World Cup 2014

good job good effort

brazil look so hurried and uncreative in the final third. pretty disappointing.

Ochoa is a free agent.

'Arry's already on the blower

Dunphy is saying Brazil are shite cos they export all their best players, but hasn't this been the case since 1990 at least?

wd cite England as a counter there

mexico still on for getting dumped out in the round of 16 for the sixth time in a row

WC facts: with Jô coming on, the WC sees, for the first time, a player with a surname consisting of two letters. Previous 'record' short length was for Koreans like Kim and Lee.

― In the airplane over the .CSS (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, June 17, 2014 4:28 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah as has been pointed out the 2002 Chinese team had players with the surnames Li, Xu, Wu, Ma, Qu, Su, and Yu

(Fun fact; The u's are not all pronounced the same; Xu and Qu and Yu rhyme; Su and Wu rhyme; but Xu doesn't rhyme with Su)

"This Mexican" currently trending on Twitter

Also need to point out that the world record for shortest surname entered into the World Cup is held by Nilmar Honorato da Silva, who appeared in the 2010 World Cup for Brasil wearing a jersey adorned only with the symbol '✓'

Shit you're right, I stand corrected!

Just got out of the meeting, sounds like some amazing saves there. Found this on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/IbnRawandi/status/479005767870070784

lol dayo

xpost haha ned, love it

save gifs http://www.buzzfeed.com/norbertobriceno/ochoa-is-boss

No Dzagoev for Russia. Is he injured or out of favour?

he was so cheap in the official fantasy league thing that i assumed there must be something up with him. went and picked him anyway though

can someone promise me a supercut of every team's arm folding intro once the group stage is done

hope SV is around to drop some knowledge as i know nothing about Russian team. Couple of the koreans play in germany. Son is good.

!COMB OVER!

nice combover ref, have a word with clattenburg

xp lol

There's gotta be one footballer who will refuse to fold his arms

just shrug

i'm all about s.korea tonight

the left back yun really came into his own for us at the very end of last season, wasn't tested much defensively tbf but a sharp and modern wing back otherwise

32 squads of 25 players is a ton of arm-folding videos. i've seen at least a couple of different versions as well, one of which was full length shot, not just torso.

Fwiw ask a Korean is down on this years team http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2014/06/world-cup-thoughts.html?m=1

looking v nice so far

zipping the ball about nicely, both teams

yeah nice stuff so far

ESPN feed decided to die, maybe I should be grateful. Watching via Univision.

shocker from the ref

most inexplicable yellow card thusfar

yuri zhirkov always takes me back to france 98 and big ron attempting to pass comment on youri djorkaeff

Well this looks a mess.

Game is giving me simpsonssoccer.mpg vibes

Haha

Game needs Arriago III right now

Thrilled to see all these expertly placed passes in the backfield

Just woke up. Shirokov and, presumably, Dzagoev are injured which will limit Russia's already fairly limited creativity. Samedov had a good season on the wing for Loko. Glyushakov, Fayzulin and Shatov are all solid and competent without being outstanding. Might be down to Kokorin to create something himself. This is a poor Korean side and Russia should win but it's likely to be narrow.

really, really love that Brazil was involved in a 0-0 in a home World Cup

Son entirely in character so far.

yeah, he is v amiable though. everyone is stressing that this is not a classic korea side but I like them going forwards, lee chung-yong has a nice way of stroking it about

enjoyed that defensive bicycle kick

AP is reporting an explosion at a World Cup fan fest in Nigeria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27896257

that's really sad. wonder if anyone at the WC will comment on boko haram deeming football un-islamic

Pffff

oh akinfeev