Germany and Uruguay have played each other three times before in the Cup, each before the fall of the Iron Curtain allowed us to retire the moniker "West Germany." In 1966, they drew each other in the quarterfinals; the West Germans were expected to breeze, but after scoring an early fluke goal struggled to put away the Uruguayans, until a rather questionable non-call in the penalty area pissed off the South Americans, who were convinced that the powers-that-be had it in for non-European teams. Deciding that the best revenge was to play kick-the-kraut the rest of the way, at the expense of having two of their players ejected, Team Uruguay collapsed in the final twenty minutes, losing 4-0, and hastened their fall from the ranks of world soccer powers thereafter:

The teams also met in a first-round battle in 1986, resulting in a 1-1 draw. The West Germans thoroughly dominated the game, but had to play catch-up almost the entire way after a bone-headed back pass by the usually dependable Thomas Berthold allowed Uruguay a cheap early goal. Relentless pressure paid off for the Germans in the final ten minutes, allowing both teams to walk away with a point:

But it was back in 1970 that the two countries played each other in a game that, like tomorrow's, really didn't matter, for third place. The Germans, incorporating some of the stars of the team that would dominate '70's soccer, had breezed through the first round, winning all three of their games, then rallied from two goals down in the second half to stun the defending champions, England, in overtime, 3-2, thereby defeating their historic rival for the first of many times. In the semis, against Italy, they played one of the classic games in the history of the World Cup, a see-saw, back-and-forth game that saw three lead changes, an injury time goal by the Germans to tie the game at the end of regulation, and five extra time goals before the Azzurri finally won, 4-3.

Uruguay, on the other hand, had played a distinctly unmemorable tournament, scoring a grand total of four goals in five games (half of them in their opener against Israel). Somehow, they finagled their way it into the semis, where they took an early lead, but were promptly and easily dumped by future champ Brazil, 3-1. Having done absolutely nothing to merit their high placement, and playing against a German team that had played 240 minutes of soccer in the previous five days, Uruguay then proceeded to have its best game of the Cup, but to no avail, losing 1-0. The highlights:

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.

Why are my compatriots in the progressive blogosphere such whiny assclowns? I guess it's unfair to limit such a generalization to left-of-center bloggers, since someone like Andrew Breitbart or Patterico can sound positively gruesome when they detect some trivial bit of political bias in the media, but I don't generally don't read (and don't care) what the far right has to say.

But when I'm reading blogs that are ostensibly on my side of the debate, I really don't give a shit about why you can't get on the Sunday talk shows, or how awful it is that the MSM was so nice to Bush in the run-up to Iraq. Here's a clue: angry, whiny ass-clowns may be right, and have mucho integrity, and may spark the flame of social justice, but it's the quiet, shrewd people who actually accomplish something. It's the difference between Abe Lincoln, who freed the slaves, and William Lloyd Garrison, who didn't.

Tomorrow's semifinal involves two teams that have met each other on more than a few occasions. In World Cup play, they have played three times, with Germany winning twice and the teams drawing on the other occasion.

The first game, in 1966, was the final game of group play; Spain, then as now, was the defending European champions, but thanks to a loss in their opening game to Argentina, needed a win to advance, while the then-West Germans needed only a tie. The Spanish took a quick early lead, only to wilt beneath the future Cup finalists, losing 2-1. It is a game remembered, if at all, for this spectacular impossible-angled shot by Lotthar Emmerich to tie the game late in the first half. For more of a taste of what this game looked like to a mid-60's TV viewer in Great Britain, here's the broadcast of the first ten minutes, complete with an opening musical montage of Masterpiece Theatre and NFL Films:

The most recent game came in 1994, another group play game that ended in a 1-1 draw. Both teams were playing in the easiest group, although Spain had to settle for a tie in its opener, against South Korea, so the result suited the occasion. A German-language broadcast of the game:

But it was the second game that has always been a dagger in Spanish hearts, in 1982. Spain had gone into the Cup as one of the favorites, especially since they were the host nation, but again got off to a slow start, needing a late penalty kick to tie Honduras in their opener (notice a pattern?). They came from behind to defeat Yugoslavia, 2-1, in the next game, but again after earning a penalty kick under very questionable circumstances. West Germany also got off to a terrible start that year, being shocked its group opener to Algeria, 2-1, then getting its mojo back in a decisive 4-1 victory over Chile.

Because of the brilliant manner in which FIFA scheduled World Cup games back then, the final games in group were not played simultaneously, so both Germany and Spain knew what they needed to do to advance to the second round. Since Algeria had lost its second game (0-2, to Austria), but had won its third (3-2, vs. Chile) the day before, Germany and Austria found themselves in the serendipitous position of both being able to qualify if the appropriate result could be attained, which, as it so happens, was for Germany to win by a margin of less than three goals. Which, against no odds, they did. Germany scored ten minutes in to take the lead, and the two teams conspired thereafter to play kick-the-ball-around for the next eighty or so minutes before the ref mercifully blew the whistle, sending both teams through to the second round, and eliminating Algeria. As befits the most blatantly rigged result since the 1919 World Series, the game has its own Wikipedia page.

Almost forgotten is the fact that both Spain and Northern Ireland were in the same position when their game started two hours later. Both teams would advance if Northern Ireland won the game, 1-0, whereas a scoreless tie would eliminate the Men of Ulster, whilst a margin of defeat greater than a goal would knock out the Spanish. Maybe it was the fact that Northern Ireland had a man red-carded in the first half, or the fact that neither team could score early, but more likely the fact that the winner would get to play in a weaker second round group, this game ended up being one of the more exciting, hard-fought games of the first round, with Spain losing in the end, 1-0. No Anshcluss here, please.

For the second round in 1982, FIFA had another inspired idea: after having played the previous two World Cups with two four-team round-robin qualifying groups leading directly into the Finals, it juiced up the proceedings by creating four three-team groups, with the winners reaching the semi-finals. The only problem is that all three teams could not be playing simultaneously; one of the teams would play its second game against an opponent playing its first. That would be fine if the opening game resulted in a win or loss, but if the game drew, then the team playing its opener a few days hence would be instantly eliminated if it lost.

As it so happens, Spain and Germany were, along with England, put into the same group, and Germany and England drew its opener, making the Germany-Spain match-up that followed a sudden death result for the loser. Under massive national pressure, Spain again fell short, losing heartbreakingly 2-1, and suffering one of the earliest knock-outs of a host nation in World Cup history.

Needless to say, Spain can exorcise quite a few demons with a win tomorrow.

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.

For those few of you are interested, today's semifinalists, Holland and Uruguay, have played once before in the World Cup, all the way back in 1974. At the time, Uruguay was a perennial contender, having made the semifinals four years earlier, but had gone through a prolonged period of stagnancy, dating back to its previous championship a quarter century earlier. In short, they were similar to Argentina was in this World Cup: a team that was usually to be reckoned with, but with its glory years long behind it (I believe they sent the oldest team to that tournament).

Their opponents, Holland, was the team that everybody was looking forward to watching, with the best player in the world at the time, Johann Cruyff, and a supporting cast much to be envied (Neeskens, Rep, Rensenbrink, Surrbier, etc.). But they hadn't played in the World Cup recently, and no one knew exactly how they would handle the Big Time when they stepped onto the field against Uruguay. The highlights below of their 2-0 victory hardly do justice to their dominance:

The score could have easily been 6-0, and was the first sign that year the balance of power was shifting in the sport. Uruguay was quickly eliminated in 1974, and thereafter disappeared from the ranks of the sport's powers, at least until this year.

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.

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):