entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

Germany 3 - Portugal 1: Excellent game.  Up and down activity throughout the game, both Schweinsteiger goals (first one was a well-hit knuckler with Ricardo screened, second one was an unstoppable curler from outside) and the Gomes goal (centered right at his head by Figo) were excellent (and the Petit own goal came off a good Schweinsteiger free kick).

Italy 1 - France 1 (5-3 PKs): The France goal was a penalty kick awarded on what looked like a very good dive; Zidane hit the crossbar but the ball bounced well behind the touch line before coming back out.  The Italian goal came soon after that from a corner kick (France seemed to have trouble with Italy's corner kicks all game).  Throughout the game, one team seemed to spend some time dominating, then falling back and letting the other team take the upper hand.  The Italians had a goal (correctly) called off for offsides.  Near the end, the French really seemed to have worn the Italians down, but then, soon after taking a marvelous header that Buffon barely poked out, Zidane (who dislocated his shoulder late in the game) lost his patience with Materazzi and headbutted him in the chest, which got him ejected.  Kim thought maybe Materazzi tweaked his shoulder, but the replays don't really seem to show that; all that's clear is that Materazzi hugs him and grabs his jersey a bit.  They exchange words as Zidane walks away, he turns around, bam.  In PKs, Trezeguet's shot was almost a mirror of Zidane's penalty kick, except this time the ball hit the front side of the touch line, and that was the difference.

It's a shame to see Zidane go out like this, and it's a shame to have the Cup end this way, both because of the ugliness and the PKs.  The Iron Man award goes to Philipp Lahm, Fabio Cannavaro, and Gianluigi Buffon for playing 690 minutes of soccer in this Cup.  Buffon only allowed an own-goal and a penalty kick.

Let's do it again in four years.

Italy 2 - Germany 0: Good first half, dull second half, dull first overtime, exciting second overtime.  The Italians were just a bit better throughout the game and deserved the win.  Cannavaro is a rock in their backfield, Buffon saved the few chances where Podolski actually managed to put the ball on goal, Gilardino proved to be an inspired substitution, and Grosso was totally alone in the box when he one-timed Pirlo's pass just past Lehmann's fingers and just inside the post.  Odonkor proved to be as energetic as ever a subsitution for the Germans, but he couldn't get it done alone.  Klose was almost invisible.

France 1 - Portugal 0: Both teams came out looking for an early goal.  France established control of the midfield soon after that, and then earned a penalty kick when Carvalho whacked Henry from the ground.  Zidane stuffed it into the low corner, but Ricardo guessed right (again) and almost saved it.  In the second half, the game diminished considerably, with Portugal being unable to get anything happening up front and France not really showing any interest in making a serious attack.  Figo looked tired even before the game started, and as the end of the game came close, he looked completely gassed.  Then Scolari inserted Simão and Postiga, the former of which really started making things happen (and the latter took some pretty dives).  Actually, the Portuguese really dove a lot, and whined a lot for calls, too.  Really, really annoying.  I'm glad they lost. At least they made the last 10 minutes of the game really exciting, with Ricardo coming up for the final two minutes of play to try to make something out of a couple of corner kicks. He was the man of the match.

Portugal 0 - England 0 (3-1 PKs): This game started out well, then became quite dull.  Rooney was sent off after he stomped Carvalho's soft bits, but you wouldn't know it for a while because England played hard after that, looking for a goal and coming close a few times.  Meanwhile, Portugal never visibly took advantage of their numerical superiority, with a Figo who looked tired and slow.  Both he and Beckham were substituted in the second half, the latter of whom was limping on his way out.  When it came to the penalty kicks, Lampard, who's the player with the most shots taken in the Cup but hasn't scored, still couldn't find the back of the net.  Carragher, who was inserted with less than five minutes left in overtime, ostensibly to knock in a penalty kick, shot before the referee had whistled, and his retake was saved by the Portuguese keeper, who guessed right each time.  At least now the long, national English nightmare is over, and Sven-Goran Eriksson is gone.  And we got to see Victoria Beckham cry, too.

France 1 - Brazil 0: You know, for all the talk about how Brazil could field two World Cup teams with their talent, they could've used that second team today, because their top team played as poorly as any team i've seen in the Cup.  The French were absolutely solid until near the end, when Brazil desperately tried to tie as Parreira inserted every one of his forwards.  Zidane played like it was 1998 again, and he connected with Henry for the goal (this is Zidane's first assist ever to an Henry goal in international play).  Needless to say, i'm thrilled that Brazil is out, and maybe they need to stop fooling around with the ball for Nike commercials and learn to play with each other again.  France-Portugal happens on Wednesday.

Germany 1 - Argentina 1 (4-2 PKs): An absolutely dreadful first half, where the Argentinians started whining and whacking and diving pretty much from the start, and the Germans soon followed their lead in the diving department.  Easily the most dives in any game this Cup.  Things improved in the second half with Ayala's goal, where he managed to wrap his body around Klose to firmly head the ball in.  Later, Klose vindicated himself with a solid strike.  Overtime went back to being mostly dull.  Ayala closed the circle by poorly taking his penalty kick.  If Michael Ballack (whose performance was rather erratic) is Matt Damon, i'd say Maxi Rodríguez is Ben Affleck.

Italy 3 - Ukraine 0: A much better game than i expected (perhaps the soccer gods made it interesting because of the crap of the first game).  Ukraine came very close to tying the game and then Italy knocked in their second goal, and quickly after that a third, both on defensive miscues in the box, both by Luca Toni (finally).  Today just plain wasn't Ukraine's day; even near the end, Shevchenko was taken down in the box close to the referee, but no call.  Italy faces Germany in a rematch of the `82 Cup final.

Brazil 3 - Ghana 0: Ghana missed Essien (out due to yellow card accumulation), but i'm not sure that it would have made a difference.  They played the offside trap all game, even though its failure led to the first goal in the 5th minute.  Brazil played most of the game in second gear.  Had Ghana actually finished one of their chances, i suspect Brazil would have stuck it to them, like they did to Japan.  A Ghanaian got a yellow card for diving —and as it was his second, he was sent off— but he didn't dive.  He just fell down.  The third goal looked to be a result of a half-step offside Zé Roberto, who then chipped the ball away from a rushing Kingson with a high kick.  No call either way, not that it really mattered in the end.

France 3 - Spain 1: Didn't get to see it.  It looked like a somewhat chippy game, although there were very few yellow cards.  Zidane seemed to have jumped into the wayback machine for this game; he better hope he can keep it going against Brazil.  Spain gets another notch on their choker reputation, however undeserved it might be.

Two whole days without soccer.  I feel faint.

Italy 1 - Australia 0: the Aussies played well.  Very well.  They only lacked luck and finishing.  And then the referee stabbed them all in the back with a phantom penalty call in the last 30 seconds of the game.

Ukraine 0 - Switzerland 0 (3-0 PKs): Couldn't watch it due to actual work being done.  Sounds like the Swiss are the Shaqs of soccer.  Italy-Ukraine should actually be duller than England-Portugal.  This Cup is really not taking a good shape.

England 1 - Ecuador 0: England stank it up.  It took a trademark Beckham moment of brilliance for England to win.  Ecuador had their chances early but started losing ground in the second half.  Then Tenorio got hurt and Kaviedes was not noteworthy.  Sadness.  England's next opponent should be very happy to see the English suck it up, except that...

Portugal 1 - Netherlands 0: The first half was exciting and entertaining; after seeing the Dutch press forward with little efficacy, i predicted the Portuguese would score first on a counterattack, and so it happened.  Costinha got a second yellow card in first-half injury time with a completely stupid intentional handball at midfield.  Once the second half started, the Dutch went at it again with more success at getting shots on goal.  Then around the 60-minute mark, things started getting very chippy.  The yellow cards started flowing and the game finished with 16 yellow cards, four of those double yellows and thus reds, two on each side.  The teams were perhaps guilty of too much effort, playing very roughly.  The word of the game is "attrition".  I expect England-Portugal to be the dullest quarterfinal in Cup history.

Just remembered... as the game was in its final minutes (and i've never seen a ref add six minutes of injury time to a half), the camera flashed to the red-carded Dutch Boulahrouz and the Portuguese Deco commiserating on some steps close to the field.

Germany 2 - Sweden 0: Germany scored early and then proceeded to wipe the pitch with the Swedes, who had to play a man down in the second half.  To compound their misery, Larsson brutally overshot a penalty kick early in the second half, which completely demoralized his team.

Argentina 2 - Mexico 1: Mexico came out strong and scored early, but almost immediately knocked in an own goal to tie the game up.  The rest of the half was very even.  In the second half, Argentina dominated more but failed to get decent scoring chances due to an excellent Mexican defense.  Late in the second half, the Mexican defense started flagging, and the Argentinians scored the winning goal with a minute to go in injury time, except it was called back on a very bad offsides call.  In overtime, Rodríguez scored a gorgeous goal, the mirror image of Joe Cole's goal against Sweden.  Mexico tried their hardest, but just couldn't get it done.  Argentina gets to face Germany.

Spain 1 - Saudi Arabia 0: The surprise here is that Spain didn't steamroll the Saudis, but — again — they were playing a fair amount of subs.  The Saudis had a small chance of qualifying, which involved either a Tunisia-Ukraine tie and them beating Spain by 5 goals, or a Tunisia victory and the Saudis beating Spain by two more goals than the Tunisians got.  I only watched the first half; Spain played well, and the goal was quality.  The Saudis had their chances, but none were converted.

Ukraine 1 - Tunisia 0: I watched the second half until Shevchenko dove for a penalty and got it.  The game was rather dull at that point; Tunisia was a man down after Jaziri got a second yellow card for a takedown (and his first was for diving in the box), so their chances were thin.  Once the penalty was knocked in, i lost interest.  Ukraine looked far from convincing.

France 2 - Togo 0: France dominated, although Togo definitely played decently, if uncreatively up front.  France's goals were both high quality, and there was a definitely palpable sense of relief among the French.  Trezeguet was in fine whiny form today, almost like an Italian or an Uruguayan.  Togo will do well with some more team maturation.  France gets to play Spain next.

Switzerland 2 - Korea 0: Senderos scored the first goal and celebrated as blood ran down his brow and nose.  Later he had to leave because he separated his shoulder.  If he's unable to play against Ukraine, his team will miss his hard work in the back.  Korea, inexplicably, did not start Ahn Jung Hwan yet again.  The second Swiss goal seemed an obvious result of an off-side Frei, and the linesman lifted his flag immediately, but the referee allowed the goal to stand, adducing that the pass that was made by the Swiss player had been then played backwards by a Korean defender.  This was evidently not the case; it was a deflection, a mere bounce, which by rule must be called as offside.  A small amount of blame goes to the goalie, who could have tried to stop the final shot, but instead stood around arguing that Frei was offside.  Play to the whistle, guys.  Always, always play to the whistle.

Trivia!  The Swiss are the only team to emerge from round-robin play without having given up a goal; Trinidad & Tobago are the only team to come out of the Cup without scoring a single goal.  Korea are the only team to get 4 points but fail to qualify.  Nobody got screwed on goal differential this year, which is a good thing.  Of the eight group seeds, only Mexico and France failed to finish in first place (but qualified in second place).

I don't know what the deal is, but the reffing has steadily gone downhill throughout the first stage.  It had better improve starting tomorrow.

Ghana 2 - USA 1: A tough and well played game on both sides.  The US got a bum call on the first-half injury time penalty kick that made it 2-1, and suffered some bad luck when Draman stole the ball from Reyna as Reyna's cleats got stuck in the ground (and it looked like Draman's knee knocked Reyna's a bit, but it really wasn't a foul), then ran it straight in for a goal.  There was also that great McBride strike that banged off the post.  Still, the US finished dead last in shots on goal, behind mighty Trinidad & Tobago.  Part of that would be due to the terrible draw they got, but it's mostly a reflection of the lack of creativity up front; Donovan was supposed to be the US's world-class guy, but his development seems to have leveled out.  We'll have to see what happens in `10.

Italy 2 - Czechia 0: The Czechs were pressing early on, then gave up a goal on a corner kick where, unconscionably, nobody was covering either post.  In first-half injury time, Polak got himself ejected on a second yellow card, making his team's comeback that much more difficult.  The Italians added a very late goal on a counterattack breakaway where it was two forward on the goalkeeper, and Cech almost managed to snag the ball anyway.

Croatia 2 - Australia 2: I missed the first half of the game.  It was very entertaining, and Croatia shouldn't've tried to hang onto a 2-1 lead knowing that a tie would eliminate them.  A Croat was ejected on a double yellow late, then two minutes after that an Aussie suffered the same fate.  Then another Croat got his second yellow, but the ref lost track and didn't pull out the red for him.  Once the game ended, he gave the ref more guff (immediately after an Aussie had given the ref a hug) and the ref gave him a third yellow and then the red, thus setting a record for most yellow cards received in a game.  The Aussies' prize is a date with Italy in the next round.

Brazil 4 - Japan 1: Japan actually scored first.  Ronaldo managed to tie in first-half injury time, and the second half was all Brazil.  Brazil gets to face a Ghana that will miss their world-class midfielder Essien.