World Cup Day 2

Wherein technology let me down


Taping issues denied me most of the day's games. For a more complete rundown, check out Pooh's update.

I caught the first half of England-Paraguay and it was one of those games both teams should have lost. Watched most of it on fast forward and even that was uninteresting. England gets the win, though I doubt there's much celebrating over the performance. Let's see what The Times has to say:

IN AN embarrassing echo of their lame excuses for quarter-final defeat by Brazil in Japan four years ago, England blamed a substandard performance in their opening match in the World Cup yesterday on the summer heat in Frankfurt. After watching his team labour to a 1-0 win at Waldstadion courtesy of a Paraguayan own goal, Sven-Göran Eriksson said: “We suffered because of the temperature.”

England, gifted a third-minute lead by Paraguay’s captain Carlos Gamarra, did not play well, but Eriksson insisted that he was satisfied and “extremely pleased”. When it was pointed out that he was in a very small minority, he added: “We will need to play better, and we will.”

Just imagine the wailing when they actually lose. I'm a big fan of the England team, but one of my favorite pastimes is watching England fans cry after being booted out of the World Cup. And they are weepers. One of my favorite moments was the 1998 Argentina-England match. Phenomenal game and I'm watching it in a bar with a couple hundred ex-pat Brits. After the loss, just full-on snot-nosed blubbering. Embarrassing it was.