Impression so far-
US was hyped as a team with great communication and moderate to good skills. In the first game they had no communication. That doesn't leave much.

UK better start showing some creativity, they got a fortunate grouping but the tourney is going to get serious soon.

Trinidad Tobago gutty play by an over matched team (if the US had half their heart...) neat story Christopher Birchall the white guy on the team was approached by a large black man before a football match. "Where was your Mom born?" He told him the city in Trinidad. The guy gave him a big smile and walked away without saying another word. Later he was contacted by the National team. He knew England would never play him so he became a key player for T/T.

I much preferred the England-Trinidad & Tobago game last night to the Germany-Poland game the night before. Neither of them will go into the World Cup history books, but at least there were more near misses in the England game. And that lovely shot from Gerrard of course.

I know we should have given Trinidad & Tobago a harder time, but we were obviously outplaying them by the end of the second half and the substitutions were inspired.

I think we can pick things up and play some really exciting football in the next round.

(BTW we're not the UK when it comes to football, we all play separately, so it's England in the World Cup)

My bad. England has a ton of upside so they can get away with not playing their best game, but when single elimination kicks in they'd best take it up a notch. (I'm still a racist rooting trannationalist Americans though :))

The US played very good ball today, they should be proud.

I saw about five min. of US v. Italy. Looked like we were playing rather dirty.

Both teams played dirty to an extent - the elbow to the face from the Italian player (sorry, didn't take names) was quite shocking. And you didn't deserve a red card for the shin tackle...!

Am just looking forward to our next game regardless, and buoyed up by all the St George crosses I see - alone among the countries of the UK I think England has been afraid of national pride - why should we let the racists hijack our sense of national identity? You don't in the US. Go on England!

My schedule makes it nigh impossible to follow any of the games, but we have a doctor from Ghana here who is quite excited about the cup. Any comments on the Israeli flag controversy?

It was a smart way to solidify his fan base! No apology should have been given. It was fine for the spokesman to say that Ghana is neutral, but for him to imply that the player was somehow wrong in waving the flag is in itself politicizing an act that was not intended to be political.

Would anyone actually notice if the Arab Countries withdrew from the cup in protest? Ghana is apparently not at all concerned about them cutting off trade and diplomatic relations.

Well if Iran (I know, Persian) were to leave right now Angola could run up the score and maybe bump Mexico out of the next round since they are not getting it done against Portugal. (this post is time sensitive since the games are in progress)

This is what it has come to.
 

Blimey. I quite fancy Italy's chances against the Czech Republic though....

Good luck - it's a bit early for me to watch, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

And all for the right to be eliminated by Brazil in the next round...

no matter...

U! S! A!

U! S! A!

It would be nice to lose to the champs!

Italy is doing their part. Man I wish we we had some offense.