your daily recap

[rone]

First off, you should friend michael_davies, TV producer ("Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?") and soccer fan.  His World Cup reports are fun reading (even if he recycles a non-trivial amount of material).  Click on the Archive link and work your way to today from the beginning (or, heck, read his `02 Cup stuff, too).

Portugal 2 - Iran 0: Iran didn't play as well as they did against Mexico, but Portugal's finishing was crap.  Pauleta was a zero.  Figo's dive that provoked the penalty that led to the second goal was top notch, though.

Ghana 2 - Czechia 0: The Ghanians should by all rights have scored at least another goal.  They ran the Czechs off the field, starting with that early goal that was a superb pass and a superb finishing touch.  The Czechs finished a man down after a defender took down, in the box, a Ghanian that was breaking away towards the goal; textbook red card offense.  The Ghanian shooter shot too early and earned a yellow card; when he tried again, he hit the post.

USA 1 - Italy 1: The US still hasn't scored in this Cup; their goal was thanks to what Michael Davies called "the crappest own goal of all time."  It is bewildering, and by all accounts this was one of the most bewildering soccer games ever.  I missed it while i went to Kim's graduation, but i hope to catch it with palecur sometime in the next week.  The US still have a hope to qualify; they'll have to beat Ghana and the Italians will have to beat the Czechs (an Italy-Czechia tie means the US would have to beat Ghana by four goals... right).

Comments

[khrister.livejournal.com]

And if Czechia wins by one, USA needs to beat Ghana by five to be certain. I doubt that's going to happen. I think it'll be Ghana and Italy.

I think the US team deserved to win up until they got the red cards, but getting those was really stupid when they're one man up on the Italians.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

I was goinbg to say "what, no mention of the US-Italy red cards?" but someone else has already mentioned them. It sounds like McBride may be doubtful for the final game: he has to have stitches around his eye after the incident that led to Di Rossi's red.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

The US-Italy game yesterday was bewildering. For a national team that's supposed to be improving with each competition, they were playing like junior varsity yesterday. The only thing keeping them from being stomped flat was Italy's inclination to play like petulant children. And the officiating was crap. Sheer crap. If there is a review process available, I hope Italy and the US pursue it because they were both screwed by a referee more interested in ensuring everybody respects his auth-or-ee-tay than in doing his job.

The G-C game was the best game yesterday, and a good game by most standards. Portugal didn't play like a team at all -- they had no excuse for being held to only two goals.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

...and I'm watching the Croatia-Japan game right now. Ten minutes in and Croatia's players are falling down and clutching their shins at every foul, no matter how slight and to which part of the body. This should be comical once a Japanese player manages real damage against a team that looks about twice as large. So far the referee doesn't look too gullible.

[coldsleep.livejournal.com]

Meant to watch US-Italy, but got distracted by other stuff. I'll have to try to see some of it later.

Thanks for the ongoing reporting. I spent some time yesterday hunting the internets for information, but your consice summaries are generally better reading.

[kawgirl.livejournal.com]

Much earlier this morning when I was in Mexico D.F., a sports reporter told me that in any other game, that second US goal would have been counted despite the offsides. I did not quite understand why as my Spanish is especially poor at 4 AM. I wish I could have understood because this would be a much more interesting comment.