World Cup 2010!

[Ruckus]

The injury tally is beginning to be ridiculous.  Robben won't be fit, Nani is out and now Iniesta went down.

Good to see Jozy good to go though Buddle and Findley looked just fine out there as well.

[MarkW]

I liked this...

The American Ambassador to London and his British counterpart in Washington have wagered a meal on their respective sides winning the hotly anticipated tie.

US Ambassador Louis Susman and Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the UK Ambassador, have now become embroiled in a sledging match, in a series of cables sent between aides on both sides of the Atlantic.

The bet was proposed by a member of the American Ambassador's staff, who wrote: "We will understand if you decline, given the outcome of the last such encounter", in reference to America's victory over England in the 1950 World Cup.

Martin Longden, press secretary to Sir Nigel, responded that the win was exactly how the Ambassador prefers his steak – "somewhat rare".

He continued: "Even for such an exceptionally optimistic nation as the United States, I am struck by the confidence with which your ambassador proposes this wager.

"It is testament, I assume, to the generosity of your great nation, since the British ambassador does not anticipate paying out."

In a jocular riposte Philip Breeden, of the American embassy, wrote: "It is true that our soccer (a fine English word we have kindly preserved for you) history is not as long and illustrious as yours.

"However, as your generals noted during World War II, we have a unique capability for quickly identifying and advancing talent."

Staff at the British embassy – a quarter of whom are American – will watch the match on a large screen at the headquarters in Washington, BBC News reported.

An official said: "We're not doing anything more grand. We'll leave that to the final."

[ynwa]

good to hear that jozy is ok.  it'll be good to have some options up top.  i hope that all 3 of them (altidore, buddle & findley) can keep the goals a-comin!  hell, why not start all 3 on sat???  just send wave after wave @ the brit's shaky defense.  don't let 'em out of their own half.  we can shred them to pieces!  (joking, but only slightly)

seriously, iniesta too?  i think spain are ok in terms of cover but, he sure is delightful to watch.  that's a shame.  i couldn't care less about nani tho & quite frankly would love it if portugal don't make it out of the group stage.  bunch of diving, whiny little bitches.

it really is too bad about all of these injuries but maybe it'll make for some nice surprises.  it's not really that fun when the teams that you expect to dominate do just that.  i love it when the underdog wins.

BRING ON THE GAMES!

CANNOT WAIT TIL FRIDAY!!!

[Paulie_Walnuts]

You are very perceptive about our shaky defence! This is a potential banana skin for England.

I also love your description of the Portugese.....classic!

I'm starting to look forward to the games now, but I reckon those fucking trumpets they have handed out in Africa are going to become seriously annoying. I reckon it could spark some good old fashioned fighting in the stands!

[CC]

The injury tally is beginning to be ridiculous.  Robben won't be fit, Nani is out and now Iniesta went down.

Good to see Jozy good to go though Buddle and Findley looked just fine out there as well.

Robben's injury is not that serious,
he won't be playing the group games but expect him to be kickin ass in the finals.

[Ruckus]

I liked this...

The American Ambassador to London and his British counterpart in Washington have wagered a meal on their respective sides winning the hotly anticipated tie.

US Ambassador Louis Susman and Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the UK Ambassador, have now become embroiled in a sledging match, in a series of cables sent between aides on both sides of the Atlantic.

The bet was proposed by a member of the American Ambassador's staff, who wrote: "We will understand if you decline, given the outcome of the last such encounter", in reference to America's victory over England in the 1950 World Cup.

Martin Longden, press secretary to Sir Nigel, responded that the win was exactly how the Ambassador prefers his steak – "somewhat rare".

He continued: "Even for such an exceptionally optimistic nation as the United States, I am struck by the confidence with which your ambassador proposes this wager.

"It is testament, I assume, to the generosity of your great nation, since the British ambassador does not anticipate paying out."

In a jocular riposte Philip Breeden, of the American embassy, wrote: "It is true that our soccer (a fine English word we have kindly preserved for you) history is not as long and illustrious as yours.

"However, as your generals noted during World War II, we have a unique capability for quickly identifying and advancing talent."

Staff at the British embassy – a quarter of whom are American – will watch the match on a large screen at the headquarters in Washington, BBC News reported.

An official said: "We're not doing anything more grand. We'll leave that to the final."

That was pretty darn good Mark.  ;D Without accompanying pictures of these clowns, I got a good kick out of just picturing what they look and sound like.

[Ruckus]

The injury tally is beginning to be ridiculous.  Robben won't be fit, Nani is out and now Iniesta went down.

Good to see Jozy good to go though Buddle and Findley looked just fine out there as well.

Robben's injury is not that serious,
he won't be playing the group games but expect him to be kickin ass in the finals.

I wish I knew what it was like to know that you'll make it out of the group stage even without one of your top players.   :-[

[Ruckus]

good to hear that jozy is ok.  it'll be good to have some options up top.  i hope that all 3 of them (altidore, buddle & findley) can keep the goals a-comin!  hell, why not start all 3 on sat???  just send wave after wave @ the brit's shaky defense.  don't let 'em out of their own half.  we can shred them to pieces!  (joking, but only slightly)

seriously, iniesta too?  i think spain are ok in terms of cover but, he sure is delightful to watch.  that's a shame.  i couldn't care less about nani tho & quite frankly would love it if portugal don't make it out of the group stage.  [highlight]bunch of diving, whiny little bitches.[/highlight]

it really is too bad about all of these injuries but maybe it'll make for some nice surprises.  it's not really that fun when the teams that you expect to dominate do just that.  i love it when the underdog wins.

[highlight]BRING ON THE GAMES!

CANNOT WAIT TIL FRIDAY!!![/highlight]

I'm with ya ynwa.  Basically 24 hours from 1st match and I am restless with anticipation.  Saturday is gonna be ugly.  Bloody Marys for the morning matches, big party for the US/England match followed by tix to the Mets/O's game.  I'm not sure I'll be able to make it to the ballpark by then. ;D

I always found it intriguing to compare national cultures and social norms against their football squad's diving, playacting rate.  

I used to take pride in the blue collar nature of American soccer and the refusal to resort to such "Italian" tactics. :-X  Then I watched what Fulham and the EPL did to Dempsey.

[MarkW]

That was pretty darn good Mark.  ;D Without accompanying pictures of these clowns, I got a good kick out of just picturing what they look and sound like.

Well, here's your guy, Louis:



And ours, Sir Nigel:



Not exactly your typical English football fan!  Although this one supports dirty Leeds:

[jones]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704575304575297040201936332.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

[MarkW]

Just in case anyone missed Spain's 6-0 demolition of Poland earlier this week, here are the goals:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSVosC73KAk[/media]

The second is just ridiculous; Iniesta's vision and touch sublime.

[Ruckus]

Agreed on the Iniesta set up.  That entire goal from start to finish was brilliant.

So anyways....

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

I kinda wish the live times over here were late into the night but no complaints.  Will just have to DVR the weekday games.  No text messages or internet tickers for 3 weeks.  Will watch every game in the evening without knowing the results.  Let's go Mexico!

[MarkW]

45 minutes to kick off.  Bring it on!  Here's hoping for a good game...

[mjkoehler]

Yep. The wife even wants to watch. She never wants to watch when I have an EPL match on. Maybe, just maybe she's finally cracking. Soon footie matchs, next Jacket shows.

[Paulie_Walnuts]

Robert Green.....oops! He's the goalkeeper for my club team and we've seen a few blunders this season so it's no surprise. Expect lots of England fans now saying they would have picked James. Yes, that's the same fans who would have been calling him Calamity James for the last few years. Our keepers just aren't world class, which goes for most of our team.

From the England point of view it was a 6 out of 10 performance. Johnson had a good game for once, as did Gerrard and Heskey. But most were very average, and Milner, Wright-Phillips, and Lennon were woeful!

How was that for a US team performance? I haven't seen enough of your team before but it looked pretty solid. England played a lot better in the second half and should have won if they'd showed a bit more composure in front of goal. Could have been a different story though if that fella had scored that easy header for the US! Was that Altidore?

Anyways, the group is now wide open. Good luck to the US in your next two games, that's a great start to build on.

England......must do better!

[MarkW]

...and that's what happens when you pick an ex-Norwich scummer to be in the national team (from an unbiased Ipswich point of view).

Agree with your analysis, PW.  I couldn't understand Milner starting if he was only fit enough to play 30 minutes, and we had Joe Cole available.

All's not lost, though, but there'll be hell to pay if we don't do a proper job on Algeria this Friday.

Good luck to the USA in the next two - hopefully we can both go through with 7 points...

[iLikeBeer]

Good luck to the USA in the next two - hopefully we can both go through with 7 points...

After watching that Algeria v. Slovenia match this morning, I will be VERY disappointed if both England and the US don't advance out of this group.  I was hoping for a scoreless draw, but Algeria had to ruin that by giving up that late goal.  

Still, I wasn't very impressed with either squad which is why I feel it will be a BIG disappointment if the US and England don't come away from their next 2 matches with max points.

[iLikeBeer]

Yep. The wife even wants to watch. She never wants to watch when I have an EPL match on. Maybe, just maybe she's finally cracking. Soon footie matchs, next Jacket shows.

LOL!  My wife can't get past the annoying vuvuzelas that play throughout the entire match.  She did sit down and watch about the last 20 minutes or so.

However, seeing as how she is almost as much into MMJ as I am, I can't complain about her lack of interest in the beautiful game too much.   :P   ;)

[Ruckus]

First and foremost, I'd like to thank Mr. Green.  On to the match.

For the American squad, I agree with you PW that Altidore HAD to finish that header in the box.  It was a perfect service and he didn't have much to do with it at all.  Following our traditional early concession of a goal, I was impressed with our composure and ability to dictate play in the 1st half.  An early equalizer could have changed the game for sure.  I liked that Bob Bradley started Cherundolo who played a very solid game.  His choice of Findley up front with Altidore made a lot of sense because of the vertical space he creates with his quickness.  The only issue I have is that he is the only one on our squad with that skill set so its difficult to add tempo if necessary in a late switch when Gomez and Buddle are both similar players with less pace.  Most impressive to me was the job that Bradley and Clark did in the midfield.  Clark held well and Bradley showed great vision, composure and even some creativity throughout the game.  Howard was excellent.  That boot to the chest looked painful.

As for England, the early gem by Gerrard was a stunner for us.  Heskey did well on the play.  I was surprised by the choice of Heskey but his performance more than justified Capello's decision.  I just felt that our lack of quickness in the central defense would be better exposed by Defoe but I guess he was never an option in the game for Capello.  We didn't get much of an explanation on the Milner situation.  Was that the original plan by Capello to take him out early or did it have to do with him taking an early yellow?  Wright-Phillips and Lennon were iffy at best, particularly the former.  I know Capello has been concerned with using J. Cole who hasn't seen much match play but I'm sure he would have been an upgrade.  Lampard seemed almost non existent to me except for that nice left footed strike he took from distance.  I enjoyed how at the end, Gerrard took a corner instead of Lampard.  I'm curious how that was determined. ;D

That said, England looked much stronger in the second half and controlled for a majority of it.  It was just surprising how ineffective they were at integrating Rooney unless he came up high to take it.

All in all, I'm more than happy with one point.  However, with Slovenia earning three points, this group just got very interesting.

[Ruckus]

In other matches, the Nigerian keeper Enyeama played the match of the tournament so far.  That guy just got himself a TON of money coming to him after that one game.  Forgive me for speculating but after that uninspired (to say the least) performance by Nigeria, I had to think that some fix was on with some players, particularly those in the midfield, who gave the ball away seemingly intentionally throughout the game and refused to press the ball late in the game behind and allowed Argentina to just pass the ball around.  Truly a painful match to watch.  Without Enyeama, the score would have been at least 5-0.

South Africa looked impressive in executing their counterattacking game plan against Mexico.  Mexico needed to convert at least one of their many early opportunities but didn't.  If ever one point can be a disappointment for an underdog, the Bafana Bafana defender's mistake of playing on the 3 Mexican players for their equalizing goal would be a justifiable cause of that disappointment.  Just an awful play.

France [smiley=thumbdown.gif]

My little brother who lives just outside Seoul said that it was complete mayhem over there after South Korea's impressive performance against Greece.  Greece looked rather uninspired for the entire match except for a 20 minute span in the second half.

The Friday match against Slovenia looms HUGE