OMG, Costa Rica beat Italy! This is a topsy-turvy World Cup, and my favorite team, Spain, is out of the running. Here’s today’s schedule. I’ll try to catch part of the Argentina/Iran game, just to see Messi. My interest in Nigeria/Bosnia Herzegovina is minimal.
By the way, I’d strongly suggest that you read (or reread) my old interview with football announcer Seamus Malin, who’s doing part of the broadcasting in English from Brazil this month. I’m quite proud of that piece, for I got Seamus, who’s been broadcasting footie for 40 years—and has seen in person every player from Pelé to Messi—to give me his lists of the greatest retired players, the greatest active players, the greatest team, the greatest games he’d ever seen (three, actually: as a broadcaster, live as a fan, and on television), the greatest individual performance in a single game, and the greatest performance by a duo in a game. It’s the best football post ever! Oh, and Malin claimed that Messi is the greatest player he’s ever seen.
Here are the highlights, such as they are, from the Italy/Costa Rica game. The video is only 37 seconds long, but Costa Rica’s goal on a header is lovely:
Finally, today’s Google doodle (click to see the animation), which, for once, is a bit humorous about football:
I’m so excited for Costa Rica. ¡Pura vida, maes!
Argentina v Iran, UK ITV commentator Clive Tyldesley: “One or two of the Iranian side actually have their christian names on the back of their shirts”. 🙂
Priceless!
Check out The K Chronicles on GoComics!
http://www.gocomics.com/thekchronicles/2014/06/19
I’m liking the cut of the Iranian’s jib, truth be told.
They’re putting up a good defense even though Argentina has the ball 90% of the time. It’s gonna be a 0-0 tie, as the Argentinians are TIRED.
Maybe, but Iran have made clearer chances than Argentinina has.
This is very impressive for a team that everyone knew were going to play 10 men behind the ball for most of the game! Especially against the quality of opposition.
Even if Iran get robbed by a late one they’ve been great.
OK, I tempted fate!
This Messi guy appears to have some skill. It sounds like the two most popular teams amongst Brazilians are Brazil and whoever is playing Argentina.
I’m a long way from being an expert on football, but I have spent a long time watching videos of the great players of yore. And I still haven’t seen anybody match the speed and dexterity and savvy of Messi. That last kick actually curled around the opponents and went into the goal; had it gone straight, it would have missed by a mile. Amazing.
There are many top footballers with that skill. Massi, however, pulled it out when it mattered. He didn’t have the greatest game up until then, but that doesn’t matter!
That last ditch effort by Messi was akin to saying “Take that!”
In Spanish, the name of the African country Ghana, gets you into some funny grammatical and phonetic situations.
That’s because “gana” means other three things: “(he/she/it) wins”, “(he/she/it) gains”, and “desire”(you can say also “ganas”).
Since the “h” in Spanish doesn’t have any sound (only combined with “c” or “s”), “Ghana” and “gana” have the same sound.
So you can play with that like this:
“No hay que perder la gana de ganar.
Si Alemania pierde gana, no gana.
Si Ghana gana gana, gana.”
Grammatically correct, but phonetically funny.
Reminds me of the Latin mnemonic I learned at school:
Malo (I would rather be)
Malo (in an apple tree)
Malo (than a wicked man)
Malo (in adversity).
Ghana is doing an excellent job against Germany atm….playing some good offensive ball…
Watching it now. They’re doing very well indeed!
Ditto. It’s a great game. Lot’s of action at both ends…:-)
Miroslaw Klose is a one dimensional soccer player. When that one dimension is putting the ball into the back of the net, that seems to work. 15 goals in four World Cups. Germany has to go to Poland to poach strikers – Klose and Podolski. The best striker in the world is also a Pole, Robert Lewandowski, but he chose to play for Poland so is not at the WC. Lewandowski is moving from Borussia Dortmund to Bayern Munich next season. Is that even fair?
Any Germany fans out there? I understand that both Khedira and Schweinsteiger were injured prior to the WC. Khedira has not looked that good so far. Schweinsteiger was impressive in his limited minutes today. Any word on them? Germany is deep but losing a player like Marco Reus has to hurt. Most impressive player for Germany so far has been Mesut Ozil.