I've not seen any football so far today.  Probably won't until this evening's game between Spain and Honduras, and then we'll see.  I'm probably missing a good contest between Chile and Switzerland but feel in need of a mid-tournament break.  And I'm not watching Wimbledon either - that doesn't hold much more appeal for me normally than football does.

What I'd really like to do is go out for a walk, but I'll have to wait another 3 weeks or so for that.  I think I'm a bit jaded after the Brazil-Ivory Coast game and the nonsense going on in the England and France camps.

Much as I enjoyed watching the skill and energy of the Brazil team, who beat Ivory Coast 3-1, I didn't enjoy the game as a whole.  OK, both teams showed commitment and a desire to win, and the better team won as far as I could tell, but it was a bad tempered game, particularly towards the end and the referee was absolutely appalling - perhaps it was "chicken and egg".  There were some really nasty physical challenges from the Ivory Coast players, Fabiano's second goal was helped along by his 2 handballs (visible on the replay but to be fair perhaps not easily by the ref) and there was such a lot of play-acting and cheating you could be forgiven thinking you were at the theatre.  I thought that kind of stuff had been left behind long since.  Sadly Kaka, arguably Brazil's best player, ended up getting a red card (unjustifiably) as a result of blatant acting by Keita. What could have been a really enjoyable match, given the quality of the players, left me feeling annoyed and disappointed that the football itself had been ruined by the undisciplined and dishonest nature of the play.

On a positive note, I did enjoy seeing Italy kept well under control by New Zealand.  Italy - the current champions; New Zealand, with a manager paid about £25k (if what I've read is correct) and with 3 amateurs in the squad as well as 2 professionals not attached to clubs.  You'd have thought you could predict the result.  Not in this tournament!  And the goal scorer for New Zealand, Winston Reid, lives and plays in Denmark and wasn't going to join the NZ squad until he was contacted via Facebook by a NZ television station trying to persuade him to play.

What about the dissent in the England camp.  Apart from the football matters and relationships with their manager, they complain of being bored.  I can empathise with that to a degree, cooped up in a 5* hotel with too much time to spare in the afternoons.   But why on earth are they cooped up.  I agree with the sentiments expressed in this text that was sent into the BBC Sprot website:
From Rachel in Sussex: "I'd better start this message by saying I know next to nothing about football and am therefore happy to be shot down, but could the England players be suffering from - what I think is called - paradise syndrome? I imagine that players are cosseted and protected for much of their working lives by agents and others from being totally immersed in poverty, but in SA, what with some WAGS taking part in documentaries on poverty and the word being spread by the BBC's coverage, combined with hours to sit and think about the disparities between nations, maybe players have begun to wonder how important it all is? I certainly have at times during the competition. Paraphrasing Leonardo Da Vinci, 'inaction saps the vigour of the mind' - maybe the camp could organise something that got the players more involved on a practical level and give the players something to feel proud of and satisfied by?"

It's also just been reported that "Capello is said to have agreed to listen more to the players and to have agreed to relax the tight constraints on their free time but the message was clear - he will not back down to player power."


And the big news of today, so far: the Portugal-North Korea result - looks like I made an error of judgement and have just missed the best match of the tournament so far.  The result was 7-0 to Portugal and by the sound of there were some cracking goals, 6 of which were scored during the second half.  Perhaps I'll look out for the Brazil-Portugal game.

So, with that little bit of excitement (well, something a bit more positive at least) I'm going to leave you with a bit of light relief - some "free style football"!  Did you know that existed as a discipline with world championships?  I certainly didn't.  Here's some anyway:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7596233.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8750580.stm