Stayed up till 5 am again to see this one, but definitely worth it as it was one of the most exciting and dramatic matches I've seen ever (okay, true, I haven't really seen many).


A header!

The Italians were really surprised today to see the Americans play this aggressively and with so much energy today. Impressive performance by USA - too bad their accuracy in front of the goalbox was abysmal. On the other side, Italy made quite a few accurate shots, but the USA goalkeeper was awesome.

Also, USA efforts to steal the ball were pretty dirty, which resulted in 2 red cards; but the Italians were not that saintly either as De Rossi's unwarranted elbow bloodying McBride's face landed him a red card too. But the most interesting "talking points" would be the USA's disallowed goal (offsides) and Italy's rather bizarre own goal. Four of the six Group E games have been played out, yet it now seems like any of the four can still make it through. Now this is real Group of Death.


second red card in the game...

Well, this is definitely not the Italy that some people expect will carry through to become champions. Even Brazil was not up to standard in the match against Croatia. By far the performance which most impressed me was Argentina (6-0 against Serbia and Montenegro). They were unstoppable - if Argentina keeps it up, I wouldn't be surprised to see them in the finals. Go Argentina! Haha, and this is coming from a non-fan of football.

Links to World Cup discussion and minute to minute posting on the matches:
Guardian Unlimited
New York Times