World cup!

Several days ago, I would have said that I havent watched nearly as much world cup as I would like to have, but it just honestly hasn't been that interesting...at least the group competitions weren't that exciting...until the last match of the group play for South Africa. Terrence told me that south africa had to beat france by 4 and mexico-uruguay can't end in a tie (altho it might actually be uruguay has to win by 2) for them to make it to the 2nd round...BUT if mexico-uruguay ended in a tie, both of them advance to the 2nd round. BUT if mexico wins the game, they don't have to play argentina in the next round...to make it more exciting, bafana bafana was up 2-0 vs. france at halftime!
When Terrence told me this, all i could think about was a game matrix and if it would be in mexico's best interest to try and collaborate w/uruguay and try to tie the game to avoid possibly losing or if it would be better to be aggressive and avoid argentina... ><

Now tho, with the refs being so horrible, i've lost a lot of interest. I understand why you don't want instant replay (and I hate how they have it for basketball too for stupid little things like whose ball it is because it's not uncommon for the ball to have gone off of one player but the replay to show that it went off of that player because he got fouled. Plus. For basketball, I feel like if you don't get the ball back even tho you should have, if you're the better team, you should be able to stop them one more time. Ball doesn't lie. If you can't, you don't deserve to win. Simple as that.). anyways, back to soccer. It's ridiculous how fifa doesn't have replay. The final score to a game could be 1-0, so one goal changes the game. It changes how you play (germany-england. England wouldn't have had to attack so much if it had been tied—so less vulnerable to counter attacks). You don't have to have instant replay and let coaches challenge plays, but make it like hockey where somebody just watches the net (like somebody in the upstairs booth who has access to replay) and if it goes in, they hit a button that sends a vibration to the head ref (which is what happens with offsides calls—pretty cool huh?). and if the goal is offsides by 3 yards (cough. Argentina), they can buzz the head ref and tell him because there's enough time between the goal and restarting to check.

Im not sure how to fix things like that mali ref's call because that's just the equiv of somebody getting paid to throw the game. I don't think theres anyway to fix that, which sucks because there's no point in playing if youre gonna cheat. I have never been so outraged at the conclusion of a game that I watched than after the US-Slovenia game and I wasn't even watching with other US fans (to make it worse the coach of Slovenia didn't even admit that they should have lost. I would have if I were a coach.). hahaha at least afterwards, there was a lot of commentary…the funniest of which being: From twitter via deadspin: I haven't seen an African rob an American like that since I gave that man from Nigeria my bank account information.

The US-Algeria game could have ended as badly as the Slovenia game, and I was going to quit watching the world cup if Donovan hadn't scored that goal in the 91^st minute. I think that was the most intense soccer game ive ever watched (on tv. East playoff games were def more intense). Just around the 90 min mark, I had the exact same feeling that I had during the US-Canada hockey gold medal game where we were down 1 and there were only a few minutes left in the game. I had a feeling that we were gonna pull a miracle because we had played too well and too hard to lose in regulation...the game couldn't possibly end like that…and what do you know, Zach Parise scored with 24 seconds to tie the game and Donovan scored in the 91^st minute (I thnik it was 90 sec into the 3 min extra time)to tie. Omg I was so excited that I screamed. At midnight. Jiuma woke up. (she was gonna have to pee around that time anyways).

Joon hates how the us team plays, but I love it. they go all out and don't flop like cristiano ronaldo (who actually is amazing at soccer when he's not flopping…). Sad to see their run over…check out this picture that I edited—as in I compiled 3 pictures of mine into 1 and not off the internet. =DDD (the US coach is Pton '80)
Tim Howard (ninja goalie--10 points if you know what that's referencing...), Michael Bradley (game tying goal vs. Slovenia), Landon Donovan (GW vs. Algeria)

I think the only games ive watched in full were Portugal-Cote d'ivoir, and the USA-Slovenia game (got up at 3:30 and saw only the 2^nd half of US-Ghana). How pathetic. I've been watching a lot of bits and pieces of all the games (aside from the 2:30 games), and I saw this New Zealand defender who looked JUST like will ferrell. I saw him stop the ball and turn on the end line and I was like OMG. WTH IS WILL FERRELL DOING PLAYING SOCCER!?....doesnt it look like him?? It's actually Tony Lochhead

Which one is Will Ferrell?!

I think im now gonna start cheering for argentina b/c I like messi and I want to see him win a world cup and annoy his coach.