Dirk Gently

PEARCEY ^ Re Dirk...so he's off-side then.

Is it any part of the player? - I thought it was where his chest is that counts.

Any part that could score a goal.

Too close to refer to it as a "dodgy" goal etc though.

fukken hell Robben

Cracking header. Scoreline doesn't really reflect the balance of play.

Good contest. Pretty even until the contretemps, with Uruguay just about having the better of it, notwithstanding Holland's opener. Then it got a bit scrappy, but with Uruguay somewhat dominant.

0-0 in reality though, as we know it's not possible to score goals like GvB's and Forlan's with this terrible ball.

Well I have :| I just don't find the Dutch anywhere near as exciting as they were two years ago or how they were with Bergkamp. That's why I agreed with Seal - I think the Dutch have gone back on their exciting style of old, which has been effective but not exciting. Uruguay on the other hand have ...

Why is this an official thread? What defines official as opposed to just another thread? Why have so many nobbers started WC games with the words official thread? Are there some counter-attacking unofficial threads out there? 'greed - people who propag8 any kind of internetz meme are abhorrent cret...

Proud Germans >>> despicable Spanish

Archie - Uruguay have very good forwards, but quite often they opt for a defensive approach. Witness their 0-0 with France, and the way they played at 1-0 and 2-1 up against South Korea. It's hard to know how the loss of Suarez will affect them, but it wouldn't really be surprising if their primary ...

I have a feeling that Holland may go to town, particularly with Lugano being out.

3-0

. This was the worst Brazilian side since 1974 and at least we had the total football of Holland to compensate back then. Worse than the 1990 vintage inching to 1-0 wins against Scotland and Costa Rica before going out in the second round? Apart from 20 minutes of madness against the Dutch, we've h...

Archie's penalty Waddle played in Italy?

Torquay is sometimes considered the English riviera, so maybe.

Why are you phrasing it as a question, when what you have written is bleedingly obvious (although I'm not really sure how much it helped McManananananaman)?

Italians were famously poor, and infrequent, travellers until Serie A's dominance started to recede in the late 90s.

I dont know why England never have young, up and coming players playing abroad Because the amount of money available for players in England, and the perceived prestige of the Premiership, means that there's little incentive for them to broaden their horizons. The same applies to English managers.

It doesn't seem very sensible to take out some of the most exciting games before considering whether the world cup has been any good.

Also, plenty of the low-scoring games have been exciting. Just going back to Friday - Ghana 1-1 Uruguay (over 120 mins) was a very good game.

Why would you take away the 12 goals in 3 matches from Germany? Particularly as 2 of those matches were against seeded/pot 1 teams.

If you switched on hoping to see a glorified Nike advert in which the biggest stars turned it on, then you will have been deservedly disappointed. If you just like to watch football, then you probably will have found it a very good and fascinating (although only occasionally exhilarating) finals.

daswonder

Baines Presumably the dodgy penalty they got against the Aussies.

How about the red card for Materazzi that shouldn't have been given, swings and roundabouts.

I agree - although that's what I assumed he was referring to.

Presumably the dodgy penalty they got against the Aussies.