The Wash Post has a big picture on A1 with the title: "It's Just Like Beckham To Bend It"

weak stuff

ON A BENDER

Penarol1916's hatred of the Australian team overcame him.

The three people who picked Australia also picked the Socceroos to win in the quarterfinals.

That said, if they lose, my bracket is in tatters.

Bob, why is Buffon hovering near the gates to your lists (I presume you're talking about the Dead to Me and On Notice lists)? He's not done anything bad AFAIK. His smack talk, if that, was pretty mild.

I picked Australia to win this game AND the next game? That seems to be a combination of brilliance and..... not-so-brilliance.

Is that a great soccer name, or what? It sounds like one of those Hello Kitty Japanese names.

Happy Soccer! Chipperfield!

Seems like Italy can move the ball from its box to the Oz box with surprising speed given how few men seem to be committed on attack. I mean some of the camera shots give the appearance of most people being in the Italy half...ah, well, I guess this is exactly what is expected of Italy.

I guess they changed their minds.

That was a fairly entertaining first half. Amazing what fun sports can be when the refs let the players play.

In which case, isn't the fault primarily with the players for being jerks when the ref was letting the players play?

Are we trying to have our cake and eat it too?

He misses the phrase.

Yeah, Ken, remember the Argentina-Germany game couple of Cups ago when Beckham got sent off? High-flying game suddenly slowed down when England decided to get conservative since they only had 10 men. At least that's my recollection.

Australia also needs to advance the ball quickly on the rare occasions they draw Italians into their own half - counterattacks aren't just for the short-handed team...

I can't really tell if my earlier question was ignored because it was ridiculous or brilliant. ;-)

Just sayin'.

But, briefly...the trouble with the Portugal-Holland game started because of the non-calls in the first half. Because the ref wasn't defusing the mounting enmity between the two teams (and he also allowed the players who had been ejected to stand on the sidelines afterwards, which is really stupid), the players on both teams starting fouling constantly, partly to see what they could get away with and partly out of anger. By the time the cards started coming out it was too late, and since seemingly everyone on both teams quickly had yellows the flopping and whining started getting out of control as well.

Yeah, personally, I can't really answer your earlier question, though I am mostly ok with the ref this game. The thing with the previous game though was that the ref appeared to miss multiple genuine fouls, and react over-aggressively to non-fouls or to the wrong person. Players were at fault too, I think, and should pay the price by losing to England with a weakened team.

62 - yeah, I get the impression it has ground to a halt.

Well, Australia looks too relaxed and slow, basically, in my eyes - they don't seem to pushing their numerical advantage enough. Maybe they are really afraid of the Italian counter-attack threat or something...also I thought Aus had several great long-kickers - haven't seen enough evidence today.

I read that, but it doesn't seem like a particurlarly well-thought out response by Blatter, just a lot of bleating in response to pressure he's obviusly receiving to, um, bleat. I'm not saying he has to agree with my sentiment that the ref was basically in an unwinnable situation, but at least show cognitive (if not holistic) reasoning while responding.

I realize that may often be too much to hope for. -grin-

That would probably be because there are not 2 people on the planet who follow the game who would agree on where that balance lies. And if there are 2, there definitely aren't 30.

That HAD to have been a terrible call, because it went against me and my team.

argh!

Los Longhorns
humma kuvala
John Matthew
yankee23
Penarol1916

laughter