Happy with the tie and we now need at least one win against a pair of teams we should be able to reasonably expect to have a good chance at beating and are actually favored to beat. I see us in the second round...where we will lose to Germany, sadly. I think the priceless picture of the day was the angry and puzzled look on Beckham's face on the bench.

And ya know I will never understand this need people have to step up and make sure everyone knows they hate soccer. Frankly I hate baseball and American football and find them both mind numbingly boring (especially baseball 90% of which is basically two guys playing catch for like 3 hours with lots of commercial breaks), but I just ignore those threads and don't feel a need to come in and tell everyone how proud I am to hate their favorite game. And, I am a year round fan of soccer and have been since I was a kid watching Soccer made in Germany on PBS and hanging out with grandpa who would still go to the park with the other old world fellas and play fussball, not just an every four years for the world cup.

And now I am up ridiculously early considering my hangover to check out the competition in the Algeria/Slovenia game.

This is the biggest problem we will have. Pretty much all our offense comes on set pieces and counterattacks. If a team doesn't come out and push forward against us, we struggle greatly at generating anything against a team where we have to come forward, pass the ball and be patient.

The quality so far has been garbage, it might be time to seriously consider reducing the number of teams down to 24 again.

The only team that's looked remotely like they might be a potential world champion has been Argentina and most of the teams have been mediocre to flat out terrible.

I'd fancy Motherwell to beat half these teams. In fact Michael McGlinchey who couldn't get a game for us last season will play in the Finals with New Zealand. Says it all really when our 17th choice player is playing in the games great showcase.

EDIT - Oh and one last rant. It's the World Cup Finals for fuck sake what about giving the players a helping hand FIFA and ditching this ridiculous beach ball they are using and replacing them with 1978 Addidas Tango which actually behaves like a football when you kick it. Thanks.

Yeah, not a lot has been shown so far. I'm curious to get a look at Germany today...and still waiting for Brazil, Spain, Italy, etc... Not many contenders have played yet.

Isn't it usually the case that the first games are played "not to lose" and the teams improve as the tournament progresses? Also, Argentina is really the only contender to play so far... Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Germany all to come. (Didn't Motherwell finish 5 or 6 last year... really?)

GREAT to see Ghana with the win.

Another "Hand of Clod" from the dude from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

Well it certainly looks like most teams are playing not to lose but I don't think that is always the case.

At the last World Cup at this stage (7 matches played) we had 17 goals and 6 wins; this time we have 9 goals and 4 wins. Not a good scoring ratio and when you consider one was a penalty and two have been appalling goalkeeping errors then it makes it even worse.

Brazil, coached by Dunga, will be no carnival of football. In fact if you look at the squad most of their best players are defenders. They only really have two quality offensive players in Kaka and Luis Fabiano and Dunga choose to leave out the hot young talents Neymar and Ganso because they lack 'experience', i.e he won't be taking any chances and will grind it out if need be with his strong defence.

Portugal were one of the biggest bores at the last World Cup. Remember how they went from the Second Round to the Semi Finals by scoring one goal?

Germany are nothing great but in relative terms I'll admit they will be better to watch than Algeria, Slovenia, Uruguay, France, Serbia, etc.

Spain have the best squad but the pressure of being the favourites might weight them down a bit and most of their players have had a long hard season at domestic level.

Oh, and Motherwell have qualified for the Europa League for the third season in a row. Hot streak!

Netherlands should be a pretty exciting team.

Germany are destroying Australia.

Yeah, even our grumpy Scot should approve of the quality of Germany's play.

australia: check.

Germany looked extremely good. Their passing in combination and team movement was very nice. Of course, just how good they are is hard to say considering how incompetent Australia was.

Much more enjoyable than most of the fare so far. Germany played very well although Australia were hardly a test, I mean Craig Moore was their captain and defensive lynch pin. He wasn't a player 10 years ago and at 35 has only gone downhill from there. But you can only beat what is put in front of you.

On a more positive note Philipp Lahm is such a great player. Is there a better full back in world football? I don't think he gets the credit he deserves. Too many players have reputations based on media hype, Lahm has a reputation based on sweat.

Nice reflection.

I heard FIFA is looking to ban those awful vuvuzela horns.

Haha. I was actually having this conversation over the weekend.

I mean, whatever happened to this guy:





You know, A SOCCER BALL.

have the goalies always worn those ridiculously oversized cartoon mouse gloves, or is that a new innovation?

what a little bitch.

yeah, it's curious to this outsider that they won't tinker with so many obvious flaws in the rules, but changed the BALL all willy nilly.

Yeah, just like American football

Pretty great finish to that New Zealand match. Stoppage time goal to tie it up.

Also heard that there have been 20 goals scored in the World Cup so far and it's the first time that all 20 have come from different players. Seems like that would be more common than not.

Its interesting because I read an editorial about the new Adidas balls, and how the players hate them. The author said that this always happens year after year. I don't remember this being the case though. Maybe some of you can enlighten me who follow this more closely, but I seem to remember the "Fevernova" ball from the 2002 WC being heralded. In fact, I bought one because it was so heralded.



http://www.soccerballworld.com/Fevernova.htm

This has a great pictorial/written history of WC balls. That iconic one was last used in '74 btw.
http://www.soccerballworld.com/HistoryWCBalls.htm

So Ronaldo is kind of a lil bitch huh?

There has been a complete dearth of attacking talent so far. 20 goals at this stage is a pathetic total but even worse is if you exclude Germany only two strikers have scored a goal so far, Gyan of Ghana and Vittek of Slovakia.

Most of the goals have been headers from set pieces and that's because good forward play has been virtually non existent.

I think that more than anything, this is what turns American fans off to soccer. All of the obvious diving, especially by the best players.