12 hours after the ecuador-poland game finished

The stats were actually up pretty quickly last night - it took about two hours.

Argentina vs Ivory Coast tonight looks like a good game.

Before that, two group B games - England vs PAraguay and Sweden vs Tinidad and Tobago.

Oh yeah, you're damn right, Paddington. That's an addiction.

After a terrible terrible African Cup where they achieved next to nothing, Togo loses the coach who had taken over since February.
Otto Pfister called it quits yesterday, 4 days before the team's first game, against Corea.
The reason : the players wanted more cash (they asked for 80 000 euros per player, and their federation would "only" grant them 30 000).
This is insane.

I'm struggling to decide: if Gerrard plays, he's still carrying an injury, and he's gonna be marked the Paraguay's ruthless Roberto Acuna (so unpopular that he doesn't even talk to his own team-mates on a regular basis). Do I make him captain?

Expect free kicks and crosses a-plenty:

This match brings together two teams renowned on their own continents for the strength of their aerial game. England boast a real threat through David Beckham’s set-pieces and centre-back John Terry and, if selected, the towering Crouch are men the South Americans should keep a particularly close eye on. At the other end, England’s defence must be equally vigilant with strikers Santa Cruz and Valdez both a danger.

fuck. i didn't know you could change your first team/captain every day. i thought it would only be after every team had played a game... say goodbye to friday's bonus.

England 1, Paraguay 0 (an own goal gave us victory).

We played well in the first half - we attacked the whole time and denied PAraguay the chance to reciprocate. Beckham was very sharp. In the second half we fell into the English trap of sitting back and trying to defend a one-goal lead; on most occaisions we are made to pay for this policy, on this occaision we rode it out and got the win. We never look comfortable playing that way, and PAraguay made us look like much the lesser team in the second half.

I don't understand why Sven didn't give Theo Walcott at least five or ten minutes at the end of the game - at somepoint we may have to rely on him, so it's best that he gains some comfortable experience early on. Surely Owen/Walcott would have been a more sensible substitution than Owen/Downing?

The referee: I'm glad we won, because it doesn't sound like sour grapes if I say that he was bad to the point of favouritism. His victimisation of Crouch, who was regularly penalised and even yellow-carded for nothing whatsoever, raises serious concerns about his objectivity. It'll be interesting to hear FIFA's match report on him - can yellow cards be appealed against and recinded at this tournament?

Parguay showed in the second half that given time and space, they are an effective unit, and could have scored - they've had some very good results in qualifying and friendly matches, and should be a threat to other teams. That forward of theirs likes to fall over though, doesn't he?

THree points though, and some good performances.

Let's hope we won't see that referee often.

Unbelievable, wasn't he? Really, genuinely bad.

Persecuting Crouch, ignoring fouls but punishing players for nothing, not allowing players to drink water, quite incredible.

He was dressed in red. Might have gone up to his head.
And 4 times he switched that whadyacallit (when a player throws with his hands the ball once the ball has left the field).
Disappointing tactics from the Brits. A great void around Crouch playing a pole when Downing came in to run along the left wing.
I was impressed by his (Crouch) legs. No skin on them, no muscle either. Completely different from Munitis, the Spanish forward who played for the selection not so long ago. I used to wonder how he could walk with them and, more important, wear trousers.

'Throw-in'.

You're right about Crouch - if you leave a forward on his own, you either need people running through or people supplying him with the ball.

Downing probably should have been left out of the squad - we're over-run with midfielders, he's not too impressive at this level, and another striker would be nice.

Still three days 'till France play. Are you confident?

Throw-in, of course. More relevant that what we use in French : we say "touche". Must have come from a time when the first to touch the ball earned the right to throw it in again, no matter who had pushed it out.

Hah thanks for the summaries. That game aired at 6 AM here - didn't catch any of it. Isn't a T&T game supposed to be on now, though?

It started thirteen minutes ago. T&T vs Sweden. The very exciting prospect of Argentina vs Ivory Coast at 8pm (just under three hours!).

Ah, found it on another channel (ABC). ESPN2 said they're covering all 64 games. Not this one, apparently.

EDIT: They just said ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 will be covering all 64.

england were disappointing in the second half. Hargreaves and Downing on the pitch? Owen off the pitch? What was going on there. It was like watching 45 minutes of a cup final where the team 1-0 up throw on a shit load of defenders for the last 3-5 minutes

i just created my team on friday afternoon in a rush, just before the first game started... i'm glad i put schweinsteiger as captain... however, i had lahm in my team just 5 minutes before the game and eventually decided to take him out...

i have no access to internet at home at the moment, it will be difficult to make all the changes in time to get the maximum of points...

what a result for T&T!!! that second half was nail biting stuff for their fans, nearly won it too

Indeed. A really good game. Very entertaining - T&T made them selves busy for the whole 90 minutes, they were everywhere. Shaka Hislop was superb, and what a game for Carlos Edwards - if he plays anothe two that well, he won't be at Lutin Town much longer!

incredible game...

argh, all my today's players picked up a yellow: gerrard, valdez, larsson. :mad:

Who knows what may have happened if John wasn't sent off?

Who do you like for the final game tonight?

Ivory Coast in a shocker!

being from holland i can't watch any of the games in group c as a neutral.
so i'm hoping for a 0-0 draw and lots of red cards and broken legs on both sides... :D

other than that i'm all for ivory coast.

wij houden van oranje!
I'm supporting holland too

So it looks as though I have one single point so far. Nothing to brag about, but I see many of you have zero.

Today's games haven't been added, though.

Oh right. How many times must I be reminded?

I have Beckham, Imbrahimovic, and Drogba from todays matches. Too bad that free kick went off the defender.

They're being updated now, I think. On my team list, my points = 8, but the league table doesn't seem to acknowledge it yet.

Looking forward to tonight's game. It could be the tournament's first true classic. It could be crap too, I suppose.

beckham'll get some points for the assist on that goal

ibrahimovic will get quite a few for shots on target, as will drogba i imagine

yeah, but ivory coast plays in orange too... ;)

yesterday i had 15 points, but forgot to make someone captain.
today i'll have 12 points deduction on yellow cards alone... i wish i had kept riquelme captain instead of larsson. he didn't give me any goals, just a card that counts double.
riquelme and yaya toure will have to save the day for me.


p.s i reckon that england goal should still count as an assist from beckham, so that's 3 points.

The venue:


Hamburg

So....Argentina winning this one 2-0 so far.....almost over as well. I completely forgot about this game and watched a program about skyscrapers and then the Culture Show with the lovely Verity Sharp.

It cetainly wasn't crap! Fantastic game of football.

Ivory Coast lost on two counts: they weren't tight enough in midfield, and their long balla and crossing let them down. That said, a good performance by both teams, and the stand-out game of the competition so far. You can't argue with Drogba's commitment, can you? Man of the match, and it was nice that he got his goal.

The Argentines are as classy as a squad as they are as individuals; talented, tight, a real unit on every part of the pitch.

That game killed me. I dropped Drogba for Toure at the last minute and had Tizie at the goal. Ouch.

Ivory Coast didn't look as creative as they were billed, but Drogba is the real thing. Argentina has looked the best team by far, but of course, we're not even half way through the field yet. This group will be interesting to watch. Serbia and Montenegro - Holland, tomorrow. Should be a good one!

Also Mexico - Iran and Portugal - Angola. Tomorrow might be very good!

You're becoming a football fanatic.

I know. I feel it seeping into my thoughts. I couldn't catch the first and last games today (first one was too early, second one I couldn't get home in time) and I found myself really anxious to find out what was happening. I just really wish I knew the players. I feel so out of the loop - so much stuff to catch up on. I looked for a magazine special or something at the magazine stands, to kind of fill me in, and the only one I found was in Portugese. My mom's fluent in it, but I'd rather not have her read it to me.

I think I understand how the game works, pretty much. I get offsides and stoppage time, which confused the hell out of me at first. The rest, like penalties and stuff, seem to be less crucial to follow the game, so I'll read up on it later. I need to learn the important names and teams and stuff so I can feel like I know what's going on.

tomorrow watch out for christiano ronaldo, luis figo (if he plays), deco from portugal,
van der sar, van der vaart, van nistelrooij, robben on the dutch team
marquez, borgetti for mexico.... don't know too much about the other teams

Thanks. I'll look for them.

o o o & sonicl have made great choices tonight.
Expect them to be high. Well, high... The leader of the Sonic Youth league is number 17160, overall team ranking (but he'll get higher than that once tonight's points are added to his lot).

Group D today: Mexico vs Uran, Portugal vs Angola. So many good players today, should be a good day.

Also the other group C opener, Netherlands vs Serbia and Montenegro. Netherlands need to win, as they have yet to play Argentina - both teams want as many points in the bag as possible before that match-up.