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.

Before anyone starts weeping over the pending demise of Christopher Hitchens, here's an obit he wrote about Bob Hope several years ago, and another one about former Secretary of State Alexander Haig. There's too much unkindness here for anyone not to believe that, if she does indeed exist, God is Good. A sample:

To be paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny is not a particular defect or shortcoming in, say, a cable repair man or a Supreme Court justice or a Navy Seal. These jobs can be performed humorlessly with no loss of efficiency or impact. But to be paralyzingly, painfully, hopelessly unfunny is a serious drawback, even lapse, in a comedian. And the late Bob Hope devoted a fantastically successful and well-remunerated lifetime to showing that a truly unfunny man can make it as a comic. There is a laugh here, but it is on us.

More instances of his execrable talent at taking a dump on the recently-deceased can be found here (apparently, it is a talent shared with other libertarians and right wing nut jobs). With the touch of a bully, Hitchens never wept for the people killed in the wars he cheared on, so pardon me if I don't shed a tear now for the self-proclaimed "contrarian."

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.

Paraguay 0, New Zealand 0 // Slovakia 3, Italy 2: And the fans celebrate...actually, the Azurri may have good reason to gripe, losng two goals off of a marginal offsides call as well as a ball defended behind the goal line. Comparisons with Les Bleus are inevitable, although even the Frence can take solace from the fact that they played in a relatively tough group, while Italy was in the weakest. The All Whites represented in their game, but needed to win this one, and Paraguay was in command throughout the game.

Germany 1, Ghana 0 // Australia 2, Serbia 1: Missed these games too. Will have some great pics of the Great White North soon...it does seem that Ghana and Germany, of all countries, had the first-ever match-up in the Cup between two brothers, Jerome and Kevin-Prince Boateng. The Aussies have to be kicking themselves for not putting up a better effort in their first game with Germany.

Nice set of second round match-ups coming at the end of the week. The US team got screwed last time against Ghana, who will be rolling into the match having backed into this stage with a draw and a loss. And of course, England and Germany are the Red Sox and Yankees of the sport.

England 1, Slovenia 0 // U.S.A 0, Algeria 0: Can someone tell me if anything happened in these games? I'm on a coach and rail tour today into the Yukon…no, seriously. Hugely important games, and I'm in Skagway, a tiny Alaskan community that doesn't have WiFi. I suspect the Americans had a close one again.

Uruguay 1, Mexico 0 // South Africa 2, France 1: Although there was a brief scare for the Tricolores, both Uruguay and Mexico live to play another day, with the South Americans winning the group. As a result of the loss, Mexico gets to play these guys in the second round.


In the other game, the Bafana Bafana salvage some national glory, winning only their second game in nine previous attempts in the World Cup, but fell three goals short of the Mexicans in spite of getting to play with a man-advantage for most of the game.

Stay classy, Les Bleus....

Spain 2, Honduras 0: Another one-sided affair, although the world's number one-ranked team failed to convert their dominance into something as gaudy as goalscoring. David Villa scored once in each half, then missed a penalty kick that would have given him a hat trick. All in all, a bad day on the pitch for dictatorships….

Half the games of have been played, and we're now at the stage where every game means something. The third set of games commences tomorrow, and here's what's in store:

Group A: Uruguay and Mexico play for the group title, with the winner avoiding Argentina in thesecond round (Uruguay would get the nod in the event of a draw, due to goal differential). The loser is also likely to advance, but it might sweat a little hoping the other game is close. France and South Africa will be eliminated if they draw, or if the winner fails to overcome the 4-6 goal differential with the loser in the other game. If the hosts are eliminated, it would be the first time the home country has not advance out of its group. If the French fail to advance, it would not be the first time a collection of assholes similarly fails.

Group B: Argentina has got this one in the bag, even if it loses to Greece. South Korea and Nigeria play for what will likely be the second spot, unless Greece shocks the world and avoids defeat against Argentina. It's hard to believe Nigeria can stink up the field in its first two games and still finagle a spot by winning tomorrow.
GROUP C: All four teams pretty much have their fate in their feet. Only Algeria needs some help; it must beat the USA, and hope either that Slovenia doesn't lose, or that it wins by two or more goals. Everyone else just needs a win; Slovenia will also advance with a tie. Something for Americans to dwell on: Team USA has played at least three games in six previous World Cups, and has lost all six times in its third game.
GROUP D: Amazingly, Germany could be going home early, should it lose to Ghana and Serbia beats or ties the Socceroos. Serbia needs a win, or a high-scoring draw combined with a loss by the Black Stars. The Aussies could actually advance, but it would require them to rout Serbia and the Germans to beat Ghana.
GROUP E: Holland has already advanced, and will win the group barring a collapse in its final group match against Cameroon, one of two teams already assured of elimination. Denmark needs to beat the Japanese to advance, otherwise they can watch Japan play in the second round next week.
GROUP F: There are multiple scenarios here, but the most interesting one by far is that New Zealand will advance if they beat Paraguay. WTF ?!? Like Group C, all four teams control their own destiny, with Slovakia in the role of Algeria in clinching a spot with a 2+ margin of victory.
GROUP G: Brazil has qualified for the second round, and will win the group title if it wins or ties its former colonial master, Portugal. Ivory Coast can qualify for the second round, if Portugal loses and it can edge already-bounced North Korea by a score of 8-0.
GROUP H: Chile will probably be the first team since the Algerians in 1982 to win two group games and not advance, since it plays Spain next, while the team they beat today, plays hapless Honduras. 1-0 results in favor of the Swiss and the Spanish will give the Spanish the group, while Chile and Switzerland draw lots to determine the runner-up (actually, it's more likely an NBA draft lottery, but you get the picture). And again, Honduras, with two losses, can advance with a two-goal win and a loss by Spain.

Chile 1, Switzerland 0: Winning be contagious; after not having a positive result in nearly fifty years (when they hosted the Cup, so that doesn't really count), Chile now has back-to-back wins. Ironically, having had the worst record of any team ever to make it out of group play back in 1998 (3 games, 3 draws, 3 points), it may now be the first team since 1982 to win two games in group and not make it out, should it lose its final game on Friday with Spain.

Portugal 7, North Korea 0: I don't do 7-0 routs, especially when the losers are all going to disappear in less than a week.

Brazil 3, Ivory Coast 1: I understand this was a disappointing game for the Ivorians, but since I am on a cruise ship that didn't pick up ABC's feed, I played bingo instead. ESPN seems to believe the game was a feast for afficianados of bad coaching, with the winner losing its best player to a red card with the game well in end, and the loser getting the benefits of the technical banality of the gimlet-eyed lothario from Sweden. But my testimony as to any of this has to be considered inadmissible as double hearsay.

New Zealand 1, Italy 1: In perhaps the most lopsided, one-sided game of the tournament so far, a shocking result. Both goals were tainted by botched decisions by the officiating; the All-White / Kiwis scored off an offsides call that wasn't made, Italy evened on perhaps the worst dive since Lewiston, Maine, and fans thereafter were treated to a game that could have easily ended in a six or seven-goal rout. The defending champs had a 15-0 edge in corner kicks, a 23-3 advantage in shots, and controlled the ball for about 75% of the game, but couldn't get a winner, and so will have to beat Slovakia to advance to the second round.

After the game, there was a discussion as to where the game ranked on the list of the greatest upsets in history: was it bigger than the US over England (1950), or North Korea over Italy (1966), or Cameroon over Argentina in the 1990 opener? Here's a tip: today's game was not one of the biggest upsets ever, because it wasn't an upset. New Zealand didn't beat Italy. They tied. Soccer is a sport where ties frequently happen, and in the World Cup, which has a higher degree of parity than league play, it scarcely raises an eyebrow even in this case. Italy tying against a noticeably weaker opponent in first round World Cup play is a dog-bites-man story. If New Zealand makes it to the second round, then wake me up.

Paraguay 2, Slovakia 0: Yes, you read that correctly. Paraguay beat Slovakia.

An even more entertaining spectacle than Las Albirrojas defeating the poor man's Czech Republic is the utter collapse of the French National team in the run-up to their final group game. By all accounts, the French head coach, Raymond Domenech, is nuts: there is no other way to describe a coach who admits to using astrology to determine line-ups and who is the subject of a hit song, "Je Kiffe Raymond" performed by a 51-year old former porn star, Catherine Ringer. After France's previous soccer debacle, after their quick elimination from Euro 2008, he used the post-match press conference to ask his lover to marry him, a troubling sign even for a nation that reveres Jerry Lewis as a comedic genius and the late Serge Gainsbourgh as a "poet."

So Domenech was on his way out after the tournament, no matter how well the team played, and perhaps the bitterness targetted from his team was inevitable. But the way these events have played out over the last four days is remarkable. Last Thursday morning, France entered the day in what was arguably the strongest position in its group, having shut down an impressive Uruguayan team in its opener. It then proceeded to shut down Mexico for most of its second game, only to have the Tricolores score on a bad call by the linesmen. Moments later, having to throw everyone forward in an effort to draw even, they draw a penalty, which the Mexicans converted into an insurance goal.

Even now, their chances of advancing are not out of the question; they only need to win, have either Uruguay or Mexico beat each other, and for both games to have combined margins equalling five goals (in comparison, at last years Confed Cup, the US advanced in the same situation in spite of having a six-goal margin to overcome, and with the team they had to surpass being Italy). The meltdown of the team is more connected to the lack of character among the players than the fact that their coach is a moron, especially when you remember that Nicolas Anelka's initial outburst occurred at halftime of the Mexico game, before the second half collapse. If I was the director of a major club, I would have a very difficult time allowing Anelka, another opportunity to poison the clubhouse; in fact, anyone on this team should be presumed guilty.

Denmark 2, Cameroon 1: An African team finally played a wide-open and exciting brand of soccer, and for its reward gets tossed from the World Cup. Unlike their opening performances, both teams played positive and attacking soccer, with the Danes becoming the first side to gain a come-from-behind win. Samuel Eto'o scored early, and the Indomitable Lions had more chances, but their inability to contain Dennis Rommedahl cost them dearly, and Rommedahl drove the final nail into their collective crotch with a goal less than a half-hour from the finish. By winning, the Danes also enable Holland to become the first team to clinch a spot in the second round.

Australia 1, Ghana 1: Almost as if FIFA was disappointed that a photograph materialized showing that the ref made the technically correct in the waning minutes of the USA-Slovenia game, so it decided that this game would set the bar even lower. Harry Kewell, the one remaining world class player among the Soccerroos, received a red card following a clearly-accidental hand ball in the goal area, with his team up by a goal in the first half. Ghana converted the ensuing penalty kick, played a defensive and thoroughly gutless remainder of the game with the man-advantage, and moved a step closer to becoming the second African team to evade first round death.

Holland 1, Japan 0: Another dull, unimpressive win by the Dutch over a surprising Japanese team. The Netherlands are rapidly approaching the same pattern which afflicted Uruguay forty years ago. There's no doubt they have talented, albeit overrated, stars, but watching them play in the last two World Cups has been very painful for soccer fans who grew up in the '70's, and like Uruguay starting in the mid-60's, they seem content to play for 1-0 and 0-0 results. DON'T DO IT !!! DOWN THAT PATH MADNESS LIES !!!!

England 0, Algeria 0: Are you shitting me? Is Tony Hayward also in charge of this?

The Vic & Paul Show: I saw Game 7 last night at a lounge in Woodland Hills called Push, a small, cozy setting usually ideal for those who want to watch a game, but only one game. No sports bar, however, since Push was simultaneously hosting a cabaret show in the adjoining room, forcing the patrons to temper our enthusiasm in the second half. Midway through the third quarter, with the Lakers having cut the big Celtics lead to single digits, I turned to my right and suddenly realized that I was sitting in front of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who was apparently there for the show.

Hopefully, anyone who saw last night's nailbiting finish to Game 7 of the Lakers-Celtics series will now realize that a tight, low-scoring, defensive struggle can also be thrilling.

Slovenia 2, U.S.A. 2: Just about every reaction to the result today blames the Malian referree for stealing a win richly deserved for the Americans. Rallying from a two-goal deficit to tie an opponent noted for its defensive savvy, then having what appeared to be the winning goal taken away with less than five minutes to play for what appeared to be a phantom foul seems a bitter pill to swallow. But there are two things to remember about today's officiating.

First, there were no fewer than four Slovenian players who received a yellow card today, as opposed to only one American. That is an unusually high total, and even if we exclude the red card not given for a rather blatant trip in the second half near the penalty area, the Slovenians can not be happy about how that it impacts their future in the tournament. Second, Clint Dempsey could easily have been sent off in the first minute of the game for a rather vicious elbow to the head, a play not dissimilar to the one that got de Rossi a red card and four-game suspension in the middle of the last World Cup (interestingly, against the U.S.A.). So lets not hear any whining from Americans tonight.

Serbia 1, Germany 0: An upset only to those who assumed the former Yugoslavia would play down to its underachieving reputation. Germany uncharacteristically played stupid soccer, receiving its first red card, in any competition, since the 1992 Euros, and missed a regulation penalty kick for the first time since the 1974 World Cup.

In what may be classified in the realm of totally useless info, the Serbian goal was set up by a play set up by their star, Nicola Zigic, who happens to share the same surname as one of the Serbian war-criminal villains from Prime Suspect 6, whose name my blogmuse, Phoebe Nicholls, with brilliant condescension, performs the best deliberate mispronounciation this side of GD Spradling in Godfather II (starts about 1:40 into the video).

Mexico 2, France 0: Stick a fork in 'em.

Greece 2, Nigeria 1: It may surprise people, but it was only about ten years ago that a lot of people thought that the Nigerians were on the verge of being the next great soccer power. They got out of their first round group pretty easily in 1994 and 1998, and won the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. The last time they made the Cup, in 2002, they were placed in the Group of the Church Triumphant, as my last paternal grandmother would have said, and they were eliminated only after two one-goal losses to Sweden and Argentina. Even in defeat, they could ball.

Now they can't even beat Greece, which until today had never scored in a World Cup Game, much less given anyone a challenge. In all fairness, they were ahead after the Greeks conceded what will likely be the longest goal of the tournament, a rather innocuous-looking free kick by Kalu Uche that no one bothered to pick up, and seemed dominant until one of the dumbest ejections this side of Rasheed Wallace. Long live Sokratis Papastathopoulos !!

And believe it or not, Nigeria still has a decent chance of advancing to the next round. After the athletic fart the South Koreans cut today, there is no reason the Super Eagles can't win their final first round game next Tuesday, nor is there any reason to believe the Greeks can beat or tie the Argentinians. Should both of those events happen, Nigeria is through, in spite of its back-to-back losses.

Argentina 4, South Korea 1: First hat trick of the tourney goes to Gonzalo Higuain of Argentina in a one-sided affair (the Koreans only goal came on a breakaway against a napping defense on the final second of the first half). The strategy of tightly marking star Lionel Messi appears to have the same effect that double-teaming Kobe or Rondo has; it just means someone else is going to be open, which in this case is Higuain. It should be noted that Argentina was also the most impressive team after two games in 2006....

Uruguay 3, South Africa 0: Finally, someone came up with a way to shut up the vuvuzela. Thanks to the two goals of Diego Forlan, Uruguay breezed over the hosts, and effectively knocked them out of their own tournament. In addition, the victory was only Uruguay's second in the last 18 games for the two-time World Cup champions, going back to 1970, and the three goals scored is only the second time in the past fifty years that they have scored more than two goals in a World Cup game, a stretch in which they have been shut out fourteen times and held to one goal on ten other occasions. Your long national nightmare is over.

Going back to my earlier post, another way in which Jon Chait misses the point is by dismissing the relatively high ratings (when compared with events like the NBA Finals, for example) of the World Cup by asserting that such is irrelevant, because the tourney is a big event and thus not representative of the sport as a whole. The obvious problem with that has to do with the nature of how people follow sports: sports fans do not "follow" sports, they follow teams (or specific athletes) and/or watch events.

For example, football is, by any objective standard, America's National Pastime, but few of us will go out of our way to watch someone else's high school play on TV, or Tivo a broadcast of last year's NAIA playoffs. Its success stems from its short season, meaning that it can package each game as being important, an "event," making it easier for casual fans to partake, as well as its relative simplicity; compared with other team sports, there are fewer actions occurring during the course of the game(there are rarely more than 150 plays per game for both teams, few of which are anything more than "QB passes/hands ball off to teammate"). That, and the constant stoppages in play, allow the casual fan to more easily digest the game. It's that feature which allows someone to walk into a sports bar on any Saturday or Sunday, and comfortably watch four or five games at once, even if he has no rooting interest.

Soccer, like sports which demand a higher degree of audience attention, like basketball and hockey, can't accomplish that. In order to generate fan interest, these sports have to get the audience involved in the spectacle itself, whether it be the NCAA or NBA Finals, Lord Stanley's Cup, or the tournament we're watching now. Uniquely, football can package every game as an "event" to entice fans; other sports have to be more particular.

So the fact that sports other than football are able to entice fans during events like the NBA Finals, the World Cup or the Olympics matters a great deal. Such events are how most people in the real world "follow" sports.

Switzerland 1, Spain 0: A shocker. After dominating the first half, the world's number one team showed why it may be considered the Cleveland Cavaliers of the Beautiful Game by conceding a goal off a counterattack, which the Swiss performed frequently to perfection in the second half. The final minutes were back-and-forth madness, with the Spanish unlucky not to tie at the end.

In spite of the game, this has been a very disappointing World Cup, at least in terms of the activity on the field. Much of what has passed for offense has been truly wretched, with scoring down more than a third (35.9%, to be exact) from 2oo2, which was itself a near-record low. The thirty-two entrants managed to combine for 25 goals, and 11 of the 16 games were shut-outs; in fact, only one losing team (North Korea) has managed a goal. It will be interesting to see what sort of blame the new ball will receive, especially since many of the shots and crosses have been almost laughably out of control.

Chile 1, Honduras 0: Another freezing day saw Chile end a winless WC streak going back 48 years. The Chileans should have had many more goals against a Honduran team that was just happy to be there, no doubt almost as relieved as the North Koreans yesterday to be out of their national hellhole. Hopefully, soccer fans will be spared the efforts of the Honduran military to reverse the results.

During every World Cup there is always an attempt by a certain element within America to disparage the sport that we Yanks call "soccer," brilliantly parodied here by Stephen Colbert. Such eminents as Frank Deford, Jim Rome, and Glenn Beck have taken up the cudgel, usually with the aim of proving American Supremacy from the fact that soccer does not have the mass popularity here that it has in most of the world. Seat-of-the-pants sociology and outright xenophobia intermingle in their arguments, which have become less attached to reality over the years. It's one thing to make the argument in 1990, when there was no domestic league in America and the World Cup was broadcast on TNT, a cable station offered by few outlets at the time, and quite another to make it today.

Over at the New Republic, Jon Chait has attempted to resurrect this tradition. This post includes some of the hoarier chestnuts of this tradition:

Again, I don't really care if soccer becomes a major sport in the U.S. But it is not a major sport in the U.S., nor is it remotely close to becoming one. Bergmann cites two data points to suggest that soccer is a runaway cultural juggernaut. The first is that the World Cup has drawn higher television ratings. This is true. But keep in mind that the World Cup is a quadrennial event that creates massive international hype. Americans love international competition. When the Olympics comes on, we'll watch sports we'd otherwise never dream of following for the chance to cheer our country on against foreigners. U-S-A! U-S-A! Yet the U.S.-England match still drew less than any NBA Finals game. (Check SportsMediaWatch.) It drew less than NFL pregame shows, let alone actual NFL football. This is not a good showing.

The second data point is that millions of American kids play soccer. This is true. It has been true since the 1970s, which is when the claims that soccer is the sport of the future began. Soccer is a great sport for kids -- young kids don't have the hand-eye coordination to play baseball, basketball or football, but they have enough foot-eye coordination to play soccer. When I was a kid, my friends and I all played in soccer leagues for years. Then we got older and starting playing other sports. Even the kids who continued playing soccer mostly became fans of other sports. I realize that soccer can be played by skilled athletes at a high level. In this country, it is primarily a children's game.

The argument that soccer is not a "major sport" in the United States may or may not be true; since the term "major sport" isn't defined by Chait, it's hard to tell what he means. It clearly is not as popular a TV or spectator sport as American football, and it clearly is a much bigger sport, both in terms of spectator attention and fan interest, than tennis. But no screeds were ever generated ridiculing that sport as "minor," nor have there been any attempts to show that American disinterest in the recently-concluded French Open is evidence of American Superiority over the swarthy masses overseas.

But more ridiculous is Chait's request to "check" the SportsMediaWatch blog to compare the ratings for soccer and other "major" sports, focusing specifically on the US-England game and the NBA Finals. Ridiculous, I say, because if you do so, you find that this supposedly trivial, minor pimple on the American sports scene attracted higher, not lower, ratings than the first four games of the NBA Finals. And it's not just any NBA Finals, sir: try Lakers and Celtics, the two most hated-loved teams in the country, which, unlike the World Cup, is playing on prime time TV, when the audience isn't at the office or the beach.

Chait's glaring miscue on the rating's issue probably stemmed from his ignoring of the high ratings that the game Saturday also received on Univision, the Spanish-language station, which may arise from a much more insidious problem: the view that Latinos (as well as other soccer-loving ethnic groups) are somehow less equal than the white fans. Chait himself gives the game away, here:

The cultural backlash against soccer may get nutty at times, but soccer triumphalists bring it with with displays of smugness like this, from The Nation's Dave Zirin:

Among adults, the sport is also growing because people from Latin America, Africa and the West Indies have brought their love of the beautiful game to an increasingly multicultural United States. As sports journalist Simon Kuper wrote very adroitly in his book Soccer Against the Enemy, “When we say Americans don’t play soccer we are thinking of the big white people who live in the suburbs. Tens of millions of Hispanic Americans [and other nationalities] do play, and watch and read about soccer.” In other words, Beck rejects soccer because his idealized “real America”—in all its monochromatic glory—rejects it as well.

This sentiment actually mirrors the right-wing's efforts to divide the country into "real America" and the unrepresentative coastal elites. People who don't like soccer don't really count because they're white, fat and live in the suburbs. It also fails on its own terms, because of course African-Americans are also loyal to football and basketball. But attacking black people for being too fat and unsophisticated to appreciate soccer doesn't have the same P.C. zing, does it?

One would hope that Chait is not as disingenous when writing about important subjects, like politics and foreign policy, since Zirin doesn't come close to saying that. Any fair reading of what Zirin does say is that those who pretend that soccer has little if any popularity in the U.S. are deliberately ignoring the demographic changes in America that have made such assumptions about the sport false. It is hardly an "ugly" sentiment, as the title of Chait's post implies, to observe that America is not as white a country as it used to be, or that assuming that America has "rejected" soccer because white conservatives from the heartland don't like it has a strong element of racial myopia to it.

In fact, the more important demographic shift involved may not be racial or ethnic, but generational; the reason why soccer-bashing may seem more passe nowadays it that its practitioners are slowly dying out. The fanbase for the sport isn't middle-aged pundits like Chait (or Glenn Beck and Jim Rome, for that matter), but people between the ages of 21 and 35, the generation that went to the polls in 2008 and elected Barack Obama President. For them, soccer isn't simply a kids sport; it's a normal part of their lives, like basketball and football (baseball, the former National Pastime, is a distant fourth). Complaints about low-scoring games and being able to only use one's feet are about as relevant to them as arguments about busing and the gold standard. At a time when ratings for most sporting events are going down from year to year, the World Cup's ratings consistently rise, which is, itself, the clinching argument.

Brazil 2, North Korea 1: In one of the coldest games in World Cup history, tournament favorites Brazil shook off a scoreless first half to barely defeat the crazier half of the Axis of Evil. With a wind-chill factor below freezing in Johannesburg (it's wintertime down there), defender Maicon hit a shot from an impossible angle to put his team ahead shortly before the hour:



After a second Brazilian goal fifteen minutes later, North Korean left back Ji Yun-Nam shocked the crowd by putting his team on the scoreboard with three minutes left, an undeserved result considering how Brazil controlled the ball for an astonishing three-quarters of the game. A fun game to watch, if not a great game.

Annie Liebowitz, the Thomas Kinkade of photography, hops on the World Cup bandwagon, complete with the same cheesy music and half-clad subjects you get in an SI swimsuit video.

Ivory Coast 0, Portugal 0: Two evenly-matched teams played conservatively and got a result which satisfied both teams, but no one else. Cristiano Ronaldo seems to have an ungodly gift at being able to almost-but-not-quite score whenever he plays for his national side, and his booming shot off the goalpost in the first minutes of the game was the closest either team came to scoring. The Ivory Coast had the better team, FWIW, and the return of Didier Drogba in the second half (he had to wear a cast for his broken arm) may be a sign of good things to come. Finally, an African soccer team that doesn't underachieve in the World Cup !!

Lastly, when the non-English speaking peoples of the world start referring to my native land as the "United States of America", and not "L'Etats Unis" or "Estados Unidos" or whatever, I will start to refer to this team as "Cote d'Ivoire."

New Zealand 1, Slovakia 1: An underconfident Slovakian team couldn't blow out the least-respected team in the World Cup, and paid for it at the end. Robert Vittek scored five minutes into the second half for the country known mainly for its ice hockey team, making its first appearance in the tourney since the Velvet Divorce. The All Whites rarely threatened*, and seemed content to walk off the field with a closer-than-expected defeat, until Winston Reid headed in a cross in the final minute of injury time. Thanks to the two ties in Group F, both teams will have a mathematical chance to advance no matter what happens in their next game, when I will be on a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska and not have to care what happens.

*Or so I assume. Starting at 4:30 a.m. in Los Angeles, this was a classic TiVo 3x Special, and, much like the whole Palestine v. Israel dispute, this was a fight in which I had no dog. Since the more important game was on right after, I followed my policy of zipping through the action, stopping only to see what the goal celebrations honored, and watching only the final minute+ at normal speed. I think I can safely say that I didn't miss a thing.

Paraguay 1, Italy 1: An inauspicious start for the defending champs. Falling behind on a shock goal late in the first half, the Azzurri overcame a driving rain and sluggish defending to tie on yet another goalkeeping blunder, this time by Justo Villar, whose feeble efforts to corral a corner kick in the 63rd minute seemed more reminiscent of Lamar Odom trying to snag an offensive rebound in the NBA Finals. Since Italy managed to win World Cups in spite of drawing with such powers as Peru and Cameroon (1982), and the USA (2006), and even reached the Finals in years in which it suffered ties against Mexico (1994) and Israel (1970), all is not lost yet.

Paraguay's goal today came at the head of one Antolin Alcaraz, a journeyman who has spent most of his career trolling from team to team, but who has now signed a contract to play with Wigan Athletic in the Premier League. For the handful of Americans who don't religiously follow English soccer, Wigan is essentially soccer's version of the Oakland A's, a squad representing a relatively small market without sufficient financial resources to compete with the Big Boys (in this case, The Four, ie., United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool), and which has the lowest attendance in the league, but which has nevertheless managed to survive by plying its own form of Moneyball.

The undervalued talent that Wigan typically pursues is exemplified in players like Alcaraz; while Wigan's competitors pursue Brazilian, Dutch and Italian galacticos, Wigan prefers unknown players from Ecuador, Honduras, Ghana, and Egypt. And like their American counterpart, Wigan is quite good at talent-spotting, so much so that a good deal of their profit comes out of the re-sale of their more astute acquisitions, like Man U star Antonio Valencia. Of course, like the A's, Wigan isn't going to win any titles anytime soon, but their implausible stay in the world's top league for the past five seasons is reason to believe that some management principles are universal.

Japan 1, Cameroon 0: First upset of the WC. Late first-half goal by Japanese star Keisuke Honda, who may or may not be related to a friend of mine from Berkeley, and his team withstood heavy Indomitable Lion pressure in the second half to pick up their first "real" victory in their tiny nation's history (home wins don't count).

Efforts to ban the vuvuzela, the horn that has become ubiquitous with the 2010 World Cup, have proven to be of no avail. With a pleasing sound reminiscent of a massive swarm of bees that has just been sprayed with DDT, the vuvuzela is "ingrained in the history of South Africa," I suppose much like half-empty stadia, so FIFA will not deprive visiting fans, players and the billions watching on TV the pleasure of its sweet intoxicating sound. Yippee !!!

DutchLand 2, Great Danes 0: That is, Holland over Denmark. The Danes played defensively, seeking to shut down their much more talented opponents, struck first, less than a minute into the second half; unfortunately, it was into their own net, and things went downhill from there. First own goal of the Tournament.

Germany 4, Australia 0: Don't know if this means anything, but of the four goalscorers for Germany, three were born and raised in other countries. European teams are looking more and more like the US national soccer team used to look: foreign mercenaries who wear the national colors largely because it's where they started playing club soccer.

As far as the game is concerned, the Germans scored early, and coasted, while the Socceroos showed little sign it's going anywhere this time around, especially after its best player, Tim Cahill, got red-carded, which will keep him out of the remaining first round games. Germany often plays its best game in the opener, as it did in 1958, 1966, 1990, and 2002, and any signs that it has faded were not apparent today.

Ghana 1, Serbia 0: A continent celebrates. Unlike Nigeria yesterday or Algeria today, the Ghanians actually seem like they knew something about basic tactics, and had something up their sleeve other than relying on a hot goalie. Asamoah Gyan was the star of the Black Stars, nailing a penalty kick with ten minutes to go, and could have had a hat trick were it not for the Goalie's Best Friend on two other occasions. The winning goal was set up another boneheaded hand ball by the Serbians, who are sporting different national colors this time but playing their same traditional disappointing soccer. The first important result of the World Cup.

Slovenia 1, Algeria 0: In a result that is much more beneficial to the U.S. of A. than it is to England, the least-populous nation in the tournament stole a win against a team of French mercenaries disguised as the Arab World's only representatives. With a win or tie on Friday, the Americans will almost certainly clinch advancement should they beat the Algerians the following week, who will probably be mathematically eliminated by then. Highlights today include another classic screw-up by a goalie on the Slovene's only goal, and perhaps the dumbest hand-ball / red card in Cup history. A TiVo classic.

UPDATE: In light of the gathering consensus that Slovenia's win was actually a bad think for US chances, and/or the notion that America faces a must-win situation Friday, let me explain. Today's win puts Slovenia two points ahead of both England and the US, with Algeria holding up the rear. If the US ties Slovenia Friday, it would remain two points ahead of the US, and at the worst, tied with England, which plays Algeria later the same day.

However, in that scenario, the prognosis definitely favors the US. Our final game is against Algeria, which will likely have been eliminated by that point. A win over Algeria will give the US five points overall, thus requiring either Slovenia (or England) to win their last game against each other to stay ahead. Were that to happen, the US would finish ahead of the loser of that game, and would advance.

But even if England and Slovenia were to draw, creating a three-way tie for first, the US would still advance on the tie-breaker were they to defeat Algeria by more than one goal (on goal differential) or if they were to outscore Slovenia in winning by a goal (on goals scored). So the combination of a draw with Slovenia and a win over Algeria will, more likely that not, get the US into the next round. Since Algeria is likely going to be playing only for pride at that point, with the coach clearing his bench to give his back-ups some World Cup experience, the US' chances would remain good.

On the other hand, if Slovenia and Algeria had finished tied today, even at 0-0, Algeria would still be playing for advancement next week against the US, no matter how badly it does with England on Friday. With something to play for, they would give the US a much tougher battle; a draw, in fact, would be much more likely than it would be if they were simply playing out the string. Slovenia, on the other hand, would still be even with the US going into its final game (assuming that they tie the US), and would still have a good chance of advancing should it win or tie England.

So the result today does not mean the US needs to beat Slovenia Friday, or significantly reduce their chances of advancing. Got that?

U.S.A. 1, B.P. 1: I assume most of the readership here has seen this game, so there's no need to go into the details of yesterday's American win. When the back-up English goalie is known as David "Calamity" James, one can't really be surprised that their starter would play a largely negative role in games such as this. A dramatic reenactment of the Clint Dempsey goal is shown here:



For some classic schadenfreude, a better video may be this, involving an English blowhard predicting an English "ass-kicking" to avenge, believe it or not, the horrible way President Obama has treated the poor benighted souls at British Petroleum (starting at about two minutes in):

Argentina 1, Nigeria 0: Against a talented but often clueless African representative, Argentina scored early on an unmarked header off a corner kick, then lucked into some of the lamest shooting in Cup history by Nigeria before cruising to victory. For all the talk about this being an "African World Cup", one can really have no conclusion other than that the continent is reverting back to the tradition of the 1974 Zaire squad, which was famous for being unfamiliar with the concept of setting up a defensive wall on free kicks and was outscored, 0-14 in three games.

South Korea 2, Greece 0: Koreans impressive, Greeks lame as always, in the first TiVo match of the tourney. Soccer is a sport uniquely suited for digital video recording, since it has long spells where nothing of consequence happens, so an entire game can be digested by the casual fan in fifteen minutes or less, and this game, which started at 4:30 a.m. on the Pacific Coast, was no exception.

The ROK scored in the fourth minute, and were never threatened. The Greeks have now played 360 minutes of World Cup action since 1994 without scoring a goal; the record is 517 minutes, by the hapless Bolivians over a period of three World Cups spanning sixty-four years.

France 0, Uruguay 0: Both the expected (a Uruguayan player was ejected for a thuggish play) and unexpected (Thierry Henry didn't cheat, which may explain why the game ended scoreless). All four teams in Group A tied today, which means all four will be mathematically alive on going into the third game of the round robin, no matter what happens in the second game. Yipppeeee !!

Mexico 1, South Africa 1: And so it begins. The Bafana Bafana narrowly avoid being the first host country to lose its World Cup opener, holding Our Neighbors to the South to a draw, causing great joy in South Africa and great consternation among teabaggers in Arizona. In fact, it was the Tricolores who needed to rally late, tying the game on a goal by Rafael Marquez in the final twelve minutes to earn the point.

Even more annoying than the non-stop blare of the air horns, which threaten to drive down interest in the sport to near-American levels in the rest of the world, is this year's set of announcers on ESPN. It has become a tradition among soccer snobs on the East Coast to make sport of whichever converted baseball announcer is doing the games for that network, that it became easy to forget that England is not just the birthplace of soccer, but also crappy sports announcing as well.

This year, Americans are treated to someone named Martin Tyler, a Chris Schenkel-esque bore who may have done more to reinforce the stereotype for Americans of soccer being a deadly-dull sport than anyone this side of Juventus. It took only forty minutes of listening to this clown and his announcing partner for me to switch over to Univision, where I can at least have the pleasure of listening to people who act like they enjoy what they're doing, even if I can't understand a word of Spanish. The low point for ESPN occurred when Mr. Tyler and his sidekick attacked a linesman for disallowing a goal, apparently not realizing that the rule in the sport requires that there be two defenders (one of whom may be the goalie) between the recipient of the ball and the goal line. Bring back Dave O'Brien !!!

It should be a fun four weeks....

With the World Cup starting in four days, it's time for what has become a quadrennial tradition at Smythe's World: the breakdown of the entrants by what team they would be in the NCAA Tournament. So hear goes with the first draft:

Algeria -- Southern Conf. champion
Argentina -- Michigan St.
Australia -- Siena
Brazil -- Kentucky

Cameroon -- Pac-10 runner-up
Chile -- Baylor
Denmark -- Gonzaga
England -- Kansas

France -- Louisville
Germany -- North Carolina
Ghana -- Michigan
Greece -- Temple

Honduras -- MEAC champion
Italy -- Duke
Ivory Coast -- Washington
Japan -- Big Sky champion

Mexico -- Purdue
Netherlands -- Connecticut
New Zealand -- Play-in winner
Nigeria -- California

North Korea -- SWAC champion
Paraguay -- Mississippi St.
Portugal -- Villanova
Serbia -- Illinois

Slovakia -- Arizona St.
Slovenia -- Colonial Conf. champion
South Africa -- Big South champion
South Korea -- Ivy League champion

Spain -- UCLA
Switzerland -- Oklahoma St.
United States -- Missouri Valley Conf. champion
Uruguay -- Texas A&M

Leave any questions, challenges, tips, etc. in the comments section....

Obama and the White Sox: This is over a month old, so perhaps I should have blogged about it earlier, but insofar as Reason Mag decided this morning to interupt its usual defense of white, pot-smoking, gun-packing militiamen with a repeat of this canard, I had to respond.



As you can tell from the interview, presented here in its entirety, Obama states that he became a White Sox fan when he moved to the South Side of Chicago (in the early 90's), and is then asked a question by Rob Dibble as to who his favorite White Sox player when he was growing up. He answers the question by stating that his favorite team when he was growing up in Hawaii was the Oakland A's. He doesn't hem, haw, stutter, come up with some bogus answer about how he loved all the Chisox who ever played going back to Dummy Hoy; he plainly says that he wasn't a fan of the Pale Hose back then, implicitly communicating the fact that he didn't have a favorite. And that was the complete interview.

Like the President, I also didn't have a favorite White Sox player growing up, but I was a baseball fan. Since we're contemporaries, I can safely say that the Sox during that period didn't really capture the public imagination. They never made the playoffs, and other than Dick Allen and Wilbur Wood, they didn't have anyone who would have been a household name to a typical baseball fan, much less someone living in Hawaii whose only exposure to baseball was the Saturday and Monday Games of the Week and the post-season. If Obama had told Dibble that his favorite player was Bill Melton or Stan Bahnsen, that would have been clear evidence that he was bs-ing. The answer he gave was the only correct one a true baseball fan could give.

An oldie but a goodie: If my blog will be remembered for anything, it will be for accurately predicting the collapse of the real estate market back in 2005, and the role that the passage of the 2005 Bankruptcy "reform" act (or BARF, as it has come to be known) in exacerbating the crisis. How badly the GOP-enacted law screwed things up, however, can best be seen in a more scholarly paper recently published by UC Davis, and co-written by Wenli Li, Economic Advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia. The conclusion:

Before 2005 bankruptcy reform, homeowners in financial distress could use bankruptcy to help save their homes. Homeowners could have their unsecured debts discharged in Chapter 7, thus freeing up funds to make their mortgage payments. Homeowners who were in default on their mortgages could stop foreclosure by filing under Chapter 13 and could use Chapter 13 repayment plans to repay their mortgage arrears over several years. Most homeowners who filed for bankruptcy were not obliged to repay anything to their unsecured creditors.

But the 2005 bankruptcy reform made filing for bankruptcy less useful as a save-your-home procedure. Debtors’ cost of filing increased sharply after the reform. Also the homestead exemption in bankruptcy was capped at $125,000, thus making it impossible for homeowners with high home equity to keep their homes in bankruptcy. A new “means test” increased higher-income debtors’ obligation to repay their unsecured debt in bankruptcy.

Because these changes reduced homeowners’ gain from filing for bankruptcy, they reduce default rates on unsecured debt. And because homeowners’ ability-to-pay is fixedin the short-run, these changes are predicted to increase default rates on mortgages. In the paper, we test whether adoption of the 2005 bankruptcy reform led to higher rates of mortgage default. We use a large dataset of prime and subprime mortgages.

Our main result is that bankruptcy reform caused mortgage default rates to rise. Comparing default rates three months before versus after bankruptcy reform, the increase was 36% for prime mortgages and 11% for subprime mortgages. Using a longer period of one year before versus after the reform, the increase was 50% for prime mortgages and 7% for subprime mortgages. Homeowners subject to the cap on the homestead exemption were 50% more likely to default after the reform, regardless of whether their mortgages were prime or subprime. Homeowners with subprime mortgages were 13% more likely to default if they were subject to the new means test, but default rates of those with prime mortgages did not change.

The study uses a lot of complicated mathematics to make its point, but its well worth browsing through if you have the time.

Perhaps a more devastating land mine, however, is something that was hatched by the lending industry, at roughly the same time they created default swaps and high-risk adjustable rate notes. The Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, was invented by Big Banking as a way to cut costs on the production of legal documents, specifically recording deeds. In real property transactions, ownership is usually shown through the public recordation of deeds, which create a chain of title proving that the person who claims to be the owner has a legitimate case, based on a series of orderly transactions dating back to Adam for all to see. At the same time, any party that has a lien on property, whether it be from a mortgage or some other debt, can also record, thereby establishing a priority based on when the lien was recorded.

Of course, recording anything with the county costs money. The almost-entirely unregulated process of lending money to prospective homeowners, the fruits of which we have seen in the insane rise and precipitous fall of the market in the last five years, generated increasingly complicated arrangements by which trusts involving multiple investors financed these high-risk notes, which would then be bought and sold to other investors. A very complicated system, indeed, which was how MERS came to be.

The idea behind MERS was that rather than generating a new document every time a loan was transfered, and thereby having to repeatedly record (and repeatedly pay fees) mortgages, an entity would be created that would take on the role of "holder of the lien" as a "nominee" of the actual note holder. The lender would collect money from the homeowner, but if the borrower ever fell behind, MERS would step in, and initiate the foreclosure process. MERS, however, is never actually the note holder, has no right to collect money on debts, and has no privity of contract whatsover with the parties to the homeloan.

Which is problematic, since MERS does not otherwise have anything resembling a right to participate in foreclosures, and courts are increasingly rejecting their attempts to proceed on the sixty million mortgages to which they "hold title." In Kansas, for example, the state supreme court recently held that MERS had no standing to pursue foreclosures, and courts in that state have effectively given a free pass to homeowners whose loans were originally held in the name of MERS. It's a slip-up that has effectively put the brakes on foreclosures based on loans generated after 2005, since the right by MERS to foreclose can be challenged even after a sale has occurred; even in states where MERS' claim for standing has been upheld, the threat of litigation challenging it's right to foreclose has suddenly made the option of modifying the underlying loan to terms that better suit the borrower more palatable, and certainly better than anything dreamed up by the Obama Administration.

The Best and the Brightest:

During oral argument on a case involving privacy rights and electronic communication devices, some disturbing questions were raised about the street-smarts of the men who run the Supreme Court:

(I)n the case City of Ontario v. Quon, which considers whether police officers had an expectation of privacy in personal (and sexually explicit) text messages sent on pagers issued to them by the city, the justices of the Supreme Court at times seemed to struggle with the technology involved.

The first sign was about midway through the argument, when Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. - who is known to write out his opinions in long hand with pen and paper instead of a computer - asked what the difference was “between email and a pager?”

Other justices’ questions showed that they probably don’t spend a lot of time texting and tweeting away from their iPhones either.

At one point, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked what would happen if a text message was sent to an officer at the same time he was sending one to someone else.

“Does it say: ‘Your call is important to us, and we will get back to you?’” Kennedy asked.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrangled a bit with the idea of a service provider.

“You mean (the text) doesn’t go right to me?” he asked.

Then he asked whether they can be printed out in hard copy.

“Could Quon print these spicy little conversations and send them to his buddies?” Scalia asked.

And no, this is not from an Onion article.

True Fact: The use of the term "flake" to describe an eccentric individual was originally coined by a star baseball player on the 1950's.

The poet laureate of Great Britain has composed a new verse about her nation's fallen hero:

Achilles (for David Beckham)

Myth's river- where his mother dipped him,
fished him, a slippery golden boyflowed on, his name on its lips. Without him,
it was prophesised,
they would not take Troy.

Women hid him,
concealed him in girls' sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs...
but when Odysseus came,

with an athlete's build, a sword and a
shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd's roar,
and it was
sport, not war,

his charmed foot on the ball...

but then his
heel, his heel, his heel.

Unclear whether "Odysseus" in this instance is John Terry or Rio Ferdinand....

The Cleveland Cicero: When your only accomplishments over the dozen or so years you've spent in Congress is to sponsor bills "to make available to the Ukranian Museum and Archives the USIA television program 'Window on America,'" a bill "to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 14500 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio as the 'John P. Gallagher Post Office Building'" and a bill "proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously," you know you're making a difference.  And soon there may be another notch on Dennis Kucinich's belt: preserving the non-access to health care for 50 million Americans.