Jim R

Sweet Lou Sweet Sue just you

Well, "most likely" would have been better for Australia than Totti at the spot.

This nails it for my money. Soft, soft penalty, but possibly not incorrectly given. In any case, 'I've seen them given', as they say. I was going to mention the foolishness of O'Neill (?) going into a slide in that situation. And I agree, the door was left open for the ref to award the PK. I just think a better ref would have swallowed his whistle. Sorry, I disagree. Going into a slide was probably the only thing he could do. Otherwise, he'd have let the Italian go, surely with equally disastrous results. "Surely"? I don't know how you arrive at that conclusion. I'm not sure it would even have been a 1 v 1 with the keeper, and from that angle I'm not even sure he'd have had a shot.

Heidi Salman Rushdie Satan

Having watched a few repeats: a totally incorrect decision by the referee. Theft indeed. I am not so sure. That was very stupid of the Australian defender to drop to the ground in front of the Italian, who then continued to trip over him. OF COURSE he could have jumped, but there is no rule that says he MUST. So when he doesn't he trips and when he trips, it's a foul. Foul = PK. Surely the ref could have NOT given this PK and I doubt even the Italians would have been very surprised. What should the defender have done then? Try not to drop to the ground, or what? In my view it wasn't the defender's fault, and the ref shouldn't have given the penalty kick. It's just that O'Neill was asking for trouble, imo. If he doesn't do that, Italy may still score, but not as easily as they did with a PK.

This nails it for my money. Soft, soft penalty, but possibly not incorrectly given. In any case, 'I've seen them given', as they say. I was going to mention the foolishness of O'Neill (?) going into a slide in that situation. And I agree, the door was left open for the ref to award the PK. I just think a better ref would have swallowed his whistle.

Having watched a few repeats: a totally incorrect decision by the referee. Theft indeed. Compounded by the fact that it occured with the clock expiring. A gift to the Italians, and what a GIFT it was. Let the players decide the outcome of the game. Our commentators were observing that Australia should have pushed the pace after Italy had gone down to 10 (btw... I agree with Red- the organissimo member, not the card!). I tend to agree. Italy were already creating the better chances on goal, even with 10 players. Why not go at them hard, the way they had against Japan? I'm thankful that most of this game was relatively clean and controversy-free. I was expecting twice as many cards. Even Materazzi didn't complain about the bad decision against him... just walked off, and Italy didn't seem to get chippy about it. That was somewhat of a relief, after the Portugal/Holland debacle. I thought Gattuso was terrible in terms of ruining several promising Italian attacks. Very good defender... very poor attacker (at least in this match). Once again, I benefit from the U.S. tv coverage... we get to hear Giorgio Chinaglia lecture us after the match ("definitely a penalty kick").

Thurston, Fuzzy Marcelino, Muzzy Fuzzy Wuzzy

Bastard! NOTHING was going through my head, til now ... For me, it's... "If I don't get my football back, I'm gonna get my dad on you" (from the Adidas commercial run constantly during the World Cup). It was driving me nuts for days trying to figure out what they were saying after "gonna get my". It finally occured to me to Google it, so now I can sleep nights.

Joshua Breakstone Moses Thou

Much worse, imo. At least in this match, most of the cards were deserved. It seems as though there have been fewer kneejerk yellows and reds in the second round thus far... hopefully that continues, and we won't see a match like this again. Well, his decision-making aside, I admired his relative calmness- especially during a travesty of a match like that. Too bad the players couldn't have managed to act the same way (a lot to ask, considering the ref's performance).

Pinocchio Woody Allen Alien

Can anyone shed any light on this? I too was mystified, and we can't rely on ABC/ESPN to get to the bottom of anything. I wasn't impressed with Ruud's replacement. Van Basten said he didn't like Van Nistelrooij's performances in the group games. According to Van Basten his positioning left a lot to be desired, and his finishing was quite poor; he said that there was "not enough football" in Van Nistelrooij's game. Thanks, Hans. I kind of recall that he was less than sterling, but under today's circumstances I expected to see him come on in the later stages. Oh well, too bad it didn't work out better for your side. I know nothing of Van Basten's coaching quality, but I do like his demeanor during matches. Very calm, cool, and collected (I don't like the raving mad coaches or the ones who appear to be preparing their teams while the match is already in progress).

Raúl Riquelme Ronaldinho

Can anyone shed any light on this? I too was mystified, and we can't rely on ABC/ESPN to get to the bottom of anything. I wasn't impressed with Ruud's replacement.

LOL! Ruud must have been smoking his hair. As if the Portugese are not really really out to drop and -- much much worse -- provoke cards for their opponent. It's all over now, but that shite that Figo pulled with the headbanging (WTF!) and the theatricals to get Boullabaisse the red was much below even Portugese standards. The problem with this match -- and the Dutch -- is that the ref doesn't look for the little disruptive shite that goes on and that kills the atmosphere; then the Dutch start banging back (there is some Englishness in them after all) and get the cards. Especially cool how that Portugese dude almost kicked off Robben's arm and saw, which card? None actually, as it was Robben who got the yellow on that action. Cool runnings, ref! Of course if the ref had given Bouillabasse red after that jump on Ronaldo (the little pisser) then maybe he might have held this under control. As it went now, the ref seemed to have felt he owned the Portugese a favour, and another favour, and a favour, and before the knew it, the house was on fire or rather ablaze. This wasn't a game, this was war and very ugly. Someone should blame the ref, so let me be the first. At least he likely set a record for most yellows and reds. That's the worst match I've seen in years. I would put more blame on the Portuguese for the spiraling misconduct, and I wasn't all that surprised to see it, except for Figo's headbutt. I couldn't believe my eyes when Simao kicked van der Sar in the face (a ball well beyond his reach), and wasn't even cautioned. Both teams deserved to lose. The ESPN announcer said in the early stages (after the foul on Ronaldo) that this ref was going to lose control of this match. Sure enough. I thought the Dutch back line played a horrendous game. Even though they weren't punished for it, I counted about a half dozen terrible giveaways in their own half which set Portugal on the attack. Maniche took his goal well, so I suppose the result is fair in the end, but I hope England send them home.

Tarzan Cheeta dirty rotten cheat

I tend to agree with the criticisms of England, although they did look better. Rooney impressed me. What frustrated me as an impartial viewer who wanted to be entertained was Ecuador's apathetic response to Beckham's goal. You're down a goal in the knockout round of a World Cup, and you can't attack more than that? They looked worse than the U.S. in that respect, which is saying something. No urgency (and very little emotion), very few runs at England with numbers, repeatedly slowing down to let England's defense set up when they could have forced the issue... just dull. It wasn't as though England were keeping them from moving through the midfield. At any rate, England deserved to win... but boring is boring. Give me something, you underdogs who are still alive.

Well Scott. I reckon that's a pretty darn silly way of looking at it. This is the kind of trouble I'm sure some folkses - the US, Czechs and South Koreans, for example - wish they were in. Easy there, mate! I think it was just Scott's way of saying which teams he thought would bow out in this round. He may be right or wrong about each one, but I wouldn't call it silly to phrase it that way. From the above list, just Sweden and Mexico thus far, no...? Oh, and I give Australia a decent chance of upsetting Italy, fwiw. I hope they do, in fact... just don't expect it.

Spelling, Aaron Letterman, David Grammer, Kelsey

the second one was certainly deserved. Germany had just started a real fast attack and Lucic killed that off with this "tactic" foul. Those kind suck the most, because they really kill the game. Sweden has developed a bit of a habit of playing like this with loads of little fouls in the midfield, slowing down the game and playing on their forte of the fast counter attack. Can't remember what the first yellow was for, but I had the impression the referee had shown the second before it dawned on him whom he was showing it. Still: yellow card offense = yellow card offense, whether it entails red or not. I agree that these cynical fouls are incredibly annoying, but I think the German went down very easily. That's the way I saw it (of course, I had the luxury of a slow motion replay, so I certainly can't pretend that I would be able to do a better job of refereeing). Lucic definitely put his hand on the german player's arm, I just don't think he actually grabbed and pulled enough to warrant a foul in this case). At any rate, I still doubt that Sweden were going to score (or win) with 11. Mexico did North America proud today. What a great first half they played. I guess they ran out of energy, because they gradually stopped pressing in the midfield and "team tackling" the way they had done earlier. Argentina's depth proved to be too much. As the ESPN announcers said, wouldn't it be nice to have young talents like Tevez and Messi at your disposal to come off the bench? Wow. Anyway, if Mexico had won, I might have even adopted our concacaf arch-enemies for the rest of this tournament..................... ... well, on second thought, probably not. I didn't mention it above, but I think Ecuador has a decent chance for an upset tomorrow. If they can establish possession and frustrate England's midfield, I don't see why not. Ecuador looked very good in their first two group matches, and then ran into a German buzzsaw (with key players out, iirc). I still picked England to win this one, due to their depth of individual talent, but I have some doubts about them playing as a team. Portugal I'm still unsure about. Beating Angola and Iran was the right thing to do, but I guess I might have expected more impressive wins. They did beat Mexico, but I don't know that they have enough to get by Holland (who of course faced much stiffer competition in the first round, and I thought showed themselves to be pretty strong). I agree that the Rodriguez goal was sweet. There have been some great ones in this tournament. I still can't erase that first one (Lahm's) from my mind. I love the kind of goals Argentina scored with a beautiful buildup, but there's also something about an incredible laser beam placed perfectly. For Lahm to do that right out of the WC gate was very memorable for me.

Tell, William Me Truth, Sojourner

I don't know who to support... I just admire skillful, smart, clean attacking. I am really enjoying the play of Germany. The win over Sweden was a joy to watch. The way Klose set up those two goals, and the way the germans kept moving forward with crisp passing and good runs off the ball... that's what I enjoy watching. Very little time-wasting, even when Sweden began to put together a few dangerous attacks, and little or no play acting, turning little bumps into mortal wounds (like some teams like to do). I don't think there's a default choice for U.S. fans to root for, really. The melting pot contains so many fans from different backgrounds. Regarding the officiating in terms of offside calls, I know there have been a few calls missed, but some of them have been very close to the point of becoming subjective. I'm extremely sensitive to these rulings, having had some absurd ones called against me when I was playing, and having seen too many absurd ones called in professional matches I've watched over the years (I mentioned it earlier in this thread... sometimes the refs miss these calls by 5 yards, and that infuriates me). Overall, I think this is perhaps the one area of officiating where they've done a more consistently good job. Once again, in this morning's match, we see a player ejected unfairly (imo). I didn't think either of Lucic's yellows were deserved. Not that playing with 11 would have made much difference for Sweden. It wasn't going to be their day (poor Henrik Larsson -_- ). I jotted this down last night (before the Germany win... you'll just have to trust me on that ): Germany defeats Sweden Argentina def Mexico England def Ecuador Holland def Portugal Italy def Australia Switzerland def Ukraine Brazil def Ghana Spain def France Germany def Argentina (going out on a limb, perhaps, but I like Germany) Italy def Switzerland Holland def England Brazil def Spain Germany def Italy Brazil def Holland Brazil def Germany (yes, a repeat of '02) I don't usually make these kinds of predictions, because I'm not good at it, but what the hell. There's no money involved.

Sandy Bull Sandy Baron Sandy Koufax

What... you don't like green? I've seen both of these covers before, but it's not clear to me which came first...