Justice is served. Wake up now.

The first round of the group stages was a real let down. Few goals, defensive mentality and no teams really playing to win.

All that changed of course and now that the group stages have wrapped up, it turns out World Cup v.2010 has delivered on some truly spectacular surprises.

France, Italy, the US finishing top, South Korea, Uruguay, Robert Green.... the story lines just keep on coming!

There's one thing that football fans worldwide know about and that is the INJUSTICE of the game. That's right, the game touted as so beautiful is too often marred by decisions whether on or off the pitch that fly in the face of our well defined belief in right and wrong. France vs Republic of Ireland for example. Whether through bad calls or bad policy too often we've believed that "it all works itself out in the end" but at the end of the day it doesn't. But now maybe, just maybe, the karma gods are letting us know that they exist after all.

Goodbye France.
Goodbye Italy.
Goodbye Slovenia.
Goodbye Koman Coulibaly.

Now if only we could say goodbye to the likes of Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mike Celzic, Jim Rome, Ron Cook and others who deem football to be "Un-American". Then we would REALLY believe!

And here's some other food for thought. Who would have thought that South Korea and Japan would advance? I have to say, all in all a pretty decent world cup after all.

By the way, just how devastating was Robert Green's howler? Instead of facing Ghana and then the winner of South Korea/Uruguay to get to the semi finals, England will have to go through Germany and the winner of Argentina/Mexico. Ouch.

World Cup Day 4. Calm Down Everyone

The US got a great point off the England match on Saturday. I'm sure Robert Green cries himself to sleep with embarrassment every night despite his rather blase public statements. England should have done a lot better, no doubt. But I have to admit, I'm not sure exactly what match the US fans were watching, but the volume and quantity of chest thumping from Sam's Army seems a slight overreaction.

England dominated most of the game, had 57% of the possession and had more shots, including some point-blankers that only stayed out due to great goalkeeping and poor shooting. The US had one really good chance with Altidore's shot but other than that they really didn't create much.

Neither team, in my opinion look like they have a hope in hell of winning this thing. Looks like either team will face Germany or Ghana (at least so far). The Tuetons made the Aussies look like a bunch of schoolgirls so I think the team that finishes 1st in C has a chance. Finish 2nd and the Krauts will put you in a railcar to never-never land before you have time to hum the first verse of the "Horst Wesel Song". Despite how good Germany looked my favorite to win is still Argentina. But then again they're just Spanish speaking Germans anyway.

As usual, the "old school" media pundits are bemoaning the World Cup. Tossers like Rush Limbaugh and the unholiest wanker of them all, Glen Beck are having their say. It's funny really because you'd think they'd LOVE soccer... Played in the US mainly by white, middle class suburbanites... Instead they love baseball (yawn) a game played passionately by the US, and others like the Dominican Republic, Cuba (ouch!) and Venezuela to name a few. In my opinion the best US sport by far is basketball... but that's another topic.

Anyhow, things are moving along nicely. Italy is singing "The Great Escape" while the African teams need to start wondering where the goals are. Have to admit though, so far the group stages just aren't as interesting as they could be.

World Cup Day One. Wake me up please.

Ok- So the only thing worse than starting a blog and not posting is starting a blog, posting a couple of articles and THEN not posting. Guilty as charged. Truthfully though I've been involved in a couple of projects that have my time and attention elsewhere. But enough of that. The World Cup kicked off today so now my attention is FIRMLY back to football.

The first game was relatively entertaining. Home team matches are always highly charged, fun affairs and this match was no different. As usual, Mexico squandered a boatload of chances and Bafana Bafana (which I am pretty sure is IsiZulu for "really lame goal celebration") nicked one off of a sublime strike to force the Mexicans to come up with an equalizer to share the spoils. A good match but I have to admit I was lulled to sleep at varying points by the incessant drone of the vuvuzela's.

Luckily, I woke up in time for a match that needed no vuvuzela's to put me out. No, this one put me down for the count all on its own as France proved the only creativity they posess is in their various coiffures. Really. Even with a red card this game was the definition of a snooze-fest (not to take anything away from Uruguay's stellar defending) that will only feed fury of pathetic status quo wankers like Mike Celzic. I can't believe this guy can call Soccer a bore (today's France match notwithstanding) and then admit that he goes to bars to watch Mets and Yankees games.

Wow. Talk about boring. Celzic will complain about a nil nil draw but will no doubt babble on at great length about a "no hitter" which is baseball terminology for "nothing happened". It's about time the influence of the old school NY sportscaster and sportswriter was broken. Come on Mike, take a cue from Helen Thomas and retire.

Sorry, I digress. Back to the World Cup. Kudos to Skipper and the gang at ESPN for kicking the coverage into high gear. And Kudos for recognizing that Americans like the best of everything and that includes their match day commentators regardless of their accent. I must admit though, I miss Dave O'Brien and his "swing and a miss". Can you imagine the geography lessons Dave would have provided in South Africa? Oh well, I suppose we'll have to make do with Martin Tyler, Ian Darke, Derek Rae, Ally McCoast, Adrian Healey et al. Not too shabby.

I get a ton of emails. For some reason people want to know who my pick is to win it all. My pick? Argentina. Sure, I'd love England to win but I don't think it's going to happen again in my lifetime (oops... I just aged myself)...

One final note. I really don't know what I would do without my Slingbox. I've had one for the last few years and if you don't have one now, you should get one before you miss too much of the World Cup for silly things like work. Watch your TV ANYWHERE. Even on the bog. Terrific technology.

I'll be watching all the matches tomorrow and of course the USA/England match. I might even watch sitting on the bog, laptop on my lap using my Slingbox (how's that for a visual!). Let me know your thoughts on the match.

Until tomorrow.


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The Modern Day Maurice Chevalier

After all these years in the UK, you'd think Arsene Wenger wouldn't be quite so, well, French. Every time he gets up in front of the camera, he's like a modern day Maurice Chevalier. You almost expect him to blurt out with a refrain

"Thank Heavens for little boys girls..."

But no. While Wenger may well be one of the Premier League's great managers, he's certainly no orator. In fact, he starts of every thought with a "well err...." I counted 21 of them in the 2 minute interview he gave following the 4-2 win over Bolton. That's an impressive "well err... rate (WER)" of 11 per minute or one every 6 seconds or so.

Please note that the quote "Well err... I cannot believe the errr... referee did not see err... the diabolical foul that Gallas made on Davies...errr" did not appear in this interview. Plenty of others did though. Witness below.



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Not a Very Funny Week

It's hard to be a humorist when the tradgedy in Haiti is so enormous. Every facet of life in the country has been impacted and the football community is no exception.

The time is NOW to make a difference. The least you can do is text 90999 on you cell phone and donate $10.00 to the Red Cross International Response. The charge will show up on your cell phone bill. Or you can click on the American Red Cross link on the right.

Up next in blogo-land for me is a thought or two about the demise of a once great football club.

Until then, dig deep and help.

Do ALL footballers lack class?

This is one for the "bile in the back of the throat" file. And of course it involves the Evil Empire and the minions of the Dark Lord.

It has been reported that in keeping with the season of giving (to oneself), Man United players had a quick "whip around" the locker room for a paltry $128,000 so they could pick up one of those nifty 100 inch plasma TV's for their players' lounge at Carrington.

Maybe I just don't like Machester United (too bloody right) but this whole thing just seems so... ugly. It really negates all of the good work done by the Manchester United Foundation. I imagine the Rainbow House, New Children's Hospital and other worthy causes could have put that $128,000 to much better use than to provide a bunch of millionaire Manchester United Players a supersized replay of their Leeds FA cup tie. On the other hand, a TV that big is difficult for Sir Alex to fling around during one of legendary "motivational sessions".

But some things will never change and classless footballers are one of them. Maybe next year they should empty their pocket change and pick up one of these. Then they can donate this years' old 100 incher to the waiting room at Wayne's old Granny brothel.

Locally this is good fodder for FIFPro in their ongoing labor dispute with MLS. If most MLS teams where to have a "whip around" their player lounges (if they were lucky enough to have one) they'd be hard pressed to buy a used 8 track player from eBay.

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I'll Eat My Shirt

I am not Landon Donovan's favorite person. In fact, I've been persona non grata with Landon and his Agent since I accused him of being a heartless pussy, the great American could-have-been. Hell, we even marketed an exclusive line of "LD10" T-shirts sporting a likeness of the receding one with a pacifier in his mouth and a logo that read "Major League Baby".

But how times change. For those of you that missed one of the weekend's only two Premiership fixtures, Landon's debut with Everton in a match at the Emirates against Arsenal was a real eye-opener.  Landon didn't just seem to cope. He seemed to belong. He handled the pace, physicality and cold weather of the Premiership like he had been there since the start of the season and gave David Moyes the attacking option and was instrumental in the scoreline.

No, Landon wasn't just good, he was very good. Maybe a few years of extra maturity and the day-to-day realities of marriage was enough to truly motivate him to show us what we have known all along he was capable of if he only cared enough to show it.

We'll see how things look at the end of the season but if it keeps on like this I'll gladly eat my LD10 shirt and do it here a T.R.A.W. for you all to see.

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