your daily recap

[rone]

Switzerland 2 - Togo 0: The only game i watched today.  I'm not sure if it's fair to say that Togo deserved better... but they played a lot better than i expected, and probably many other people.  Kader-Touré and Adebayor were both very good and troublesome, and Agassa was strong in goal.  Switzerland played solidly and sought a second goal for a while, but then settled back and let Togo get tired.  The second goal came late, as it seems to me has happened often in this Cup.  I hope Togo pulls themselves together and sticks it to France because, even though i still feel a small amount of favoritism towards them left over from `98, they've been mediocre.

Ukraine 4 - Saudi Arabia 0: I caught the first few minutes on the radio.  I remember thinking that the Saudi keeper didn't look too impressive in the KSA-TUN highlights, and he sounded shaky today (not that the wretched conditions of the Hamburg field helped).  Ukraine evened up their goal differential.  For the Saudis, it's been all downhill since their `94 debut, where they made the second round after beating Morocco and Belgium.  Now that Australia has shifted from the Oceania Football Confederation to the Asian FC, they are poised to take what has become the Saudi spot away.

Spain 3 - Tunisia 1: Tunisia took advantage of a lone chance early, in the midst of heavy Spanish pressure, to take a lead they would not relinquish until late in the second half.  Spain is taking advantage of their weak draw.  Tunisia has to beat Ukraine to move on.  The Saudis have a minuscule chance (hope Ukraine and Tunisia tie, then they have to beat France by five).

After today, i have managed to miss both US, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia games; i hope to catch their final game somehow, which is going to be a trick for TUN and KSA because they'll be playing at the same time. Half of the 16 spots in the next stage are taken: Germany, Ecuador, England, Argentina, Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, and Spain.  Portugal and Ecuador are the unexpected names, and Portugal isn't too much of a surprise.  I command all of you to watch Germany-Ecuador tomorrow at 07:00 PDT and root heavily for Ecuador.  That is all.

Comments

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

I command all of you to watch Germany-Ecuador tomorrow at 07:00 PDT and root heavily for Ecuador.

Will you settle for me thinking a kind thought for them before I go to sleep? Because, um.. 0700? Not a freakin' chance.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Just pretend you're still on East Coast time and it's 10am! DO IT. THE POWER OF COACH SUÁREZ COMPELS YOU.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

I've asked my friend Sylvan, currently living in London (GMT-0), to root for Ecuador in my absence. This will have to suffice.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yes, surrogates are perfectly acceptable.

[stoat.livejournal.com]

root Root ROOT for the HOME team

[bungo.livejournal.com]

Viva, Ecuador!

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

IMO, Portugal's group is the weakest in the tournament (Spain's group is weakish, but Tunisia are a stronger side than Angola, at least on paper, and Ukraine were very impressive in qualifying). They've been a pretty good side for several years now, and I've heard two or three people pick them (before the tournament) as a team with a real chance of making the semis.

Good luck to Ecuador. I'll be working at the time, alas. And I'll be fixing the car when the evening games are on. Feh.

[wisn.livejournal.com]

S.A. looked awful yesterday. I have no idea whether they were demoralized or tapped out, but Ukraine had motivation for two teams and the Saudis went into that game like a tax audit.

Apparently the Saudi players won their victory bonus for scoring a draw last week. I modestly propose they play Togo in an exhibition game, loser paying the winner's salaries. In the case of a tie, the Saudis split their win bonus.

[khrister.livejournal.com]

I expect that the winner of Ecuador-Germany will be facing Sweden in the next round. I'm not sure who to root for...

But ok, I'll root for Ecuador if you root for Sweden five hours later against England. :-)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Oh, i think you can count on that.

spoiler, ecuador game 3!

[veep.livejournal.com]

> I command all of you to watch Germany-Ecuador tomorrow at 07:00 PDT and root heavily for Ecuador.

I'm not rooting for any more teams that barely seem to be rooting for themselves. What a weak display from Ecuador. It makes one wonder if the group just had three lousy teams plus Germany.

Re: spoiler, ecuador game 3!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Man, don't get me started... that game was crap. I'll go into it later today.

[cheesetruck.livejournal.com]

God the England/Sweden game was CRAP CRAP CRAP

The whole game, basically, was one big prelude to the worst goal in this freaking tournament, bar none.

So, anyway, Ecuador tommorrow, right.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Umm, it was a rather entertaining game except for the middle part of the second half.

[cheesetruck.livejournal.com]

Ok, yes, it beat the HELL out of japan on Sunday, and the US display, and I'm being too critical, but seriously, neither team played like they were capable of and it's the freaking world cup and shit.

And that goal sucked ASS.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The English played 5 times better than they had in their previous two games, and the Swedes also played their best game so far. That Joe Cole goal is the goal of the Cup right now. And the late goal only sucked ass if you were rooting for the English because they were incapable of clearing the kick away. The Italian own-goal was much crappier than that.

[cheesetruck.livejournal.com]

I was rooting for the Sveedes, actually. I didn't get home to see the first half, I only saw the last 2 goals. Well, the British goal and the British inability to deal with the Sveede's accidental bounding the ball in the direction of the net.

So I guess I missed something with that goal.

Now, the Italian own goal? I didn't see that. I'd still think this goal was completely crap though; from here it looked like a complete accident. Still can't see why that dude was celebrating, it wasn't like he kicked it toward the goal or anything.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

He managed to stomp it a bit with his studs.

[cheesetruck.livejournal.com]

OH that was today. Yeah, um, well... I missed it, I was in the server room copying pictures from DVD to the RAID. Don't ask.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You didn't miss much.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

On the topic of missing games, I can report that the games are, it appears, reliably being posted to the "tv scene" for download, generally via bittorrent, other p2p, or USENET in the binaries newsfroups. I haven't tried downloading any yet, but it looks like each is broken into 2 CDs worth, so just over a GB of data for download. I have no idea what the source is, what language that might appear in any commentaries or overlays (which may or may not be present) and how the quality is, but from the lack of complains I've seen in some IRC channels, I gather it's archive quality. So if you miss something, it can be had if you can spare the bandwidth.