's....Germany!!! Yep, the Germans "won" the Bronze in 1934, 1970, and most recently, in 2006. And guess who's lost the most consolation games...you got it, none other than tomorrow's opponent, Uruguay, the only country to have lost the Third Place game more than once, in 1954 and in 1970, the latter occasion being bested by the Germans.

There used to be a consolation game in the NCAA tournament, not only between the two Final Four losers, but even between the two losers of the regional semifinals, but since neither the fans nor the teams were particularly psyched about a game that had little in the way of relevance, the practice was discontinued after 1980. FIFA soldiers on with the idea, however, and the game tends to be an aperitif to the main course the following day.

Spain 1, Germany 0: A better game to watch than to summarize. Nothing flashy, just good, solid, efficient German-style football, used in the crusade to beat the Germans, who obviously were exhausted from having to celebrate all their goals in the earlier rounds. First time since 1978 both teams in Finals are championship-virgins.

Holland 3, Uruguay 2: In the highest-scoring regulation semi-final game in 48 years, the Dutch held on to defeat an undermanned but gutsy team from South America, and will now return to the Final for the first time since the glory years of the Clockwork Oranje. I don't know if Uruguay's performance this time was the biggest fluke since Renee Zellwegger won the Oscar, but three cheers to the losers.

Spain 1, Paraguay 0: Two penalty kicks missed in two minutes !!! Paraguay somehow went the final 304 minutes of play in the 2010 World Cup without scoring a goal and still made to within breathing distance of the semis. Well done, wizards; please accept these parting gifts and go home. Spain, of course, sticks around, thanks to a H.O.R.S.E.-inspired shot by David Villa eight minutes from the finish to play in its first real semifinal, where they will get a rematch from its 2008 Euros opponent, Germany.

The World Cup is only eight days from being over, but there is another big international sporting event coming up: the World Basketball Championships. It starts on August 28, 2010, in Turkey. And yes, the U.S. is ranked number one two.* Team America hasn't won this since 1994, although the possible participation of Kobe^, LeBron, Durant, and Melo offers hope this time around. The Olympics gets most of the attention in this country, but with basketball emerging as the world's new Number One sport (thanks, China), this event will become bigger and bigger in the future

*Argentina is ranked ahead for now.

^He may have to undergo surgery.

Germany 4, Argentina 0: Some pre-game puffery about the Argentine coach, courtesy of Dave Zirin:

In his playing days, Maradona made people reconsider the sacred idea that Pele was surely the greatest player to ever patrol the pitch. He went from soccer superstar to Argentine folk hero during the 1986 World Cup, when he “avenged” the 1982 British defeat of Argentina in the Falklands War by defeating England in the quarterfinals, with a little help from the "Hand of God."

Maradona's brilliance inspired Eduardo Galeano to write, “No one can predict the devilish tricks this inventor of surprises will dream up for the simple joy of throwing the computers off track, tricks he never repeats. He’s not quick, more like a short-legged bull, but he carries the ball sewn to his foot and he’s got eyes all over his body. His acrobatics light up the field....In the frigid soccer of the end of the century, which detests defeat and forbids all fun, that man was one of the few who proved that fantasy can be efficient.”

It's too bad, though, that the Little Ball of Hate can't coach worth shite, so Mr. Galeano and others can take Maradona's manroot out of their collective mouths' nightmares can be efficient, too.* There is no conceivable way that a team with Messi, Tevez, et al., should have lost by four goals to a German team missing its best player (Michael Ballack), even if Jorge Larrionda had reffed this match as well. The Germans are the first team since the French team in 1958 to score four or more goals in three different games of the same World Cup.

* Which isn't to suggest that Maradona is gay, not that there's anything wrong with that....

Uruguay 1, Ghana 1 [PK: 4-2]: The finish of the game was like Bill Buckner's error, only it came in the midst of an event the whole world was watching, not just the New York-Boston corridor. In other words, Gyan's miss in the final seconds mattered a little more, and broke the hearts of a few more people. Uruguay, in the meantime, returns to the World Cup semifinals for the first time since 1970, but will play Holland without arguably its best player, Luis Suarez, the striker whose instictive save set up the Penalty Kick.

Netherland(s) 2, Brazil 1: The least-popular Brazilian team in memory gets bounced in the quarters again. Bye, bye, Brazil...losing by a goal doesn't have the same descriptive ability that losing by a run has in baseball, or by a point in football or hoops. It's the same thing in the so-called "real world": when the Supreme Court rules 5-4, that's a strong indication that the court is hotly divided on the subject, and will be revisiting the issue soon; politicians and constitutional scholars tend to give greater weight to cases that are decided 9-0, or even 8-1 or 7-2, because such decisions show a public consensus that will not quickly be shaken, as well as a powerful Chief Justice who can build consensus. When a political race is decided by one percentage point or less, well, that's a good sign that the victor should tread very carefully in the near-future. As with 5-4 legal decisions, it's a good idea to write the results in pencil.

Because of its inherent low-scoring nature, a one-goal victory in soccer is different. One-point wins are not that common in basketball or football, but in soccer, it's the most common result, so it can be less of a benchmark in revealing what really happened in a game. The back-and-forth, free-swinging play in the Ghana-U.S. game was decided by the same margin (same score, in fact) as the ugly, one-sided Holland-Slovakia game. One game was decided in OT, whilst t'other was close only because the losers scored a penalty kick on the game's final play. If you want to get a feel for what happened, you have to look at the numbers behind the scoreboard.

In this instance, we're talking about two different games. Brazil scored inside of ten minutes, and toyed with their opponents for the rest of the half. Going into today, Brazil had never lost a World Cup game when leading at halftime, and had lost only twice before when scoring first (v. Norway in 1998, and v. Uruguay in the 1950 "final"). In the second half, the opposite happened, as Brazil proved unable to defend set pieces, then lost a player (Felipe Melo, btw, who had earlier scored on a beautiful header to tie the game up...for the Dutch, the first own goal ever for Brazil in the tourney) on a thuggish kick to all-around Dutch wuss Arjen Robben (wrong target!!). So two one-sided halfs add up to...a statistically evenly played game: both teams had the same number of shots, same number of fouls, and nearly identical time of possession, leading to a 2-1 win for Holland.

Spain 1, Portugal 0: Finally playing like the top team in the world, Spain permitted a few chance to their Iberian rivalry, scored halfway through the second half, thanks to David Villa, then shut down the 2006 semifinalist convincingly.

We have now reached the quarterfinals, the point in the World Cup that the tournament goes from being an event that unites the sports fans of the planet to just another sports championship. Sharing in common with all other sports, offense usually takes a hit at this stage:

YEAR 1st Round/2nd Round/Quarterfinals/Semifinals/Finals
1986 74 (36) // 24 .....7 ... 4 /// 5
1990 82 (36) // 18 ... 7 .. 4 /// 1
1994 88 (36) // 25 ...15 .. 4 /// 0
1998 127 (48) // 24 ..11 .. 5 /// 3
2002 128 (48) //17 .. 6 ... 2 /// 2
2006 117 (48) // 15 .. 6 .. 3 /// 2
2010 101 (48) // 22 ..10..6

In the early rounds of the World Cup, goals are typically scored more frequently, since the disparity in talent usually permits the games to open up; thus, a talented but defensive-oriented team like Portugal will beat North Korea by seven goals; when there’s some debate as to whether a team belongs at this level, the question isn’t so much the outcome but the ability of the better team to break through. Scoring in soccer, like offense in baseball, football or basketball, goes way up when the match-up is lopsided. In the second round, there are still a handful of teams that are lucky to be there, such as the representatives from Africa, CONCACAF and Asia, so the possibility for a number of highscoring games is increased at that point as well.

After the second round, the teams that are still alive are likely to belong among the elite; they're in it to win it. And at that level, it is unusual for a team not to have a solid cadre of players at the back. No matter how creative they are up front, those teams run into other teams that can slow them down. In addition, the tendency in any sport is for defenses to be ahead of offenses; teams at this level are usually playing to stop the other side rather than outscore them, which makes sense in a sport where 1-0 scores are the most common. When defense becomes too dominant, as it has now in soccer, the governing authorities in the sport will try to devise a way to open up scoring, but that’s more likely to happen after the Cup, which through the first round generated the fewest goals per game in history. So in the meantime, get ready for more non-scoring games going to penalty kicks, and 1-0 results that have the feel of being one-sided.

Paraguay 0, Japan 0 [PK, 5-3]: Three hours of my life, shot to hell. A more pressing problem for the integrity of the World Cup than the occasional blown call by the ref (somehow, when Brazil has its star sent off on a bogus second yellow card, it always manages to survive) has to be the willingness of inferior teams, like the Japanese, to play for penalty kicks pretty much from the opening whistle. If FIFA is going to insist on this tiebreaker, a good idea would be to weight the procedure, so that the team that had the most corner kicks (or shots on goal, or shots, or fewest fouls, or some combination of the stats) would start off the penalties with a 1-0 edge....

Brazil 3, Chile 0: If anyone can make a 3-0 game entertaining and seemingly close, it's Brazil. Still no magic, though.

Holland 2, Slovakia 1: Pathetic effort by the Slovaks, whose only goal came on a penalty kick on the final play of the game. If the game had been played in the US, the FBI would have been investigating the Poor Man's Czechs for match fixing. Just go away.

Argentina 3*, Mexico 1: Holy shit, where does FIFA come up with these idiots? I can't wait to see the quarterfinal where Argentina gets to play with a twelfth player, or Lukas Podolski picks up the ball and carries it over the goal line....

Germany 4, England 1*: Interestingly, by all statistical measures England was the better team: it had more touches, corners, shots, shots on goal, and even had the edge in time of possession. So I guess they really won, at least on an existential level. Suck on that, Huns... actually, the Goal-That-Wasn't-Counted changed the game completely, especially in those categories (btw, the ref was the same guy who officiated the US-Italy game in 2006 that saw two Americans red-carded under very suspicious circumstances, plus a late goal taken away on a rarely-called offsides against a player who hadn't touched the ball). If England tied the game up, it would have no doubt played more defensively, and done less to press forward in the second half, so their possession and "shot" advantages would have disappeared.

They also still would have lost, simply because they don't have the horses the Germans have. In the first half the Germans completely outclassed the Three Lions, and could have easily had two or three more goals, and in the second, they toyed with their opponents until they could two counter-attack opportunities that they converted. The better team won.

Ghana 2, USA 1 [OT]: This might be a sign of the emerging base of true soccer fans in America: that a tactical mistake by the coach of the national team could be a subject of discussion, as a cause for blame for the team's early departure. Bradley's decision to start Ricardo Clark would have a questionable move the first time it happened, since there is nothing in his pedigree or career that suggests he belongs on the national team to begin with, much less start in the World Cup (even if he was a superstar, he's missed most of the last year with injuries, and has not been able to get into the lineup on his club team in Germany).

Another sign: I saw the game at a diner/bar in Valdez, Alaska, where the assembled mass of riggers, teamsters and their families watched the game in rapt attention. I don't know how they reacted when Gyan scored in extra time to put Ghana ahead, or when the ensuing futility of Team USA's comeback bid proved itself out, as I was on a long coach ride to the Copper River Valley, but I take it I didn't miss a thing. FWIW, Ghana is going to have to elevate its game enormously to beat Uruguay in the quarterfinals next Friday.

Uruguay 2, South Korea 1: 0-0, 2-1, 0-0, 0-4, 2-0, 0-0, 0-1, 1-0 (OT), 1-3, 0-1, 0-2, 1-1, 0-3, 1-1, 1-6, 0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 1-3, 1-0, 0-2. Those are Uruguay's World Cup results from 1966 to 1990. Notice a pattern there? In 21 matches, they had five scoreless draws, twelve games where they were shut out, with another game where they didn't score their one goal until the final minute of extra time. In the five World Cups they played from 1966 to 1990, Uruguay scored a grand total of eleven goals. All in all, a remarkable 19 of their 21 games during that spell saw them score only once or not at all, with only four wins, against France (1966), Israel and the Soviet Union (1970), and South Korea (1990).

Since Diego Forlan joined the national squad, this is their World Cup record: 1-2, 0-0, 3-3, 0-0, 3-0, 1-0, 2-1. Maybe that wouldn't be an impressive spell for a team like Brazil or Germany, but three wins in seven matches, with only one defeat and two scoreless draws, ten goals scored total, is definitely out of character. On two occasions, they scored three goals in the same game !!! I know Forlan was a flop with United, but them again Wayne Rooney is actually a star for that team, so Forlan must be given his due for being able to come up when it counts.

Today's game was consistent with Uruguay's play during the Forlan Era, fast-paced, attack-oriented, nothing like the abysmal match the two countries played in 1990. Kudos to both teams.

Spain 2, Chile 1 // Honduras 0, Switzerland 0: How did the Swiss do it? Beating the number one-ranked team in the world is apparently not good enough to get out of group…in their seven games played in the last two World Cups, they've conceded one goal, officially lost only once, but have almost nothing to show for it. Getting outplayed by Honduras, a team which pretty much knew from the outset today that they had nothing to play for, is really a testament to Swiss ingenuity…oh, and Spain and Chile managed to conspire to obtain a result that got both teams through, setting up nice showdowns next week, with Spain playing its Iberian neighbor Portugal, and Chile, first South American loser in fifteen games, getting a date with Brazil.

Portugal 0, Brazil 0 // Ivory Coast 3, North Korea 0: Not a whole lot to be said about Brazil v. Portugal; a dull, poorly-played game between two defensive-oriented teams who will have to elevate their game some to go much further in the tourney. Not surprisingly, the result was enough to send both through to the next round, with Brazil "winning" the group. Being the best African team in soccer in this tournament isn't all that impressive, but the Baby Elephants always come to play, and they easily coasted past the hapless minions (or as Matt Welch might describe with consummate subtlety, eleven Evil Men) of the world's favorite South Park Villain. Timing is everything; if IC had drawn the NoKoreans second, rather than Brazil, it is likely that they would have been the second African country to qualify for the second round. But it was Portugal who drew North Korea second, and with their 7-0 blow-out effectively made today's games moot. BTW, aside from that game, Portugal has scored a total of two goals since getting out of group in 2006, a true testament to the dull, bland nature of success in soccer.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the recent imposition of severe sanctions against USC's college football program (ie., L.A.'s only pro football team) is the lack of anything resembling journalistic propriety or balance in covering such a story. An athlete, in this case Reggie Bush, gets accused of having received benefits (or, in Bush's case, his parents), and the sports media will go balistic with the platitudes, accusing the athlete and the school of being sleezy, unethical, and even worse, "professional." Since sports "journalism" typically thrives when it sucks up to the powerful institutions and individuals that dominate sports, an athlete or school will usually be presumed guilty even on the flimsiest of evidence.

So now it turns out that simply applying a little bit of due diligence to the evidence the NCAA used to place the USC football program on the fritz is enough to pretty much discredit the entire factual case. Were the university to challenge the sanctions in federal or state court (it has already adeptly played the first card, by offering to submit to the least important of the sanctions, the bowl ban), it would most certainly win, since the courts are not usually willing to permit quasi-public entities like the NCAA to redefine "reasonable basis" for guilt into the novel standard "no basis for guilt at all; fuck you !!" At the very least, it is going to provide Trojan Nation the rhertorical grounds for its defense. The evidence that Pete Carroll "knew" is significantly weaker than the rather clear evidence that John Wooden knew about the antics of Sam Gilbert.

More troubling, though, is the whole notion that Reggie Bush, or any other athlete, should have to apologize for wanting to make money playing football. We tend to forget that the NCAA regulations concerning amateur play are malum prohibitum; that is, they reflect actions and conduct that are banned not because they are immoral or unethical on their face (ie,. malum per se), such as murder, theft, or fraud, but because the acts are just prohibited. An example of a malum prohibitum law that we face everyday is parking in a loading zone, or speeding on a freeway. Driving fast or parking in a certain location is not, in and of itself, evil, since we can perform the identical act and not be breaking any rules.

In Bush's case, taking money for playing football is not now, nor was it 2004, an evil or unethical act. Of course, in 2004, Bush had no choice in the matter, since the NCAA prohibited him from doing so, and the NFL had recently received judicial sanction allowing them not to give athletes Bush's age the right to do so. Since there was no competing set of values that Bush and the NCAA could have a free dialogue over, insofar as Bush and other college athletes having not been given any free choice, Bush's decision to take money from third parties was not an evil act, nor would his decision to obey the NCAA regulations on the subject have imparted any virtue upon him. In the moral universe, rules concerning compulsory amateurism at the college level impart upon the athlete the same obligations that obeying Jim Crow laws imposed on Rosa Parks.

Amazingly, NCAA rules that would be considered to have a much stronger malum per se basis, such as academic fraud or steroid use, would not be considered to have anywhere near the stigmatic effect on the football program. Admitted roid users, like Brian Bosworth and Tony Mandarich, have never seen their awards threatened, or had their actions lead to penalties against the teams for which they played, even though the taking of PED's clearly gave them an unfair playing advantage, and directly assisted their teams in gaining wins. On the other hand, no one has creditably argued that Bush driving a car paid for by one of the many parasites that compulsory amateurism festers gave him any added skills on the field, or actually tainted USC's results, any more than Sam Gilbert paying Alcindor or Walton tainted UCLA's wins, or you or I parking in a yellow loading zone makes us bad people.

Japan 3, Denmark 1 // The Netherlands 2, Cameroon 1: The Danes usually have one really stinky game in the tournament, but it’s usually not in the first round. The score could have easily been 6-1. This continues the trend of the Cup so far, which is that European teams are overrated and in decline, much like their governments. Must be something about the penny-pinching, budget deficit-fetishizing mindset. Soccer favors the bold, and/or the Keynesians. In the other game, Holland won again, and Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions proved to be easily dominated. There is no justification to have any more reps in the World Cup from Africa than what CONCACAF currently gets; so far, three of the five African contestants to have completed group play have finished last.

Because of the mediocre calibre of teams coming out of Group F, winning Group E doesn't really do a whole lot for the Dutch, at least in the second round, where they will play Slovakia on Monday. Equally mediocre Paraguay has a date with surprising Japan on Tuesday. I am unaware of any prior match-ups between these four non-rivals, so expect to see at least ninety minutes of soccer, with varying amounts of inspiration.