The Three Dads World Cup Wonderland

"It's just amazing that these guys are great for their club sides, but put the white shirt of England on, and they just don't perform" ( Steve McManaman) "ok, these guys may be rich and well paid, but maybe they're just not that good" (Alexi) Alexi, I have no smart comeback at this time. You're dangerously on the money (no pun intended). Please can someone tell 'Macca' that there are still English people watching him. The irony of that statement needs no words.... That is all I can say right now... it's just too depressing. I will likely not get round to posting on the other games today, so as an executive summary of those efforts, I would like to wish everybody Happy Incompetent Referees Day!! Ok, back to the medication...........

I need to get this post in quick and gloat over a fine Mexican performance and an absolutely terrible display from the French before David James spills a corner and England lose 1-0 to the plucky Algerians in about an hour. I have been fairly good with my predictions so far this world cup, but none so more than my desire for the second round games to get going for the action to really start..... Before that, credit to the Swiss. Where many (MANY) teams have tried to play defensively and on the break against better teams, they actually executed this perfectly against the Spanish. I don't know yet how I feel about a potential Spain - Brazil second round game. Obviously, great game, but should it be happening so soon in the tournament?? Anyway, moving on - and the second round of group games: Uruguay - SA France - Mexico Order has been restored here. The weak SA team (and none more disappointing than Pienaar) are where they need to be - they're just simply too limited, and certain

The world cup finally caught fire last night in a spectacular day of football. I was refreshed from my self imposed ‘night-off’ (reduction to watching only 1.5 games of the 3) the previous night and sat down to watch my trio of games with much relish last night. First up was Argentina vs South Korea, in my opinion the verification of the top two places in that group. Argentina looked majectic again, going forward, and Higuain scored what will be the easiest hat-trick of his life. The office worker equivalent would be a bloke sat with his feet on the desk all day, sipping a beer, and then taking credit for his team’s achievements at the end of the day. Messi, Tevez and Di Maria did all the legwork and put goals on a plate for him. The match further confirmed my belief though, that like last time, Argentina will ook like world beaters, smashing some teams into oblivion, but will struggle against a team who can themselves attack. Still the fullbacks look woeful and they threw in some cent

Due to growing fatigue and the relentless tedium of the first round games I made the executive decision to skip Chili v Honduras and the most part of Spain v Switzerland. Not sure if that is a function of me growing up (something to do with marital responsibility? Not sure whether the wife would agree that me only watching one and a bit games in an evening is really "stepping up to the plate"), or just a result of this being the lowest scoring opening round of matches. I had thought that this decision, combined with sod's law would spark an absolute goal-feast, but the Everton-esque 1-0 results continued. As Steve says, roll on the second round of matches. Sadly the South Africans lived down to expectations and were soundly thrashed by Uruguay. Although a shame, I personally don't like to see a weak host team progress to the knockout stages, because it always ends up being effectively a gimme match for someone in the latter stages. The match to watch today will be M

Not quite sure what I have been doing with my days, but I need to catch up on a few games... Holland v Denmark Japan v Cameroon Italy v Paraguay NZ v Slovakia Ivory Coast v Ronaldo Brazil v Kim Jong-il Firstly, tomorrow marks the first of the second group games and THANK GOD. I've had my fill of tight "too afraid to make a mistake" cagey low scoring nonsense... I'm ready for the show to really start.... The Dutch did enough in their toughest group game, but didn't overly impress and got lucky with one of the finer examples of "twenty pence head" by Poulsen for Denmark for the opening own goal. Denmark could be a sleeper team - they have a strong defence and just need Bendtner to have one of his one every twenty games amazing performances and they could surprise. Stat of the day: Japan became the first team for a lot of years to win a world cup game without winning a corner kick. Not sure what is more depressing, the actual fact or that someone actually

Great insight again from the ginger bearded one today.... "so stupid of the guy to take his shirt off like that, he's got a yellow card and for a defender he just can't do that" The reaction to New Zealand's Winston Reid removing his shirt in his goal celebration.... For the record, Winston, who plies his trade for FC Midtjylland (?!?!), was making only his FOURTH start for New Zealand, scored his FIRST international goal, which came in the 93RD MINUTE and secured NZ's FIRST EVER point at a World Cup finals, which the manager later described as the country's finest result...EVER Hmm, one can only imagine Alexi similarly berates the wife after coital exercises if she ever lets her enjoyment eat into her time allocated for evening dinner preparation.....

The world cup has been an educational experience for me. In the last 24 hours I learned two valuable things: 1) I can play the vuvuzela! Yes, I am now in possession of a green 2ft long vuvuzela and to the annoyance of neighbours and wife have been joining in the incessant droning from the comfort of my lounge. They actually seem to have a much depper tone individually than it seems on the telly (unless I have a bass version, or a particular Barry White style) 2) I can now boot up my V+ Box in 'engineers mode' and fix terminal errors, a lesson born out of necessaity when the box fatally crashed at 7:30pm last night, thus leaving me in total meltdown in terms of watching back Japan vs Cameroon and simultaneously recording Italy vs Paraguay. Forty three minutes of furious rebooting, huffing, rebooting again before finally looking up hacks on the internet and rebooting with mystery button-holds and presses to launch engineers mode and resolve the faults. The wife was impressed/

So it looks like the car crash I saw prior to the England match was a  symbol of what was to follow. First, the uk coverage managed to make the ultimate cock up, accidently cutting to adverts whilst England were scoring their goal. It cut back in time for the end of the celebration. Little did I know that my vitriolic outburst would be dwarfed later on by the reaction to Rob Green's efforts at stopping Donovan's not-deceptive 'slow ball' delivery. Mexico's legend of yesteryear Rene Higuita would probably have caught  that shot between his toes, but not our Rob. According to opta he was the most mistake-prone keeper in the premier league last year. Nice. I actually don't begrudge the selection too much, unlike Ledley King, who spends his life injured, and is now injured again - waste of a plane ticket if ever there was one. On a more positive note, how good were Germany? They stand out with Argentina as the first real contenders so far. Also pleased that Pod

Not much time here so we're going to have to go with a quick fire round today: Continued my poor run of watching the 7:30am games. Best decision EVER. sounds like a stinker of a game, but a potentially horrible result.... last game frustration as the Slovenians park the bus awaits! Algeria game on Friday promises to be a goalkeeping masterclass.... could be a basketball score... Looks like Ghana for 2nd in Group B, were not spectacular but thought they played well enough sans Essien. Serbia's Nikola Zigic - oh dear. Looks like the love child of Gareth Barry and Peter Crouch, and plays like the latter. Great defensive clearance when it seemed easier to score... Somebody get Alex McLeish a stiff drink Well crap. We just saw the best team in the tournament and its the Germans.... Birchy, I wish I could report more on the reaction of the locals to the 1-1 draw, but I have been confined to the house. Mr Lalas was suitably pleased though, and I have seen many facebook posts about a

Day 2 of the greatest show on Earth.... started uneventfully for yours truly, a poor start to my commitment to watching all of the 7:30 am kick offs this summer, as I turned on the TV midway through the second half.... "but it is only Greece v Sth Korea" I told myself... , it'll be a different story for Algeria v Slovenia tomorrow... As it proved, the Korean goal after 6 minutes really confused the Greeks who thought they could just defend like their 2004 heroes, and surely that will work.... alas not. A speedy exit awaits, but not before they play 14 men behind the ball against Argentina.... Speaking of which, an intriguing game of 'attack vs defence' followed with Argentina taking on Nigeria, with the former seemingly able to attack at will, while Nigeria seemed to not really want to be the team having to playing defence (judging by the poor effort of the art they demonstrated for much of the game). Great debut from Manager Diego though. Pulled out all of the