Those damn horns.  What’s the point?  Is this the new trend in football, just try and make the most annoying sound possible and then keep it going for 90 minutes?  Well it’s not new, John Motson has made a career out of that.  Do the selfish fucks who sit there blowing those infernal things not know how much they are killing the atmosphere and ruining the world cup for millions of people?  What’s next, everyone takes a mini blackboard into the stadium and scratches it with their fingernails for the duration of the game?  I’d still prefer that to Motson in fairness, and thankfully that old goat has been put out to pasture now.

It’s not so much the sound of those horns that bothers me the most, it’s that there is actually no atmosphere at all now, any cheering and singing is completely drowned out.  Even when the host nation scored in the first game, the only sound you heard was those fucking horns getting a louder.  No cheering, no singing, just horns.  It’s even worse than that Sheffield Wednesday band.  Yes, that bad.

It wasn’t a bad game to get things started.  I didn’t like the opening ceremony and all that waffling by Blatter & co, but once the game got under way it was fairly enjoyable (vuvuzelas aside).  Mexico were disappointing I thought, and South Africa basically aren’t very good, which made for an even game.  Bit weird seeing all the South Africa players touching Pienaar’s head before the game.  He’s their ‘lucky talisman’ or something.  Can’t see it catching on, but it would be pretty funny to see all of our lads (and by ‘our’ I mean Liverpool, not England) touching Stevie’s head, whilst Chelsea’s players, coaching staff and half the crowd could all put their hand on Mongo’s huge fod - at the same time.

The opening goal of the tournament was brilliant, and the lad who scored it had probably been the best player on the pitch up to that point.  Never heard of him before, but a quick look at my sticker album told me that he plays for Kaiser Chiefs.  “Oh my God I can’t believe it” I thought to myself. (Yeah yeah I know, but ‘Ruby’ and ‘I predict a riot’ are the only other ones I know and you try and make a gag out of them).

Mexico’s equaliser was scrappy, and probably undeserved, but at least it shut those fucking horns up for a few seconds, so it was something to savour.  Hopefully France and Uruguay will put a few more past them, as even though I got them in the TLW sweep, South Africa can fuck off and take those horns with them.

The likelihood of either France or Uruguay doing that is pretty remote if their opening game is anything to go by.  France were exactly as I thought they’d be.  Shite.  Their coach is a nutjob, and it’s amazing he’s still in a job after the series of bizarre decisions he made in the last major tournament.  He’s still at it now, leaving out the in form Malouda (after almost having a punch up with him) and leaving it until really late before bringing him and Henry on.

And you know what, I don’t care how many people buzz off Ribery and tell me how good he is, I reckon he’s shite and every single time I’ve seen him play he’s backed that view up.  Never seen him do anything, completely overhyped.  And did I really see Thierry Henry appealing for (a totally accidental) handball?  Sacre bleu!!

As for Uruguay, I’ve got a soft spot for them, and it may not be a popular thing to say, but I really like Diego Forlan, I have done for a while.  He’s a top striker, great movement, intelligent, two good feet, scores goals.  He missed a sitter against France though.  Diego Godin at the back was outstanding, and the lad in midfield, Perez I think, was good too.

That game saw the first red card of the tournament.  Substitute Ledeiro had only been on a few seconds when he got his first yellow.  Everyone assumed it was for throwing the ball away, but it was actually for wearing lilac boots.  If it wasn’t, it should have been.  Lilac fucking boots!  Jesus.  Completely deserved the red card he got, both for the bad challenge and the shit boots.

Day two kicked off with South Korea against Greece.  I like the South Koreans, and fancied them to beat the Greeks who are pretty shit and uninspiring.  They did beat them, comfortably.  South Korea are really good to watch, they attack in numbers and with pace, and technically they are very good.  The manc is a very good player, and I like the lad who plays for Bolton too. Greece are awful, and they didn’t pick ‘Soto’ so fuck them, I’m glad they lost.  Watching them was like watching Liverpool for most of last season.

Argentina got off to a winning start, but they made much harder work of it than they should have.  Messi missed some great chances, but looked in good form.  Diego spent the whole game kicking every ball on the touchline, bless him.  Only he could take a shite winger from Newcastle and play him at full back in the biggest competition in the world.  The first decent left winger to face Argentina will destroy him.  Nigeria were a bit shit I thought, and South Korea will fancy their chances against them.

Watching England just brings up so many different emotions.  As much as I’m usually anti-England, I can’t deny that there isn’t a part of me that wants them to do well.  It’s just that the part of me that doesn’t want them to do well is usually the dominant force.  It does fluctuate from time to time though, and recently my anti-England stance has been wavering a little, largely due to Gerrard getting the captaincy and Carra coming back into the fold.

But then I see Terry, Ashley Cole, Lampard, the fans, Ian Wright….. and I’m back to wanting them to lose.  It’s a roller coaster ride of emotions.  There’s so much conflict in me, so much hate and anger, I’m like Anakin Skywalker before Palpatine got a grip of him.

I wasn’t unhappy when Gerrard scored, but I didn’t celebrate either, and not just because I was watching on ITV HD and the incompetent fucks had gone for an ad break and actually missed the goal.  I was happy for Stevie, but for ‘England’?  Not so much.  I looked at all the fans celebrating, and wondered how many of them had been giving Stevie dogs abuse last season, singing about his wife and kid.  And now they’re kissing his arse.  Hypocrites.

When USA equalised I didn’t celebrate, and not just because I was too busy laughing.  Not nice for Robert Green, but what do you expect when you pick the worst keeper in the squad?  Self inflicted wound.  Feel sorry for Green though, the English media will rip the piss out of him forever after that.

Carra got on at half time, which complicated things further.  Now I didn’t want England to score or concede again.  They nearly did concede when Carra was mugged by Altidore, who had his shot pushed onto the post by Green.  Made up that didn’t go in, as Carra would have been slated for it.  Heskey should have won it for England, but did anyone actually think he was going to score that one on one?  He’ll hit the keeper nine times out of ten in that situation.

I thought Johnson was probably England’s best player, he had a really good game and was unlucky not score.  The nation will make much more of this result than they need to.  They’ll get all hysterical, Capello and Green will be hung out to dry, but it’s all just so unnecessary.  America aren’t a bad side, they’re tough opponents and this was England’s most difficult group game.  They’ll still go through (probably as group winners), and USA will go through as well as the other two sides in the group are shite.

Onto Day 3.  I watched about ten minutes of Algeria v Slovenia.  As much as I’d love to watch every game, it’s not possible when you have a 3 year old obsessed with Scooby Doo, and your tv has kids channels that pretty much show Scooby Doo on a continuous loop all day.  Something has to give, and for me it was Algeria - Slovenia.  Looks like I picked the right game to skip too, apparently it was pure unadulterated Zlatan.

Two shit teams them, and that ensures England’s safe passage to the knock out stages.  The only question is whether England will go through as winners or runners up.  If it’s the latter, they could be home early looking at their likely opponents.  Germany were brilliant against the Aussies.  Great football, played at a high tempo with some slick passing and great movement.  They even had two players booked for diving, which tells you that Germany are well and truly in their world cup groove.

Clearly they are a very well coached team, so as much as I wanted to smash his face in during Euro 2008, credit to Joachim Low.  He’s infinitely less punchable this tournament, as he’s abandoned the tight fitting white shirts in favour of an understated jumper under a suit jacket.  Oddly, the rest of the German coaching staff were similarly attired, but none looked a suave as the coach.  He’s a lot easier to not hate when you don’t have Motson over-pronouncing his name too.

They’re a really well balanced side, and 4-0 flattered the Aussies.  Cahill’s sending off didn’t help, and I have to say it was a terribly harsh decision.  I also have to say ahahahahahahahahahaha that’s your World Cup over Timmy.

Ghana are in pole position to go through along with Germany after they beat ten man Serbia in their opener.  The game could have gone either way, but Serbia had a man sent off and then gave away a daft pen.  I thought Jovanic looked ok, he’s very direct and likes to run at people, so hopefully he’ll prove to be a good addition to the Liverpool squad next season.  If we get him in on a free and get a few quid for either Babel, Riera or both, that would appear to be good business, as he looks to be no worse than either of those two and will hopefully be better.

The lad who scored the pen for Ghana played well, as did the fella on the right, Prince someone or other.  I quite like Ghana, but I really fucking can’t stand that Kevin Prince Boeteng, he’s a bad knobhead him, and although he earned himself some brownie points for ensuring that twat Ballack missed the world cup, he’s currently top of my ‘World Cup Whoppers’ list and he’ll take some shifting.

As for the pundits, I must admit I haven’t watched too much of the analysis on any of the games so far, but the one thing that stood out the most for me was that Kevin Keegan can’t speak without continually shaking his head from side to side and looking towards the floor.  It’s really funny, if a little disturbing.   Desailly is still as irritating as ever, Edgar Davids looks like he doesn’t want to be there, Adebayor isn’t as much of a twat when he’s not dancing and hasn’t come across as the knobhead I expected, and Patrick Vieira makes Alan Shearer look interesting.