Day 7 Random Thoughts / Open Thread

World Cup has me so tired that I slept right through this morning's earthquake, a nice not-so-little 4.7 job down in Gilroy that felled and shattered my cousin's "Cafe At Night" but did not affect Club Kanu even though we only live 4 miles apart in the city. Yay bedrock! You pwn landfill.

Today starts a string of 4 days where in addition to the WC, we also have the 106th US Open to watch during halftimes, and in between and after the matches. Sweet. Bring it.

Day 1 thoughts
Day 2 thoughts
Group A preview
Group B preview

Ecuador-Costa Rica
Should be a very open, free flowing game, which fortuantely we are seeing a whole hell of a lot of.

Sorry for the lack of pseuso live blog, I went pre-1966 World Cup on this one; when the alarm went off I turned on the TV and layed back in bed and listened to a big chunk of the match via the Univision commenatators. So behind on sleep it is ridiculous. I saw the 3rd goal live and then the other two via replay. Sounds like Ecuador controlled it an were deserved winners.

That 3rd goal - I can't believe that dude played 90 minutes with a lucha libre mask stuffed down his pants so that he could go all T.O. and whip it out (he, he) and wear it for a minute or two. Two observations: first, I am pretty amazed that he didn't get a yellow when FIFA make referees give automatic yellow for anyone who removes their shirt in celebrating a goal (or is this just the dumbass FA that does this?). Secondly: dude, if you are going to go all Ray Mysterio, Jr. on us, do it right: run over to the advertising board, jump up onto that sucker, and then do a twisting springing backflip thnigy back onto the field. Between this guy and the goalkeeper, it is obvious that this is a football team with a wrestling problem. I'm expecting someone to play dressed as a yellow/blue/red Ultimate Warrior in round three.

Ecuador 3-0 Costa Rica.
I thought this team was a one trick pony that couldn't win at altitude? We are now seeing that it probably wasn't a fluke that in the last 4 years Ecuador have beaten Brasil in qualifiers both home and in Brasil.


Ecuador = Violent Femmes:
High as a kite at sea level

All three goals were great, especially the first and last.

Germany and Ecuador are both through, and Poland and Costa Rica are both out. The third round will see Germany and Ecuador play to determine who goes through in first place and second place, while Poland and Costa Rica will be playing only for pride.

England - Trinidad & Tobago
The Cinderellas of planet Earth are back for more, and although laid back enough to cruise from their hotel to their practice facility on 1 speed beach cruiser bicycles, Eddie Temple is also talking mad shit about England, and feels like they can beat the inventors of the game.

Accoring to my employer jury duty starts at 9.30a.m. According to the state of California, jury duty starts at 1.30 p.m. The result? We're live-blogging this bitch:

8.55 a.m. - The national anthems are awesome (have you ever sung it that loud, with that much gusto, and meant it so much? Me neither), but I still say T&T should come out to this.

And to the fucktards at ESPN, why don't you try showing the playing of the national anthems, instead of playing cheesy ass 80's guitar riffs and having idiots compete to prove who knows the least about soccer? Just once? Over on Univision, they start with the camera shot of both teams in the tunnel with only the stadium noise. As the teams walk out the stadium erupts, and then they show both anthems with no talking and lots of crowd shot of people singing their freaking lungs out. It's goosebump stuff, no matter what nations are competing. This does an amazing job of building up the excitement of the match so much more so than your stupid people spitting out useless statistics - this is not baseball: it is art NOT science! How the hell can you so misunderstand the game on such a fundamental level!!! Anyone still watching ESPN broadcasts at this point either is in favor of building a giant wall along every foot of the US-Mexican border or simply doesn't have access to Univision. Viva La Revolucion!

9.02 a.m. - Univision dudes come out STRONG, referring to Crouch simply as "Mr. Roboto" and Hislop as "Shaka! Shaka! Shaka!", which for some reason reminds me of the song Chaka Khan. And they are still calling Beckham "Spiceman" - epic, in an unintentionally backhanded kind of way, which makes it even funnier. And Michael Owen is "Wonderboy". Absolutely awesome stuff.

9.25 - England slightly more dynamic than in round 1; they are creating some chances and are having the better of it but not dominating T&T as much as Sweden did thusfar.

9.28 - How many hipster trendy kids around the world ran out and bought a T&T kit in the last 5 days? A lot I bet. Makes me wonder how much money T&T get from Adidas as a percentage of kit sales worldwide, or any team from their contracted clothiers for that matter. Furthermore, I wonder if each national team contract with the same sponsor is the same flat rate, or if they are different based on worldwide appeal. Does Nike pay Brasil a higher or lower perccentage of kit sales than it does to say, South Korea? Or is it a flat percentage?

9.33 - England has best chance of match as Lampard uncorks an Adidas-ball special from 25 yards that is about 4 feet wide.


Arsenal point of pride: Ash's bird (L: singer Cheryl Tweedy)
is way hotter then Becks' bird (R: Posh Spice)

9.35 - Check that. T&T create best chance of the match as Stern John heads maybe a foot wide from a Dwight Yorke corner.

9.42 - Lampard blasts a free volley way over from about 9 yards out after a good buildup from Terry, Ash Cole, and "Wonderboy" Owen. Really should have done better.

9.43 - Not to be outdone, "Spiceman" hits a great cross into "Mr. Roboto", unmarked 6 yards in front of goal, but his volleyed effort is not even close. Starting to look like Sweden-T&T, where England are creating the lion's Three Lions share of the chances but like an impotent man cannot finish.

9.45 - Holy Shit! T&T beat the keeper and a header is going into the goal when John Terry jumps back and clears it off the line with a swinging volley. Man, eerily similar to that rocketshot off the bar by T&T against Sweden. Great play by Terry.

HT. 0-0. This is looking like Sweden-T&T II: Inept Finishing, The Return.

10.12 - Rooneh jogging on the sideline , getting loose. An entire nation simultaneously gets butterflies in its stomach.

10.16 - Wonderboy's diving bullet header off of Spiceman's long free kick is inches wide. Rooneh waiting to come on as the Englland fans scream "Roo-neh! Roo-neh! Roo-neh!"


The moment: culmination of excitement
and anxiety for an entire nation.

10.17 - Rooneh enters to standing ovation as he replaces Wonderboy. The made-for-TV movie script would have England winning 2-0 on a Rooneh brace. Lennon also on for Carragher.

10.24 - Lennon's pace and the enormous adrenaline shot in the ass of Rooneh just playing has instantly made England look way more dangerous. T&T are experiencing deja vu: 30 minutes to hold off wave after wave of Sweden England attacks. At least they have 11 men this time, but at this point it is largely one way traffic.

10.29 - Mr Roboto misses another good chance of a great cross. If he lets it fall to a wide open Ash Cole then Ash would have buried it, because he is just clutch like that when he goes forward.

10.34 - Yorke gets away with a hand ball (intentional or incidental?) in the box, then Lampard runs onto a good square pass and blasts over yet again from 12 yards.

10.37 - great build up play sees Lampard alone in front of the keeper from 6 yards, but he blasts it right at Shaka Khan. Can't say it enough: this sucker is damn near identical to Sweden-T&T.

10.38 - Lampard almost scores yet again, on a great shot from an angle that beats Shaka Khan but misses the far post by a foot.

10.40 - Ash Cole boombs into the box onto a good through ball, but doesn't score because of fear of Shaka's giant foot soming right at his face. Ash pulls up to avoid injury but gets clattered on the head anyways, but it wasn't dirty and he is not hurt.

10.42 - QUE GOLASO! Mr. Roboto bullet header from great Spiceman cross. Similar to Koller's goal for CZE, except that Crouch was well marked and simply outjumped a defender who is not 6'7". Beautiful goal and well deserved. No robot dance celebration - WTF?

10.50 - QUE GOLASO NOMER DOS! Stevie G scores a quintissential Stevie G goal, switching from right foot to left to shed his defender and then uncorking an absolte screamer with his left (off) foot from 20 yards that was flat out unsaveable. Wonderful goal from a dude who only seems to score wonderful goals.

10.51 - T&T finally get on the board with a good goal, but it is taken off the board for offsides and rightfully so.

10.52 - FT.

England 1-0 Trinidad & Tobago.
What an entertaining match. England played excellent, and this is the best I have seen Beckham play for England in a long, long time. He created at least 10 good chances for England from his consistently outstanding crosses, including the first goal. For those of you just joining us, the book on Beckham was totally upheld today: World's biggest soccer personality? Yes. World's best player? Not by any stretch. World's best crosser of the ball? Yes.

Rooneh didn't do much, but he didn't need to. He was Willis Reed, and his mere introduction and presence on the field lifted England noticeably and considerably. As I said before the tournament, they are a completely different team with him in the lineup.

Sven is the most relieved man on planet Earth right now. Between the time Rooneh came on and Crouch scored, Sven looked as anxious as a man awaiting the results of a paternity test, knowing that if Rooneh re-injured his foot then he would be the goat of a nation according to Fleet Street for bringing him back too soon. This would have been sooooo English press, to hound the living shit out of Sven and create a massive frenzy about the possibility of getting Rooneh back on the field, then completely forgetting their actions and instead turning around and villifying Sven for recklessly destroying Rooneh as well as England's chances to win the Cup. As much as I dislike Sven, he is like Princess Diana compared to the British press.

Sweden- Paraguay
Sweden will roll. They created 7,438 chances in match one, but just couldn't convert any of the chances. Better shooting and they would have beaten T&T 4-0. Hopefully they have been practicing shooting at the net rather than directly at the keeper, and I think that they win somewhere between 3-0 and 5-1 with some beautiful goals from their "big three".


Beautiful 3 representing Sweden's "big 3"

I'm going to watch the match at the pub next to the courthouse, since jury duty starts at 1.30 p.m., right about minute 70 of the match. Thoughts later. Enjoy and go Sweden.

Sweden 1-0 Paraguay.
First half was a carbon copy of the T&T match. That is Sweden created a ridiculous number of chances but couldn't convert any. 0-0 at halftime, and Sweden must have felt like they should have been up 3-0 or 4-0. I did not see the 2nd half because I was in court; I have only seen highlights. From them it looked like more of the same, and they were staring another tie-feels-like-loss in the face when Freddie Ljungberg saved the day in the 89th minute with a very well taken header to give Sweden 3 points. I sure hope the Swedes know his Arsenal song, and have modified it to reflect his current hairstyle.


"We love you Fred-die!
Because you've got red no hair,
We love you Fred-die,
Because you're everywhere,
We love you Fred-die,
Because you're Arsenal Sweden through and through."