World Cup!!!

[Claudie]

The second touch wasn't so obvious, but I can't fathom he didn't stop the game on the first touch. I was cooking and talking on the phone AND watching the game, and I still noticed. Bleh.

[Bryan Russell/Ink]

Sounds like I missed an interesting game...

[Nathan Bransford]

Three letters, people.

O.M.G.

And lots of exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Matthew MacNish]

That was a game for the ages! Even after all the unfair setbacks we pulled it off in stoppage time! A great day for US soccer. Pretty good for Bryans Lions too.

[cheekychook]

Way to go USA!

[Bryan Russell/Ink]

So what happened? I was watching England. :)

Did my man Donovan pull the American fat out of the fire?

[Nathan Bransford]

Donovan actually looked extremely shaky the whole game - much more content to pass off and stay out of the action and even deferred on some free kicks, and it was really Bradley, Dempsey and Altidore who were creating most of the many, many chances the USA had. But in stoppage time Altidore went on a run, crossed to Dempsey who was able to get enough on the ball so that there was a rebound, and Donovan cleaned up.

That was by far the most creative I've ever seen the US creating chances, but wow did they blow a bunch of easy ones (and had their requisite goal pulled back erroneously by the refs). Bradley was everywhere - he's quickly becoming a world class defending/holding midfielder.

How was England/Slovenia?

[Bryan Russell/Ink]

Well, I missed a lot of the first half, so I don't have a definitive opinion, but they seemed a fair bit better, if not exactly earthshakers yet. I still think they should play five across the middle, but putting the speedy Defoe up front was better than Heskey or Crouch (can anyone tell I'm not overly fond of those players?). They were more aggressive, though, and creating chances. Rooney had one off the post thanks to the fingernail of the Slovenian goalie. They kind of shut things down at the end and took off Rooney, and started playing with the thought of "Shit, I hope we don't blow this..." It was a better effort. And Milner was in at right midfield over Lennon, and he redeemed himself for his horrible first game out on the left. Great work rate, tracked back, and made tons of runs up the wing, turning his guy inside and out and making crosses. Looked like he just settled down and played.

Maybe the win will take some pressure off and they'll just go out aggressively in the next game.

[Bryan Russell/Ink]

And Slovenia had one or two dangerous scrambly plays in the box, but mostly they seemed content at the end to play things out and take the loss, thinking that was enough to advance. Though some of that was simply that England was controlling the midfield, and it was hard for Slovenia to really get the ball and do much with it.

[Matthew MacNish]

This is just an FYI and by no means an admission of anything I myself have ever done, but there is a way to watch both games at once, at work, even if you have no administrative rights on your network. Google search for Google Chrome portable. Installation does not require admin rights and you can get the shockwave flash plugin by searching for the file NPSWF32.dll and then simply saving it in the Google Chrome folder, which can be placed on your desktop, under:

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Desktop\GoogleChromePortable\App\Chrome-bin\Plugins

Once done you open the browser and navigate to: http://espn.go.com/espn3/player?id=6375&league=FIFA#

Simply sign in using your ISP credentials and ESPN 3 is free. You can run both games in PIP or in separate windows. Personally I (would have) watched USA but listened to England. It was weird but at least I knew would have known that the pressure was on the Americans from about 20 minutes in or so.

Bryan, way to go Three Lions (can USA please get a cool nickname soon?)!

[Claudie]

I just record the game, and then I switch between the two every 10-15 minutes. Yeah, that means I finish a -lot- later than I normally would, and I had to resist the urge to check this thread.

The USA-Algeria match was definitely the most interesting of the two, although England played a fair bit better than their last two games. But geez, so many missed opportunity from the US (and a fair bit from Algeria too). You have to give it to the algerian goal, though: he earned his keep during that game.

All in all, way to keep everyone on the edge of their seat until the end!

[Matthew MacNish]

This World Cup is working out like WW2 - France have forfeited, the USA turned up late, and England are left to fight the Germans!

I'm not a biter so don't give me credit for coming up with that. I just saw it somewhere and I thought it might be worth sharing in the hopes of providing a chuckle.

[Heather B]

Trust Australia to win last night when no one was watching...

[Claudie]

Trust Australia to win last night when no one was watching...

AND when it doesn't matter anymore, unless they could suddenly win by 4-5 goals. ;P

Matthew, that's hilarious. Thanks for sharing!

[Heather B]

Yes. Thank you Claudie for reminding me.