Day Sixteen via ongoing by Tim Bray
Welcome to the World
Cup 2010 playoff-round coverage from yer Fútbol-lovin’ Web-centric
mobile-enabled couch-huggin’ amateur semi-fan.
By and large, I thought the right teams made it through to the Round of
Sixteen. You have to grant that Côte d'Ivoire, who are out, are a lot more
interesting than Japan, who are in, but in every World Cup there’s
going to be the equivalent of this year’s Group G. And it’s a pity the hosts
won’t be there, but the goal differential in this case tells the truth; Mexico
is just a better team.
This round is where the favorites usually start to win; which means that it
would be really unsurprising if the final were to be between the winners of a
Netherlands-Brazil on July 2nd and Germany-Argentina on the 3rd.
Here’s my one bold contrarian...
Day Fifteen via ongoing by Tim Bray
This
World Cup 2010
prose covers the last few days of the round-robin stage, and is even geekier than
usual because I watched most of it on a monster screen driven by a
Google TV prototype amongst a
gaggle of Googlers.
OK, I admit it, the Google TV wasn’t doing anything aside from sending the
video from wherever to the projector. But the sofas were comfy, the geeks
were friendly and enthusiastic, the café with breakfast was right next door,
and when you get to the ’plex in time for the 7AM game you can park wherever
you damn please.
As for the ultra-deluxe projector that filled a fair-sized wall with the
games, I dunno. The big picture made the experience more enveloping, but
moving as I do between my 260dpi Nexus One and my home TV which packs the same resolution
into a 40"...
Day Ten via ongoing by Tim Bray
Well, my job and my life have interfered heavily with your authoritative
Web Geek’s World Cup
2010 coverage. And — let’s get this out of the way — my predictions as to
which matches were going to be fun and how the groups would play out have been
almost entirely wrong.
In fact, the only games I watched end-to-end were Argentina-South Korea on
Day Seven, and Brazil-Côte d'Ivoire just now, until I switched off at Brazil’s
third; too depressing for this
Elephants
fan. So rather than games, just some impressions and notes as we approach
two-thirds of the way through the round-robin.
Disappointed
In the quality of play in general. With the notable exception of Argentina
I haven’t seen any team really show seriously hot stuff for more than a few
minutes of a match against a...
Day Five via ongoing by Tim Bray
We’re now approaching the end of the first third of the round-robin in this geek-blog
World Cup 2010
coverage.
Long way to go yet.
I didn’t get up at 4AM to watch New Zealand-Slovakia, although I am the
husband of a New Zealander and the father of two more. Oh well. And I might
divert a bit of attention from work for an interesting game but I decided that
Brazil-DPRK wouldn’t be one of those; I gather I was wrong. I have a certain
sick fascination with North Korea to the extent of feeling physical pain in
my gut when I read about what its poor people have to live through. And watching
them play a football match, or otherwise pretend to be normal in the context of a normal
human activity, well it just seems wrong.
Ivory Coast 0 Portugal 0
OK, I’m a fan now, of the team from the...
Day Four via ongoing by Tim Bray
We’re now four days into the unique insights on
World Cup 2010 only
available from those with a good basis in Web and Mobile
technology.
I didn’t watch Netherlands-Denmark nor will I watch any further games that
require me to get up at 4AM; there are limits to fandom.
Japan 1 Cameroon 0
I wanted to be a Cameroon fan on the principle that fluid attacking soccer
in the African style is something to be encouraged. But I was left
cold; even the mighty Eto’o seemed a little lead-footed. Unless Cameroon
has a reservoir of so-far-unrevealed brilliance, I don’t see them making it
out of the group.
As for Japan, their goal was well-earned, their conditioning obviously
better than the opposition’s, and their defence well-schooled. Not terribly
exciting to watch aside from Matsui’s...
Day Three via ongoing by Tim Bray
Thus endeth the first weekend of a geek blogger’s deathless
World Cup 2010
prose.
For other coverage from non-specialists, much more amusing than mine, check
out
n+1 magazine’s World Cup Preview.
I didn’t get up at 4AM to watch Algeria-Slovenia but I guess I’m happy because I’ve
been to
Slovenia but not Algeria.
Sebia 0 Ghana 1
I really couldn’t figure this game out. The Ghanaians totally sliced up the
Serbian mid-field, time and again, quality moves all over the place, then
failed to penetrate the penalty area. The Serbians looked clumsy and
unpolished but actually had, on balance, more scoring chances. That handball?
More clumsiness. I suppose Ghana deserved the win.
Germany 4 Australia 0
Just a few minutes into the match, I tweeted “The Germans are scary
good....
Day Two via ongoing by Tim Bray
Being the second outing in the bloggification of
World Cup 2010.
Korea 2 Greece 0
The first comprehensive pounding of this year’s tournament. The Koreans
apparently recognized fairly early on that the Greeks were having a rotten
day and decided to go into all-pressure-all-the-time mode, and then it was
over. It’d take real courage for them to try the same approach next time,
which happens to be Argentina, but I’d sure like to watch it.
I think just maybe the Koreans are underrated; among other things, I find
it hard to believe the Greeks are as bad as they looked today. To be fair,
Greece’s team have historically been World Cup chokers, but still.
In particular, the commentators on my TV channel put both Korean
goals down to defensive lapses, which just isn’t true. In...
Day One via ongoing by Tim Bray
Welcome to the
ongoing World Cup 2010
blogathon.
Mexico 1 South Africa 1
It’s a pity the Bafanas couldn’t have won. Their opening-segment
nerves were forgivable, and their recovery admirable.
Tshabalala’s goal was pure beauty, the kind of thing that
makes soccer worth watching.
I also was impressed by keeper Itumeleng Khune’s quickness and coolness
under fire; he covered for some appalling South African defensive
lapses.
Except for one; on the equalizer there were three Mexican
attackers lined up behind the defense, no South African anywhere near. What
sets the elite European teams apart is, among other things, that they simply
don’t make that class of mistake.
As for the Mexican game, it felt very European to me: cautious,
orchestrated, focused on at all costs avoiding...
2010 World Cup via ongoing by Tim Bray
What happened was, four years ago in June we
had a baby
daughter and I ended up
watching the World Cup.
I’m not particularly a soccer fan but I found that I enjoyed the show immensely.
I’m not a sportswriter but after I started blogging the matches more or
less accidentally in a newborn-parent haze, that was fun too, and I got tons
of email (that was before there were comments here).
I don’t have parental leave this time, so I probably won’t see as much
of the show, but lots of the matches are very early Pacific time... and then
there’s BitTorrent. So if you’re oblivious to sports in general or soccer in
particular, I apologize in advance for the coverage that is about to
occur.
Why I Like It
The sense of occasion, and the widespread joy it brings to so
many around the...
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