Van Basten II

Will answer myself, a bit of research about him made me learn that he has Haitian origins, so the proper way would be à la Française and the English commentator is butchering awfulling his name. The majority (almost two-thirds) of the Swiss population speak German Only sign from the Swiss fans shown was in French, so I took it from there I actually missed hearing the cowbells during the game.

Réalisme 101 ! Hop la Suisse ! Thought it was a good game , of course the upset makes it more compelling, felt that the H group delivered the best moments of the competition so far.

Enjoyed the Chile-Honduras game, they (Chile) could be a tough game for a lot of teams. Speed, technically and tactically sound with better finition they could be a dark horse. What is the proper way to pronounce the name of the Chile's goal scorer Beausejour, I would be tempted to say it à la Française, but the british said it in other way more like Bose-jour instead of Bo-say-jour like I would do.

Thanks for the details, sad news indeed, he was scheduled to play last thursday with Drake and Parker, but he was replaced by Kidd Jordan without much of an explanation. Tonight during the gig, Ken Vandermark informed us that he was in a Hospital but without giving details either about his condition. Get well Mr Anderson.

The second half was good , still both teams seemed to bet on a result against Brazil rather than go for broke, agree with the other posters Cötr d'Ivoire was the better team. The game featured for the first time some crowd emotion when Drogba appeared on the pitch.

The two comments heard the most in the WC so far. -That f....ing sound is annoying -Let's hope the second half will be better

Geez that's a bit harsh, ain't it? I know - let's restrict the WC to soccer royalty, that should fix things up. Just Italy, Argentina, Spain, Brazil, etc etc. No underdogs, no upsets, no drama. Reminds me of when Australia had to play Uruguay to get there last time. When the South Americans missed out, some were miffed that previous WC winners were gone. That was what? Half a century ago? Go the underdogs! They have to make a way for all the continents to be represented ,and up to a certain point I'm ok with that , problem is regarding the Oceania representation is that Australia jumped ship towards Asia to improve their level of competition which makes the pool even thinnier. If they want to keep this slot available for Oceania , FIFA has to help these teams to play against better opposition so they can improve their level. So either annex them to Asia or create some kind of local competetion where the Oceanian teams could play more often against teams that are around the top 50 in FIFA rankings I'm not against underdogs, I'm against poor level of play, what I want to see are the teams that have performed the best no matter where they all come from and no matter what is their past pedigree , the game we just witnessed has been worthy of a decisive game to qualify for the World Cup finals but not part of it. Ideally they should not reserve spots for certain conferences, I would prefer having something like having 15 divisions involving teams from every place. But logistically it would be impossible so we're stuck with this inperfect system.

Cruel result for Slovakia who with this draw may have to kiss goodbye their chances to qualify for the next round, give credit to both teams for the spirit they played but it was more of a MLS level game than a World Class game. Then again what can you expect from a game with a team that fields unemployed players ?

Trio Matthew Shipp with Whit Dickey & Mike Bisio. Shipp was in a fine form despite the horrible piano, did not think much of the rhythm section though.

Fun game, fair result at the end.

That was not the result expected, then again there is still one half to play for Italy.

The second half was a bit more compelling, with Japan barely resisting to Cameroon , in an upset win for them. By the way, is it me or the attendance at the games is a dissapointment, a lot of empty seats even for games involving African nations.

Another tedious half of Futbol, this is getting repetitive, thanks to non imaginative Cameroon and defense minded Japan. Of all the five groups that have played, the only one I find compelling is the B group.

Not as bad as the english commentator made it to be but not a memorable one either, expected better from the Danes, they were first in qualification in a tough group, but their way of playing was too sterile and lacked imagination. Would love to see more of Elia for Holland. Meanwhile good win for them. Don't see how you can do that, either they can bring them or they don't, it is a bit like asking fans to only dance when their team is about to win or scoring. My only worry is that fans will export them and start using them in domestic and Continental competition throughout the world

If the games were poor on paper today they look better tomorrow, pretty intrigued by monday's matchups Netherlands and Denmark is one of the most intriguing games of the first tour, Japan-Cameroun could be fun and it's the entrance of the third team that I do feel has a chance to win it all Italy against Paraguay. For those who are wondering , I think they are five teams with legitimate chances Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Italy and Germany.

Saw this lovely singer tonight Her name is Bia, she sang spanish versions of Brassens, Salvador and adaptations of Vladimir Vissotsky's somgs in French. By the way it also reminds me to post in the sexy album thread.

Wonder how the picture session went, Photographer :Here's the concept Martial you hold this tiny electrical thing.. Solal :Uhh why (...) Photographer: Because one of the pieces is called electrode and that's the title of the album Solal : Guess I should be thankul that you did not pick Organique for the album title

With more luck Klose should have already passed Ronaldo on the all time scoring just with this game...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4XKNNl31Gc A cool soul cover of the White Stripes classic

Good result for Ghana. The second half was watchable at least. Slovenia's win will put some pressure on England and the US to get some results in their next games, it might be a good thing. The worst game so far Let's hope it gets better because no match so far has been memorable. Well the US-England was entertaining and it provided a memorable moment, to say the least.

Are they competing for offering the worse game as possible ?

The Algeria-Slovenia game has so far lived up to its billing

That's interesting you're saying that because I was thinking that unless you have a direct or indirect involvement with the teams playing sunday, the series of game is as uninteresting as you can get, only big team playing is Germany and they play no hoper Australia, then again that's what makes the charm of the World Cup, what is the other time where you'll get up at 7 am to watch Algeria-Slovenia.

That was the best game of the tournament so far, think both teams will move on, not convinced about Slovenia or Algeria. By the way we have yet to see an European team win. So far their record is 1 lost and two draws.

Jim and Chet Doxas Ingrid and Christine Jensen Karen Young and Coral Egan (Mother and daughter) Henri and Sebastien Texier (Father and son) Martial and Claudia Solal (Father and daughter)