Andy

This Italian side on the pitch now are worthy of going through... Lippi deserves to go out. His team selection and tactics have been terrible.

Yeah. You don't mind the Italians doing it, it's part of their job. Tedious as fuck when the other team does it as well though.

You've gotta love the total over-confidence after we put on a decent performance and won 1-0 against a slow, talentless and basically shit Slovenia side... The BBC pundits were correct (for once) yesterday when they said: "in England, you're either rubbish or brilliant". There's no way we're going to hammer this German side - who aren't great themselves by the way, so they're not going to thump us either, but they're certainly no mugs and will be far more potent with Klose back up front, having missed him for the last two matches. It will be a tight match and will probably be won by one goal either way.

Argy - Brazil final. I'm not sure about Argentina yet tbh. Greece more or less nullified them today, and if they'd had anyone worth a fuck up front they could have done them on the break a couple of times. I can see them getting picked off when they meet a good side tbh. They were 7 men short of their best team... When Di Maria came on and they had some natural width they started to pick through the Greeks much more frequently. I'd imagine much of it was the Greeks knowing they probably had to score to go through though. True enough it wasn't their best 11, but to me they've looked dodgy at the back in all their games thus far. I agree about their defence, but I think they're sort of similar to a team like Barcelona, where their best attacking line-up is usually going to render any defensive problems redundant anyway because they're so good at keeping the ball out of their half. As for the Greeks, I think they would have settled for a 1-0 defeat. They had no intention of trying to score a goal.

Argy - Brazil final. I'm not sure about Argentina yet tbh. Greece more or less nullified them today, and if they'd had anyone worth a fuck up front they could have done them on the break a couple of times. I can see them getting picked off when they meet a good side tbh. They were 7 men short of their best team... When Di Maria came on and they had some natural width they started to pick through the Greeks much more frequently.

That's why he's hilarious! I like how everything he says starts with "And let. Me. Tell. Yer." or a rough equivalent.

No, it's pretty end to end. Good game so far.

Watch it on tvcatchup?

Like D) and E), F) Refers to goals scored in matches between the teams in stalemate. It can only come into effect if there are three teams involved.

Portugal won't get a sniff if Brazil put out a full strength team. They only ever concede goals when they're comfortable and lose concentration.

Delighted he missed that. If he scored Bright would have been even more fucking insufferable than ever.

Casillas Maicon -- Lucio -- Chiellini -- Lahm Xavi -- Essien -- Iniesta Villa -- Drogba -- Messi Lampard would be nowhere near my Fantasy XI. I remember having an argument on here before world cup 2006 with someone (who shall remain nameless) who told me quite insistently that Gerrard and Lampard were far better footballers than Xavi.

The stupid thing about Keita's theatrics is that his country will probably need Brazil to beat Portugal on Friday if they're going to stay in the competition, and now they're going to be missing one of their key threats (out of form or not, he still creates goals). Wonder how his countrymen feel about that?

No it isn't Italy = shirt pulling. Kaka = lifted his arm to nudge away a man who was running straight into him, as anybody would in order to protect themselves -- it's an instinctive, uncontrolled reflex reaction. Let somebody walk directly into you from an angle where you can see them in your peripheral vision and you'll do exactly the same thing. Kaka punched him in the face.

No it isn't Italy = shirt pulling. Kaka = lifted his arm to nudge away a man who was running straight into him, as anybody would in order to protect themselves -- it's an instinctive, uncontrolled reflex reaction. Let somebody walk directly into you from an angle where you can see them in your peripheral vision and you'll do exactly the same thing.

Did you not watch the first 80 mins? Brazil were the worst cheaters I've seen so far. Handball for the goal, rolling around after every challenge etc. Six and one half a dozen of the other, to be honest. For every Brazil player that rolled around, there was a tackle like the one on Elano, which should have been a straight red itself. The goal was obviously a double-handball, but it wasn't exactly a "cheating" handball in the Maradonna sense, it just happened to hit his arm when he was tussling with the defender.

No it's not. It's a minor nudge -- the kind that you see continuously throughout every single game of football played. Never a booking. Minor nudge? He waited in his path and purposely put his shoulder/elbow into him. Clearly a booking. Keita walked directly into him, then he brushed him away with his elbow as anyone would. I dunno which replay of the incident you're watching?

No it's not. It's a minor nudge -- the kind that you see continuously throughout every single game of football played. Never a booking.

Jesus christ, he has been pretty crap, but he's not in a wheelchair dribbling into a plate of soup while shouting at mice. I just meant compared to his former mobility. Just looks like he's lacking match fitness and confidence, really.

Much as it was a harsh penalty decision, if you pull players shirts in the box you're always taking the risk, especially in the world cup where the referees are shit-hot on shirt pulling. Stupid defending.

He's right though, France have been shit. The only thing that's making this a better match than the Uruguay one is the fact that Mexico have been a bit more open with their play than Uruguay were.

You surely know you're going to look even more ridiculous very soon. It would be nice if he didn't need his fanboys to defend him. I think his goal scoring record defends him, to be fair.

Your post works in response to mine, making you look like a lightning fast typist.

Why do people keep missing out Chile?

Me too. Probably the only two. It's not the most popular opinion. Have England ever played in the Azteca? fyp Yes, Dave, I guess you could say his grammar there was an "epic fail", huh?