What to say about today's game but WOW. Germany appear to have that perfect blend of discipline (which we knew they'd have) and swagger, making them a fantastic side to watch. Who would've thought going into this matchup that it'd be DFB Elf who'd provide all the flair in the final third? They consistently picked out the right passes while shutting down an Argentine offense who've caused havoc in opposing defenses throughout the tournament. I've been consistently bored with German teams of the past, but this one has me actually looking forward to watching them play. Fantastic Cup. It's a shame it'll be over so soon.
A matchup of true heavyweights in this morning's quarterfinal. There's history between the sides—the 1986 final in Mexico where Maradona's side put down the West Germans in a 3-2 display of beautiful attacking football comes immediately to mind. Never one to avoid the spotlight, the tournament's most valuable quotable is stirring the pot before the match: Maradona stared into a Fox Sports camera on Thursday and with a mock German accent asked, “What’s the matter Schweinsteiger? Are you nerrrvoushhh?” This in reply to the Bayern Munich playmaker's suggestion that the Argentine's have been harassing officials. We all know about Argentina's attack, but what's of question is their defense. That suggests the key matchup will be Demichelis versus Klose, the German finding his form again, and while neither one are speedsters, it's Klose's ability in the air that might see Demichelis holding his head in shame. Open thread today only, after the bump!
An Argentina fan Having been warned by both our inside guy at FIFA, and the owners of our B&B, we leave for the park & ride at 9:30 am for the 1:30 pm kickoff. It is also quite cold, but sunny, so doubled up on socks and tshirts, have the hat, gloves, and sunglasses. After a half-hour ride in toward the city itself, we get out at Gold Reef City. An amusement park celebrating the history of gold mining in the area. And on the other side of the street, it is a casino. Instead of chaos at the drop-off, we walk around the bend, into a nearly empty line, get right onto a shuttle, which spends 15 minutes driving us to the stadium. It is now 10:15. I guess the people who had trouble tried to get there right at kick-off, a feat which makes
We're all over the place today what with the holiday weekend upon us, so let's just get straight to the point: Uruguay: Muslera, Maxi Pereira, Lugano, Victorino, Fucile, Alvaro Fernandez, Perez, Arevalo Rios, Cavani, Suarez, Forlan Ghana: Kingson, Pantsil, Vorsah, John Mensah, Sarpei, Annan, Inkoom, Asamoah, Kevin-Prince Boateng, Muntari, Gyan Danger up front for Uruguay, who can turn to a brutal, hacking style of defense if Ghana start to turn the screw. The Black Stars have power and speed in abundance, but will they hold their shape? The comment thread is open after the bump! ____________________________________ [liveblog]25[/liveblog]
1998 World Cup Semi-Final: Holland's captain Frank De Boer after his team were knocked out by Brazil in a penalty shoot-out [Note: We're setting this up as a liveblog, but we'll probably be too focused on the game to actually do so. So we'll treat this one as an open thread. We'll be throwing up some in-game comments--please do the same!] Doesn't it feel like a whole new, more compressed and more intense tournament starts today? Eight teams remaining, seven games to go (well, eight if you count the 3rd place game--but who really does?), beginning with four quarterfinal matchups--two today (Brazil vs Netherlands followed by Uruguay vs Ghana) and two tomorrow (Argentina vs Germany followed by Spain vs Paraguay). The first of these may just be the most highly anticipated: Brazil vs Netherlands. What to say about this match? Obviously, this might just be a
That is what 28 hours of traveling from Durban, through Johannesburg and Atlanta, to Chicago will do to a person. Sadly, circumstances prevented consistent access to webbernet facilities, so I had to return before continuing this activity. Apparently some worried that bad things had occurred. Rest assured, no problems, except for my lack of vigilance in note taking for the remainder of the trip. I shall endeavor to recreate the remainder of the trip in its roughly chronological order. Picking up the story, we left Cape Town having done virtually zero of the important local activities. Our visit to the District Six museum showed a nasty part (one of many) of the Apartheid era. The government declared a large, multi-cultural neighborhood to be Whites-Only, shipped the residents to projects on the other sided of the mountain, and leveled the area except for places of worship. The outrage over this proved
Asamoah Gyan and Kevin-Prince Boateng: "Let's set those records!" As we eagerly await the resumption of play with tomorrow's two quarterfinal matches (Brazil vs. Holland in the early game, Uruguay vs Ghana in the late game), here are a few links with the some news on each side: Brazil's Elano will miss tomorrow's game due to an ankle injury--and may be done for the tournament; Robin van Persie's petulance causes yet more rumblings of strife within the Dutch camp; Off the Post blog posts a handful of clips from Diego Forlan's WC video diary; and from GhanaWeb.com, "Top Five Records Ghana Will Set If They Beat Uruguay."
A whole day without any oversized kazoos overwhelming my aural sense. What to do? Well, first I downloaded the vuvuzela app for my phone, but it wasn't quite enough, so I went hunting for online options. Best I could find is actually an anti-vuvuzela game, which because of it's fit-inducing drone is simply NSFW. Here it is anyway. Have fun!
