Have i mentioned i'm almost always home around 12 these days (or earlier?) So i can watch every match if i want?

Didn't catch Mexico - France (was out with some collegues) but hurray for the french losing!!

haha, no one likes the French.

Of course not, I'm going to shout Mexico whilst wearing my England top while I'm there Just to irritate the frog bastards.

Can't believe Germany got beaten by Serbia today, and the USA v Slovenia match was pretty shocking too! Let's hope England can actually do something tonight I'm off to the pub now, let's hope I'm not having to drown my sorrows.

0 -0 at half time and England are playing gash... Time to unfurl the colours:

USA! USA! Not that I'm a fan or anything, but my country did pretty well against Slovenia. 2-2, and a goal called back that probably shouldn't have been. USA robbed! I'm just amazed we're doing so well.

Meanwhile, the UK keeps up its unbroken record of suck.

UK? lol fail

A piece of football education for Satis: while the UK is one country in every other way, it is represented by no less than 4 different teams at the international football level. There is England (the biggest and the one we've been talking about mostly), but there's also Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. All are part of the UK but represent as a seperate 'national team' in terms of football. Scotland even made it to some European and World cup tournaments.

Can hardly blame you for the confusion, cause it's really a pretty unique thing. Imagine if, say, Texas would decide to represent with their own football team in the world cup qualifiers instead as a part of the US. But it's grown historically this way.

Oh and England was so incredibly weak against Algeria. What a wasted game to spend my Friday night buzz on.

Lol, I didn't see the Algeria game, but it must have been epic. And don't get too excited about the game against Slovenia. The national football association there only has 30 000 members. Drawing to them is pretty puny, even for the US.
I can't wait to see England out of the World Cup. For all their "we invented the game and have the greatest competition on the planet" thing they only have a mediocre team (exception to Rooney off course). That's what you get from buying arrived players instead of raising your own talents.

I think Rooney is mediocre too. He's produced nothing in these 2 games.

Of course the trouble is that English people who know nothing about football (admittedly almost all of them) think that the Premiership = English football. Any moron with a shred of analytical skill however would deduce that this is obviously not the case. Furthermore, something even I forgot, was that the odd English players at top level are overrated since frankly the team they play for makes them look good. It's convenient for the club to maintain a few token English players if they're half-good, but for English players this is all they are, half-good.

Sweeping statement I know, but you cannot compare the football system and culture of England to the top countries. In Italy, if you're 5 and you want to have a good go at football, you play for the local council. Each village has their own academy, ground and staff. They're qualified, professional and train you hard. As you grow older, you get bumped up to the older age group (if they decide you're good enough) and so on and so forth. When you become 16 therefore, there is a legitimate opportunity to play semi-professionally for the senior team of this academy, and yes, you do get paid.

In England, you play for your school at 5 years old until maybe 10-12. Nationally, there are no academies for very young kids. You just have to play for your school where your fat, part-time coach is a science teacher and certainly know nothing of modern football. Suppose there is an academy available to you, your parents have to bust their balls driving you around since the venues are certainly not local. So its not affordable and certainly inconvenient. You get to 12 and you can now play for the local amateur team, which is coached and run by someone who used to play for a sunday league pub team. No qualifications or anything of the sort. The grounds you play at are "recreational", ie, potato fields, and in winter, demilitarized zones. The ball therefore physically must remain in the air as much as possible. These conditions and coaching levels result in the physical "kick and rush" game that is English football. Winning under these terms requires dominating your opponents physically through fouls and pumping the ball into spaces for players to run into, since you cannot physically keep the ball on the floor. Here you learn nothing until about 16 when it's too late. Your only option would be a vain attempt at some far flung academy, but mostly you would just join the local pub team and take a job stacking shelves.

posh... silly britons and their silly soccer. But thanks for the clarification. I can kinda see why Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own teams... but why Wales?

Because they are their own country. That simple.

The game was appalling. That's all I have to say about it. USA vs Slovenia was a great one to watch though.

If England go out and Italy pass, I will hang my Italy flag out the front upstairs window facing the street. Maybe even put some solid effort in sorting out some kind of pole.

Jesus Derf...that game was just a disgrace.

We were cheated. Vs Paraguay, the goal we conceded came from a freekick that was absolutely not a foul.

This goal vs NZ was clearly offside.

These dogshit officials are costing us dearly.

Should have been two 1-0 victories, 6 points in the bag and qualified by now.

Well it was an offside goal (though hard to see for the officials) but that penalty was really really light too. And Italy was pretty much nowhere in the second half, against a bunch of semi-amateurs. Unworthy of the defending champion, really. The only players that were bringing something extra were De Rossi and Camoranese...the former was pulled back by Lippi at half-time, the latter couldn't event start.