World Cup World

I personally don't owe him an apology because as soon as the plane left Argentina for South Africa, I was done criticizing and started rooting for the team, regardless of who was in it. Nyeeeh! ;p

It wouldn't really be important if Jon Stewart's Daily Show didn't have something to say about the World Cup.

What's harder than returning Nadal's serve, hitting a Clemens fastball or tossing a Manning bros. level touchdown pass?

This reminded me of a few games this last World Cup.

So, in the 1966 World Cup, held in England and won by the host, there was a similar occurrence to last Sunday's Gerrard's disallowed goal. They are still talking about this apparently, so it can be categorized under Karma.

Yes, even more 3D.

It could be said that the World Cup really starts during the knock-out stages. What was going on for the last couple of weeks was more like the "World's Soccer Fair." At least I'd like to think of it this way after watching games like Slovenia vs. Algeria, New Zealand vs. Slovakia or Cameroon vs. Netherlands (where Cameroon had no chances at all) and Brazil vs. Portugal with both teams qualified for the next round. I'm not dismissing any of these teams, since after 4 years they all merited to...

The North Koreans won 1-0. Who knew?

Nobody anywhere calls the sport "soccer". But here we are, the only ones in South Africa that do not call it some variation on foot and ball. And of course, if you've pondered this before, you are probably equally befuddled that the game we call football is not even played with one's foot in the first place. American football ought to be called handball...

Still didn't top Diego Maradona in the categories of "Political Relevance" and "The second goal was even better."

Hey now! Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay are doing very well in their respective groups. The are all expected to qualify to the final 16. In fact, they are doing better than any other continent. Europe's top flight teams are disappointing, as are the host African nations.

Forget the millionaire superstars from soccer's biggest teams. It is the tournament referees who are the World Cup's most coddled and protected species...

Viewership is up 60%!

One of the funniest skits about soccer. In case you haven't seen.

An interesting game that borrows from the most popular sport in the world. Developed by Asger John in 1964, not as popular as Joel Silver's Ultimate Frisbee. Worth watching.

14 photos of fans gone nuts.

I really enjoyed this article.

This article aggregates a lot of things that have been said about the World Cup experience this year (South Africa's infrastructure, low scoring games, uninteresting first round match-ups, etc). I've noticed in a few broadcasts that upper seating areas are not filled to capacity and maybe the vuvuzelas make up for this. I think this will change once the Knock-out stages begin, but Nick Webster has a point: