there's not a 50/50 chance, i don't know specifically about algeria but i know a few moroccans playing football in my country and my family lived in libya at one point and that's pretty close, if you implied in any way that their country is poor or otherwise not the greatest place in the world you're in trouble. i suspect if you told the algerians you're also starving they would probably cut off yr dick and offer it to you as a meal

the 2nd danish goal was awesome. the shot to the goalpost by cameroon-- sad.

(France update : Evra talked about a traitor within the team... Can you get more self-destroying than that?)

the last 3/4 days of the tournament have been completely fantastic bar England

the French situation is the only thing worse than England

If only there was a French word for Debacle

there is one, it's debacle, except there's funny lines above a couple of the letters

*monumental sighs*

is this english humour? never really got that stuff...

i'd say thats pretty universal.

i just don't get where the sigh is coming from,and quite frankly it hurt my feelings.

he made a lightspirited,and perhaps somewhat humorous remark about french words for debacle, i made a similar lighhearted remark on the same subject, what have i done wrong? :(

This joke is just one big misunderstanding isnt it?

If only there wss s French word for Debacle...

they'll have one now ; world cup 2010!

if only there was a canadian word for it

I simply can't believe that UK tied with Algeria, and 0-0 at that! That was truly the MIRACLE the US needed to not only stay in it, but some how advance to second in the group, which means that if they play well against algeria they just may advance, however that in itself is a miracle, and could we expect miracles twice?

I am upset with cameroon getting ousted, and well Nigeria just slumped. Big Up Ghana for sticking it in there, I was immensely surprised with them. Now to Cote d'Ivore, who is a damn fine team, but unfortunately they are playing Brazil, which pretty much leaves it up to Ghana to hold it down in the next round, unless somehow SA scores like SEVEN goals in their next game ;)

on the politics side, the south african stadium security workers are still protesting for a higher wage, and I believe the sympathy protest for Mexican mine workers went well.. there have been reports of riots and police brutality..

This upcoming week is Africa week, catch the last African games while you can, all but one of their teams appear to be out after this. Can the US hope for miracles? I'm rootin for Mexico, they are a home team to Angelinos ;)

Its not the UK, its England. An important distinction
We were absolute doggerel the other night, Algeria used the ball better than us, played as a team, for each other. England did not deserve to win, and I think they deserved to lose the game.

The African teams have been pretty bad except for Nigeria's keeper who is the man of the tournament so far, even with his massive error the other day. I hope Ghana get thru and have a decent run, an African nation needs to do well in this tournament, get to the 1/4 finals at least

Nothing really happened on a political level in France the last two months (apart from the majority being hammered down).
And all of a sudden, new measures regarding pensions/retirement pop up, while everyone's watching elsewhere or playing truant at work.
Tactically well played.
The measures are said to be crap. By those I listen to.

it's fair to say all sports are trivial at best, so no offense, but soccer is the most primitive and simplistic of all sports. I guess that's part of the charm and it's accessable because all countries participate with it being o generic and all... not saying any sport is better than the other, but soccer really is pretty basic. the better the athletes get, the less interesting it gets because the battle to advance the ball from the mid field clutter increases and all these great athletes can cover so much field at a time.

Missed all games except for Holland-Japan yesterday. Denmark vs Cameroon looked like a good one judging by the highlights. It's a shame Denmark didn't play a similar game against the dutch (playing to win rather than consolidating 0-0) but on the other hand I can't really hold it against them.

It's hard to put a finger on the Dutch performance so far. With 2 wins and 2 clean sheets the results are excellent, but it's not been very convincing at all. Of course the goals have proven to be very expensive in South-Africa and maybe the pre-tournament test matches (12 goals vs Mexico, Ghana and Hungary) had thrown dust in my eyes. Both the Japanese and the Danes were starting very defensively against Holland and barely had any intention to move forwards until they fell behind. But all that can't be a proper excuse for the lack of spark/creativitiy from Holland.

After the first-half of Holland-Japan, the stats said over 70% ball possession for Holland, yet the only Dutch shot on goal I remember was Van der Vaart's in injury time. Shocking! I can only hope it'll get better from here.


Now I'm going to read up on everything that happened in the French squad yesterday... Really looking forward to Brazil vs Ivory Coast tonight!

Domenech was the guest of this morning's football tv show, hosted, for once, by a guy I liked.

Domenech appeared shaky. I won't say I remember everything he said, I was focused on his behavior.
To sum it up it was: don't bring the bad news forward, it's useless and damages the team spirit.
To which Lizarazu (being extremely polite, considering what he said after France-Ireland) replied that everybody wanted to know why France was so poor, insisting on the fact keeping away the journalists was forcing them to investigate on the reasons of the catastrophy.

Then Ribéry came. He was not expected. He apologized to the nation. He nearly cried. He said playing for France had been hard since 2008. He added that the first thing they hear when they wake up is reports about qualms and fights and so on (last one a bust up between him and Gourcuff).
He had a beautiful expensive wristwatch.

Two weak ghosts, asking for 2-3 days of peace before being slaughtered.
Probably rightly so, as Ribéry did two odd things.
1) He said noone wanted Anelka to be flown back to Europe - saying that, with Domenech by his side!
2) He backed Evra and mentioned a traitor, and at the same time talking about being in a group where everybody liked everybody... Was everyone told that he'd be their spokeperson? Hard to believe... Interesting to see (his whole body language).

Lizarazu's eyes were lit with something close to rage at the end of the interview.

^Flashbacks to Oranje 1990...

Are there any allegations yet about who this "traitor" could be?

In order for the French squad to work again as a team who can trust each other it will be necessary to find out who's responsible for leaking to the press. But that revelation itself will surely bring another shit-storm, possibly bigger than everything we've seen so far... especially if it turns out to be another player.

Let's just hope it's all sorted out before the end of the summer, so that Laurent Blanc can make a fresh start for the Euro 2012 qualification games.