This round was interesting with 21 goals in just the 8 games.  There were calls for goal line technology, calls for Capello’s head and calls to the Nigerian Prime Minister to let his team go out and play with the other boys and girls.

OK, England.  They are out and here’s a list of things I need to say about it…

1. They are over paid yes but that is not the reason they didn’t win the World Cup.  It has nothing to do with money and the money they earn is mostly the clubs fault.  Also, Imagine if every time you make a little mistake in your job it’s splashed over the back pages being called all sorts of things.  You wouldn’t like it and you’d want to be compensated accordingly.

2. The Second World War was 2/3 generations ago (6/7 in some areas of the country :))  Let it go, you can’t compare the defending in a 4-4-2 formation without a holding midfielder against Ozil and Podolski to defending your country in a War.

3. The disallowed goal DID make a difference.  Yes they scored 4 but at 2-2 we can sit back, and 2-1 we had to go forward.  To show this, watch Barry on the third goal.  He took the ball forward from our free kick when at 2-2 he would have held back to break up play.

4. We qualified with Heskey so don’t complain when he plays.

5. (TBA – I had something and forgot but I’ll add it when I remember)

Anyway, here are the “Awards of the week”

Best Goal

Frank Lampard – England
Carlos Tevez – Argentina (The good one, not the offside one)

Lot’s of good goals and finally a few from outside the box.  The Tevez one was a little ‘purer’ than the rest so I’ll give it to him.

Best Team

Ghana

There were no shock results as the ‘expected’ team went though on most occasions.  This means that the winner of USA v Ghana would get this award.  Ghana, being the last African nation left have deserved a quarter-final place.

Best Player

Carlos Tevez – Argentina

No real stand out player this week but Tevez scored twice (even if one was dodgy) and looked more like the player we’ve seen in England recently.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

Sepp Blatter – Fifa

Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal could be explained by the assistant ref looking down the offside line.  So where was he looking when Carlos Tevez received the ball 3-4 feet offside? The replay being shown on the big screen within 10 seconds after it happened shows that video technology, as much as I don’t want it, is possible.  Fifa have now said they will look into it further.  To add balance, I will say that I mentioned Karma a few times in my World Cup posts and a goal bouncing in off the cross bar against Germany NOT being given when it clearly went in added karmic balance to that particular situation.

Best Moment

Goals Goals Goals

This is better.  When a win is needed, teams have to attack, an average of around 3 goals a game compared to 1 a game from the first round of matches.  Goals from outside the area, free kicks and penalties.  This is better.

Serious predictions this time…

Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Spain

Brazil Spain final. (Argentina 3rd.)

Spain to win.

See you after the final.

@jestatharogue

Related posts:

• World Cup Update
• World Cup Update 2
• World Cup Update 3

The group stage is over and only 6 European teams are still in, here are the “Awards of the week”

Best Goal

Keisuke Honda and Yasuhito Endo – Japan

The goalkeeping wasn’t the best but it’s nice to see some free kicks going in.  Both were good in their own.

Best Team

South Africa

Beating France alone should get this but they did it well against a French team that was trying to win. There won’t have been bigger celebrations in Dublin over a French sporting defeat outside the 6 Nations.

Best Player

Robert Vittek – Serbia

Scored twice to knock out Italy, played really well in what was the best game of the tournament so far.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

M Rodriguez – Mexico (Referee)

Although Estrada for Chile should have had 4 yellows, his second official yellow came when Torres tripped over his legs as they were running off the ball.  Unintentional and not worthy of a booking at any point.  He then allowed the teams to play out the result for the last 5 minutes which we were told would not be tolerated.  Boring.

Best Moment

Italy and France

Italy cheated in the second round of the 2006 World Cup against Australia, barely qualified for the World CUP 2010 out an easy group then went on to fail pathetically, good.  They’re boring to watch and roll around far too much.  France on the other hand were poor with the infighting and players going home.  They took Ireland’s chance a blew it, like having the Playboy Mansion for a weekend and spending it in front of the TV.

I’m going for it on my predictions, let’s see how these go…

Korea
Ghana
England
Mexico
Holland
Brazil
Japan
Portugal

I’ll be back on the full time whistle on Tuesday to see how these pretty bold predictions went.

@jestatharogue

Related posts:

• World Cup Update 2
• World Cup Update
• World Cup Update 4

Second round down, Cameroon and North Korea are out already but will they get a consolation of one of my “Awards of the week”? (Spoiler: They don’t)

Best Goal

David Villa – Spain

Special mentions to Landon Donovan and Luis Fabiano (The good one not the handball one)  but this one topped it.  Nice solo effort, quick feet coming in from the left and stretching to lift the ball into the far corner.  Best goal so far I think.

Best Team

Serbia

Tough one, New Zealand played a very average opponents, as did Argentina, Mexico, Algeria, Portugal and Spain to rule them out of team of the week.  But with Germany playing VERY well when they came up against Serbia who limited their chances despite the Podolski penalty miss.

Best Player

Gonzalo Higuain – Argentina

Straight forward, World Cup Hat-tricks are hard to come by and no matter how they go in they all count.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

Wayne Rooney – England

“His second touch is a tackle” has never been more pertinant than the game against Algeria.  No control, no shot, too slow, didn’t chase back, nothing, couldn’t be bothered.  Kaka, Villa etc woke up after one game hopefully Rooney will wake up after two.

Best Moment

Kaka – Brazil

Loving the Karma again.  OK, it was 12 years ago since Rivaldo was “hit in the face” with the ball against Turkey.  So I took great delight in Abdelkader Keita for Ivory Coast just dropping holding his face when he was… erm… whats lighter than a push? He was ‘brushed’ in the chest by Kaka.

That’s my 5 awards for another week.  From now until Friday you have the choice of which game to watch as the groups are decided.  I’ll be watching Mexico, Greece, Slovenia, Ghana, Slovakia, Cameroon, Portugal and Chile vs their respective opponents.

Qualifying Predictions are..
Uruguay – Mexico
Argentina – South Korea
England – USA
Germany – Serbia
Holland – Denmark
Paraguay – Italy
Brazil – Portugal
Spain – Chile

I’ll be back on the full time whistle on Friday with more news and to see how the predictions went.

@jestatharogue

Related posts:

• World Cup Update 4
• World Cup Update
• World Cup Update 3

So after the first game round robin portion of the tournament, here are my “Awards of the week”

Best Goal

Siphiwe Tshabalala – South Africa

Quick and well finished, scoring in the opening game for the host nation.  What the goal meant for the nation and the tournament added to the fact it was a really good finish.

Best Team

South Korea

6 to pick from including North Korea’s brave showing against Brazil, New Zealand’s first ever point and the “SpainKillers”Switzerland.  But South Korea play with a reckless flare that few teams dare attempt.  They beat Greece 2-0 and did it with style.

Best Player

Tae-Se Jong – North Korea

Cried during the national anthem, maybe because of pride or perhaps his family are held in some camp and a win against Brazil is the only way to see them again.  Either way, he taunted the Brazil defence that consisted of mostly top Champions League players.  Very quick with a powerful shot, Jong was my pick for the week.

Least Valuable Player (AKA The Muppet Award)

Nicolas Lodeiro – Uruguay

With so many goalkeeping mistakes I was sure to pick an outfield player.  This guy came on, did very little except get sent off 17 minutes later.  He made no impression on the game but made quite an impression on Sagna’s ankle.

Best Moment

Thierry Henry – France

Isn’t Karma a bitch? After cheating his way in to the World Cup after a double deliberate handball against the Republic of Ireland, ‘Terry Henry’ had the audacity to *SCREAM* for a penalty for handball final minutes of the game against Uruguay.  He didn’t get it and I think we’re all glad.  Was it a handball? Who cares, no penalty and I will go ahead and assume it was the right decision from the referee.

That’s my 5 awards for the week, I’ll be back on the 22nd to run through the second round of results and look ahead to the group deciders.

@jestatharogue

Related posts:

• World Cup Update 2
• World Cup Update 3
• World Cup Update 4

Then while watching Cricket and Australia walking over England the commentators were working out how to make the 50 over game more interesting, I started to think about footie too.  What could make it better, then I had a thought…

“I’ve been playing Blood Bowl quite a bit lately”

But just as I had this thought and was considering patenting the rules for “Destructo-ball”, Bolivia beat me to it…

@JestaThaRogue

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