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More reliable than Die Mannschaft

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Round One of the group games is done, and so far I've been running my watching efforts more successfully than Germany has managed its efforts to progress through Group F. I've yet to be later to bed than midnight, thanks to a ruthless regime of radio-silence in the day and TiVo catchup in the evening. The pattern I've fallen into is to take in the first half of the lunchtime game, live, in a pub near work, and then to get the second half done shortly after getting home, whilst my son watches Sarah & Duck. This leaves just two games to knock off during the evening; which is a cinch.

On Monday I went through the same agony and ultimate joy that England fans everywhere will have experienced about 2 hours prior to me.  I thought it was actually a decent and calm performance against a rugged and determined defence. The way the BBC commentary team lost their minds during the second half was  as if they just wanted us to fail. I spent the last ten minutes, cliche though it is, thinking the game is 90+ minutes long and it is only after that time that we should be upset with a draw. Luckily we're not now in a weeklong mire of crisis, and can instead look forward to progressing with a good result on Sunday.

We've still yet to have a nil-nil match, which is amazing really (I do hope they are not all being stored up for the knockout stages); Russia have scored as many goals as Spain did in their whole winning campaign of 2010 and its all going very nicely.

Special mentions over the past couple of days got to:

  • Senegal, for bringing the African game that us oldies know and love form year back. Pace, rawness and excitement.  
  • Japan, for wearing a kit that when combined with bright Russian sunlight and dark pub projectors made their players entirely invisible. (It was odd seeing Columbia lose to themselves because of this) 
  • South Korea for being so bad that they lost to an abject Sweden. That said, it is a Sweden side that every Englishman will be supporting this Saturday night, as they could potentially put the Germans out. I'll be hoping for this, as my excited calculations about potentially avoiding Germany until the final if they finish second is garbage. We are inexorably going to meet them in the quarters, unless we each finish first or second or don't qualify. I'm not sure I can cope.

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