Day 6 Random Thoughts / Open Thread

I'm Candlebox. Didn't get anything accomplished last night, other than having a few mojitos with a beautiful woman. Hoping to play some catch up today. I survived voir dire and am sitting on the jury, but we're not meeting today, so a day at work with some downtime should be just what I need. Enjoy.

Group H preview
Group A preview
Day 1 thoughts

Spain-Ukraine
Los Campeones del Kanu kick things off in the match of the group . I like their talent all over the park to make a statement here and beat 10 good players + 1 complete badass, Sheva, 3-1.

You know Spy vs. Spy and Kramer vs. Kramer. What you might not know is this match is racist vs. racist, or at least racially insensitive guy vs racially insensitive guy. To wit:

"Although many of the stars of almost every domestic league from Russia westward are from the African Diaspora (which includes Brazil), an astonishing level of racism persists among fans and even coaches at the highest levels of the game. Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin, for example, bemoaned the globalization of his domestic league thus: "The more Ukrainians there are playing in the national league, the more examples there are for the young generation. Let them learn from [our players] and not some zumba-bumba whom they took off a tree, gave two bananas and now he plays in the Ukrainian league.''

Then there was the Spanish team's coach, Luis Aragones, caught on TV telling striker Jose Antonio Reyes that he was better than his French Arsenal teammate Thierry Henry. Except Aragones didn't say Henry's name, he said, "that black shit." A few days later, he insisted that there was nothing racist about the remark: "Reyes is ethnically a gypsy," said Aragones. "I have got a lot of gypsy and black friends. All I did was to motivate the gypsy by telling him he was better than the black."

I imagine Ukraine's coach, not Sheva, to be the Ukranian guy on the subway in that Seinfeld Episode.

6.04 a.m - disappointed that neither Reyes not Fabregas are starting, but they are both very young (22, 18) so I understand. Hoping Reyes comes on as a sub and does well with his pace on the wing. At least Slash, the 1st name on the teamsheet, is doing his thing.


I wish I was still in Barcelona today.
Oh how I wish...

6.10 - At first that goal looked soft, but was actually a very crafty header by Xavi Alonso. Liverpool 1-0 Ukraine

6.20 - Liverpool + Valencia 2-0 Ukraine. David Villa: que golaso!

7.04 - Red mist descends on Leipzig. Ukraine dude sent off straight red. Oh, and the 1st penalty of the Cup

7.05 - 3-0 Spain, and a man up. "Game, Set, and Match, Espana."

7.06 - TERRIBLE CALL! Defender grabbed attacker's shorts for like literally 1 second, and didn't impede the attacker's progress. Way worse than that happens on every corner kick & free kick in every game. If Ukraine already weren't already getting their ass kicked this would be a massive talking point. As is, it will be a footnote on a 5-0 assbeating, and for just "One Shining Moment" Kanu will look like a genius for picking Spain to lift the Cup.


The reign from Spain falls mainly on Ukraine.

7.38 - 4-0. The best goal of the tournament so far because of the team play involved in the buildup, especially by Slash, who did a spin-o-rama, gave it up, got it back, headed it down onto the run of Torres, who blasted it into the corner without breaking stride on a full run. BELLISSIMO!


Thanks to Slash and the boys, this match was
competitive for the length of the "November Rain"
video, give or take a few minutes

Spain 4-0 Ukraine.
Wow. I always like when "my" team is just under the radar and not having to deal with media attention and the pressure of expectation that the massive favorites get, and I always want that team to remain under the radar as long as possible through any tournament (like the NCAA basketball one for instance). This performance will squash all of that and vault Spain to the top of the collective hype heap. But if they keep playing like that, it won't matter.

Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas became the youngest Spanish player to ever play in a World Cup match today at the tender age of 19 years and 41 days. Not a bad achievement to go along with 2 years of first team football as a big club as well as an appearance in the Champions League Final. Oh, and how do I feel about his jersey, that simply says "CESC 18" on the back? To quote one of Uncle Rico's prospective customers: "I want that."

Cesc Fabregas rocked a mullet when he first started for Arsenal; he since has caved to social pressures and "normalized". A bit. Fernando Torres, no so much. Dude is still rocking a similar version of the mullet he has had since bursting onto the scene six years ago.


El mulleto del "El Nino",
circa Euro2004.

I'm sorry that Sheva never really got a chance to do his thing.

Tunisia-Saudi Arabia
I fully expect Africa to get their first win here; if they don't I'll be kind of shocked. Saudi Arabia probably isn't as horrible as I think they are in my mind, but if, like me, you saw them lose 0-8 to Germany at the 2002 World Cup then it is hard to imagine them not losing every match. Probably a bit of an unfair perception, but it is what it is. Allez Tunisie!


Lucas: how can you film Star Wars in Tunisia
and not use these two in place of r2D2 and C3PO?
Did you go to Georgia Tech or something?

Tunisia 1-0 Saudi Arabia. HT. I am at work for the 1st time this week so I am just following on-line. Not much to add, except I hope that they hold on and get the result.

Tunisia 2-2 Saudi Arabia.
Didn't see it, only know what happened from that link, and I am eagerly awaiting the 3 minute highlight video that they will post there within the hour. Sounds like yet another exciting finish, with a late goal and then an equalizer "at the death" as they say. Very disappointed that Africa couldn't get a win here against this joke of a team (although maybe they played great - I don't know). Did Tunisia look as impressive as the other African teams, or did they falter and let an inferior opponent back into the match? With all of their billions of dollars, have SA finally been able to get their keeper a proper uniform, or is he still rocking the sweatpants from the K-Mart clearance rack that they had in 2002? The mind wonders...

"There goes Round 1... Ding! There goes Round 2, now tell me what the f**k are you supposed to do?"
-Phife, A Tribe Called Quest, "The Infamous Date Rape"

So that's it for the first round of matches. All the teams are given three minutes four days to sit on the stool, get their cuts attended to, have water squirted in their mouths, rest a bit, get motivated by their handlers, and come out swinging in round two either looking to keep it going or reverse whatever mojo went down in Round 1.

Something new to look for as we start round two that will become critical as the tournament progresses: suspensions due to card accumulation. Here's how it works: during the group phase, if over the course of all three group matches any player receives a yellow card and then a 2nd yellow card, then they will be suspended for the next match after the one where they receive that 2nd yellow. Example: Ronaldinho gets a yellow against Croatia. No big deal. Then he gets a yellow in their 2nd match: he is not sent off in that match, because he only has 1 yellow card within the current match, so gets to finish the match. However, becasue he has earned a 2nd yellow card during the group phase, he would be suspended for Brasil's next match (their 3rd group stage match).

If a player receives a straight red, then they are suspended for the next match, and obviously the remainder of the current match as well. So the three players that have been red-carded thusfar (T&T dude, Togo dude, Ukraine dude) all miss their team's next match, and all of the players who have received a yellow card ("on a yellow" in soccer parlance) must be very, very careful not to pick up a 2nd yellow and miss the next match.

Here's the last relevant bit: At the conclusion of the group stage, the slate is wiped clean with regard to cards. However, the same rule starts all over again in the knockout stage, which can sometimes be critical. For example: in 2002, Germany's best player by far, Michael Ballack, picked up an innocuous yellow card in either the round of 16 or the quarterfinal. Then in their semifinal against South Korea, he picked up another yellow card, this one not so innocuous: he was suspended for the final, which Germany lost 0-2. Sorry to spend so much time on this but it is a really really big issue. Look for players who are "on a yellow" and notice how they react in certain situations, like perhaps pulling up out of a tackle because it is in the back of their head and not worth the risk, etc, etc. A really big deal in matches that is sometimes overlooked by US commentators clowns.

Germany-Poland
I've been excited to watch this match for a long long time, not just for the footy but for everything else surrounding it. Like hundreds of years of hatred history. Like Germany invading Poland in 1939 and occupying it during WWII. Like the fact that most members of the Poland team probably have grandparents that were affected in some way or another by the Nazis (ranging from being hassled to being put to death). This match would be damn intense if it were staged in the US, Asia, South America, or Africa. But the fact that it is being held in Germany (Poland symbolically "invading" Germany and looking for some form of symbolic retribution) just brings the intensity up a notch. I am looking for this to be the most intense match of he group stage, and also expect the singing to be insanely loud. Should be really really interesting and exciting. Oh, there's a soccer match as well. I'm off to the pub across the street to watch both the match and the spectacle.

Holy shit! The Germans are on board with the concept of The Golden Mullet - they were everywhere in the stands today.


Hair Herr Mullet


Frau mullet


"Mullet love! It's drivin' me mad,
it's making me craaaaazzaaay..."

Germany 1-0 Poland.
Wow. If you are Poland, this match was like the movie Layer Cake, and they were the main character, XXXX. Fight the good fight, battle adversity (having a dude harshly sent off with 15 minutes remaining), battle more adversity (survive several attacks, culminating with TWO German shots off the crossbar in the 90th minute as well as a German goal that is taken off the board for offsides), become the win tie against all odds hero, and just as you are walking out of the social club and off into the sunset with the beautiful woman on your arm, and the entire audience thinks that the credits are going to roll and thay are about to walk out of the theater feeling all shiny and happy that the protaganist conquered all, he randomly gets his chest filled with bullets Sonny Corleone style, and your warm fuzzies turn into numb shock, total despair, and heartbreaking elimination from the tournament (if my math is correct, they cannot possibly advance out of the group based on the tiebreak system being used).


Someone please photoshop this
with the appropriate jerseys...

Oh, then there's the fact that the biggest nut-kick in your team's history came at the expense of the big bad bully neighborhood kid whom you have NEVER beat (now 0-11-4; thanks ESPN, we got it the 4th time you went out of your way to mention it) and oh by the way, invaded, occupied, and persecuted your collective ass back in nineteen and thirty nine.

For all these bad guy = Germany analogies, full credit to them. They created the vast majority of chances, played offensive, attacking football, came close several times, and would have been unfortuante if the match ended 0-0. Putting aside the Job-like experience of the Poles, Ze Germans deserved to win and (as has been discussed in the threads) should also be praised for playing free flowing, offensive football during the tournament. Is this a product of the fact that the Bundisliga has produced lots of Joga Bonito in the last few years, or is it down to the fact that their coach is a Californian?

I really like coach Klinsmann, even if he is a former Tottenham star. Dude lives in California and refused to move back to Germany when he was appointed the national coach, which caused a massive uproar of disgust in Deutschland, where thay said that there is no way he can be a proper national coach if he doesn't move back. He said no, that his American wife and his children were more important to him than anything, that he loved California and didn't want to disrupt their lives, that he could easily watch all of the matches on cable & satellite and then travel back to Germany when needed. So I not only admire his family values, but he is a California dude - all those haters are just jealous of the beautiful weather, warm sun, and tasty waves, and I love it that they are 2-0 with 6 points and in a way he is stuffing all of his naysayers. You know he walked in the locker room after the match, twisted his hand in the shape of a W, and screamed "West-side!"


LA residents: dude, his commute is way longer than yours.

Scrappy sub Oliver Neuville scored the winner, 4 years after scoring many critical goals on Germany's trip to the final (while getting overlooked by the play of Ballack and the goals of then young sensation Miroslav Klose)

Damn that referee was card happy: it seems like 1/2 of the German team is now "on a yellow", although after the next match they get wiped out so it shouldn't affect them too badly.

Mats had a clean sheet! Sweet, although it was more down to the defense playing solid than him making 20 miracle saves, like he did on this fine day.


Mats holding it down