i saw Evra's yesterday press conference, and i feel this is actually getting surreal proportions with this traitor that "needs to be eliminated"...

maybe the traitor is in fact Domenech - isn't he the only one whose girlfriend/wife is a journalist?

(the "traitor" could in fact be anyone, it might not be a deliberate traitor as the information can circulate quickly once players talk to people who are close to them, and it's possible then that there are several "traitors" who made it possible for this information to circulate as L'Equipe is claiming...)

oh sigh, Slovakia is not doing any well...

^they were crap.


sorry, slavo...



COME ON NEW ZEALAND!

yes, our boyz r crap.
too bad, we got talented players, however they looked like they shat their pants that they actually made it to the world cup.

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

1-0 NEW ZEALAND!!!


(I don't give a damn that I chose Cannavaro as my captain in fantasy football today :o )

dammit, Italy equalised. :(
If Italy ends up winning this then Cannavaro better score me a goal.


Just in: the French squad refused to train today.

the french side are having their own mai 68.

^We're lucky the World Cup is not being held in their home country this year, or else the French players probably would have set up roadblocks, disrupting thousands of peoples' holidays in southern France.

More news from the UK regarding France's refusal to train:

The Independent:



World Cup 2010: France in disarray as squad refuses to train

• Team director Jean-Louis Valentin resigns in disgust
• Team gets back on bus after training ground incident



Raymon Domenech saw his players get back on the team bus and refuse to train today. France team director Jean-Louis Valentin says the national team is refusing to train following a dispute on the practice field.
Valentin also says he has resigned from the French football federation, shouting that he was "ashamed" of the team.
The team arrived at training today but a few minutes after taking the field fitness coach Robert Duverne stormed away from an argument with coach Raymond Domenech.
Duverne threw his accreditation badge to the ground after the heated discussion and walked away.
The players then boarded the team bus.
The French team is in disarray after striker Nicolas Anelka was sent home for insulting Domenech, whose tactics and management skills have been called into question.



Domenech justified the decision to send Anelka home, saying the striker had refused to apologise for the outburst.

Evra had an altercation with Duverne, according to L'Equipe.

I'm so proud of being French.
Who could make you laugh so much, eh?

I hope the Italians.... but alas, there are still 45 minutes to be played.

You seriously should be. If you're not gonna be the best team, be the most spectacularly catastrophic. At the end of this world cup, only two teams will be remembered, the winners and France. I'm envious.

According to the Dutch commentator there are only 25 professional football players in all of New Zealand... not sure if he's joking?


It's sad that Italy still have every chance of reaching the next round after this performance.... come on Slovakia! Do what you have to do.


Congrats New Zealand, that was awesome!

Woah!!! Italy held to a draw. The world's relying on you next week, Slovakia. Don't let us down.

it only gets worst for the french. the trainer quit in disgust today another higher up also quit and the team refused to practice. my my...

chicka, what are the media in the US saying about the USA team? Are they getting quite a high profile?

As an American who's grandfather and grandmother got off the boat from Naples I have a passing fancy with how the Italian do. Hey they tried every thing they could I'd imagine time of possession is like 80 - 20 I'm not disappointed. Hats off to All-Whites they played their asses off defensively
the goaltender or Ryan have to be Man of the Match. Splendid game to watch. The Italian coach's panic attack led to the tie as much as anything.
Again congrats to New Zealand they deserved the tie and almost the win That kid Woods came so so close to giving it to them.

Front Page of the New York Times the other day with a picture of the disallowed goal. Yes the country is in uproar people are finally starting to take soccer seriously. Still though it is what it is and we're happy that at least our destiny is in our own hands. It'll be nice to see us play two halves in one game. They show pictures of bars in different parts of the country and they're all loaded with fans watching. Of course we still don't have anything like I saw in Mexico City the other day where there must have been 50,000 plus fans watching on a big screen. Plus some of the bar scenes are in locals where the folks are descendants of a particular country that's playing like Germany the other day boy where they depressed.

i saw the last 15 minutes of the nz/italy game . italy was all over the nz goal but the kiwis defended with everything they had. italy was playing better and nz was just defending the draw. from those 15 minutes italy deserved to win, but then i heard from the local commentator (chilavert, legendary goalkeeper from paraguay) that the ref was a complete shit and that he was favoring italy. i saw some of this-- hurrying the nz goalkeeper, giving yellow cards to fallen players for slowing the game, and in the replay, the penalty was dubious. so-- what did italy do in those first 60 minutes i missed? i don't know, but it must have been horrible.

side note: the nz fans are probably the ugliest bunch in the world cup (a bunch of fat pasty dudes without shirts? the horror).

i also missed the paraguay game-- started at 530am! NFway. but i'm happy they won (sorry slavo). they really did well in the south american group and they have been great so far, for what i've seen. i hope i can catch a rebroadcast sometime later today.

demoño: unfortunately for the us team, most of what i've seen the media cover is the debate about why "americans don't like soccer". even the stolen goal was discussed as "just when americans were going to start liking soccer, this happened!". which is bullshit, but there is an old, conservative, mostly southern contingent that positively hates the game and doesn't miss a chance to shit on it. i'm not a huge consumer of media though.

the spanish channel however is another story-- read FUPPETS for more info. i think people who like the game here (the people, not the media) are cautiously optimistic about the USA team, generally speaking.