In which Portugal and Holland lose their shit, and David Beckham loses his lunch

I've developed a new system of measuring how well England play: it's inversely proportional to the number of beers I consume during the match. This was only a two-beer game, but I suspect it would've been more if not for the 11am kickoff.

The big question is what it's going to take before we can bench Frank Lampard. Seriously. Has he stolen Owen Hargreaves' incriminating pictures of Sven or something? Every time he flubbed a shot today, I could almost hear Steven Gerrard muttering, "I would've scored that one." Attacking midfielder, my ass.

The entire attack was misfiring, though. Five men in the midfield, and not one of them seemed to have any creativity going forward. You can't spend the whole game just trying to hold the ball and hoping that Beckham bends one in. Well, I mean, you can, obviously, judging by England's performances so far, but I wouldn't recommend it. Just because Germany has stopped playing like that doesn't mean someone else should try to take up the mantle.

As for the defence, they looked slightly less shaky than they did against Sweden (where I was covering my eyes every time the ball was crossed into the box) but still far from solid. Ashley Cole was the one exception -- he had a very good game. John Terry, on the other hand, seems to be doing his best Sol-Campbell-has-a-wobbly impression.

Best moment of the match: Beckham scoring that absolutely gorgeous free kick. And then puking all over the sideline. Nice.
Runner-up: The roar of joy in the pub when Owen Hargreaves went down injured and we thought he might have to be substituted.


And as for that Portugal-Netherlands game: I hope y'all have seen it. If you haven't, do whatever you need to do -- beg, borrow, steal -- to get yourself a copy, because it is utterly fantastic. In a "What the shit is this?" kind of way. I'm tempted to watch it again when they replay it later, just so I can boggle some more.

I could summarize it here, but really there wasn't a lot of actual football to analyze. Just picture something like this: foul, foul, dive, goal, foul, handbags, yellow card, dive, foul, shot of Van Nistelrooy looking glum on the sidelines, foul, headbutt, yellow card, dive, red card, handbags, foul, repeat ad nauseum.

Best moment of the match: Gio and Deco sitting on the sidelines together after they'd both been sent off -- presumably commiserating about the ref.
Runner-up: Pick a fight, any fight. My personal favourite was the Figo head-butt (and how he didn't get sent off for that, I don't know, but I suppose it just adds to the general insanity).


In other news: Germany beat Sweden, and Argentina knocked out Mexico. Just like we all knew was going to happen.

World Cup, part deux

World Cup Hair Watch:

• Czech Republic substitute Jan Polak made a valiant effort to challenge for the Bad Hair Award, but the combination fauxhawk-mullet is sadly played out. Yes, already.
  
• I think we may have to declare a winner, actually, after seeing the wonderfully named Loco of Angola, who's shaved his entire head except for a braided fringe at the front. It's sort of reminiscent of Ronaldo in 2002, but much, much worse.
  
• Francesco Totti, meanwhile, has cut his hair and is practically unrecognizable (meaning, I almost find him attractive now).
  
• And Liverpool fans will be relieved to note that Harry Kewell has cut off his stupid ponytail, which is a vast improvement. He also managed to make it through all 90 minutes of yesterday's game without crumpling with a groin injury -- maybe all that hair was weighing him down before?

Other burning questions:

• Are they really playing "Go West" by the Pet Shop Boys at the end of every match? Why, for the love of god, why?
  
• If the players are complaining about the weather being too hot, why are half of them wearing long-sleeved shirts? I know footballers aren't supposed to be that bright, but come on. Also, Cristiano Ronaldo seemed to have cut slits in the sleeves of his jersey, for no apparent reason other than to make himself look like a bigger prat than usual.
  
• Speaking of perplexing team uniforms, why did Puma design kits for the Azzurri that make them look like they've got permanent pit stains?

Oh, yeah, there were some football matches too.

• Serbia & Montenegro 0-1 Holland: Arjen Robben is a prick, but damn if he can't play football when he wants to. It's infuriating, actually. As for Serbia & Montenegro (soon to be just Serbia), their defence was solid enough to keep the Oranje out for the most part, but I don't think their attack is good enough to take them deep into the tournament.
  
  
• Mexico 3-1 Iran: The 3-1 scoreline makes this game sound a lot more exciting than it actually was. I mean, it wasn't as bad as England-Paraguay or anything, but then again neither is my rec league.
  
  
• Angola 0-1 Portugal: Angola seemed to have stage fright for the first five minutes or so, but after that they settled down and stopped making Portugal look nearly so good (or, at least, they stopped letting Figo, who is not exactly known for his pace, burst past their defenders). Best moment of the match: the commentator noting, when Cristiano Ronaldo got substituted, that he looked like he was "about to throw his teddy bear out of the pram."
  
  
• USA 0-3 Czech Republic: I am a little too gleeful about this one. The Czechs played very well -- they might even justify their #2 FIFA ranking -- but the USA at #5 is a joke. The Americans had plenty of possession but never looked dangerous when they got near the goal. In other news, Arsene Wenger now looks like a genius for buying Tomas Rosicky, and Bruce Arena somehow doesn't even have to open his mouth for me to want to smack him in the face.
  
  
• Italy 2-0 Ghana: Michael Essien was much more impressive for Ghana than he has been so far for Chelsea -- possibly because he didn't spend the entire game either trying to cover for Frank Lampard or making ugly tackles. Italy looked fairly solid -- based on their play, they seem to be doing a good job of ignoring the match-fixing scandal -- but their strikers aren't quite clicking, as you can tell by the fact that it took a Steven-Gerrard-to-Thierry-Henry-esque backpass to give them the second goal.
  
  
• Australia 3-1 Japan: How much do you wish that Guus Hiddink was going to be the next England coach? Now this is a man who knows how to use substitutes to turn a game around.