Portugal destroyed poor old North Korea in the opening game of Day 11. The first half wasn’t bad for North Korea, but after the break the Portuguese played some lovely stuff and in the second half Ronaldo really turned on the style, the odious little turd. I can’t shake the feeling that they just aren’t very good though. Average back four, midfield not that special and aside from Ronaldo their attackers aren’t top class either. First good side they face will knock them out I reckon. Hope so anyway.

Switzerland against Chile was very dull for long spells. Chile did their best, but the Swiss are just so fucking negative it’s difficult for anyone to look good against them. The ref didn’t help, throwing cards around like no bugger’s business. The sending off of Behrami was probably justified though, even if the Chile player made a meal of it. The playacting in this world cup has been shocking, and I’m sick of seeing players constantly touching their face over and over looking for blood when they’ve barely been touched. You’re not bleeding, you’re just a fucking shithouse. Does my head in.

I didn’t like Switzerland coming into the tournament, and I like them a lot less having sat through two of their games. I can’t see them slipping up to Honduras, but the idea of them possibly getting to the last 16 makes me want to cry. One player for the Swiss who has impressed me is the right back Lichtsteiner, Very solid and dependable defender he is. The keeper played well too. Going forward they have nothing though, boring neutral bastards.

As for Chile, I really like them. It was a very difficult game as the Swiss can defend and that’s all they wanted to do. But Chile just kept throwing men forward, and the coach made a series of attacking changes and in the end they got their reward when Mark Gonzalez headed the winner. He did his best to miss it too the useless fuck, and once again infuriated with his shoot from anywhere policy.

Alexis Sanchez is class though, I really like him, and Waldo Ponce is my new favourite player. Great name, great hair, ok player. Chile against Spain is a game I’m really looking forward to, although I’m a little concerned about it as if Chile won Spain would probably be out, despite playing really well in both games so far.

Del Bosque’s men enjoyed a stroll against Honduras. They should have scored about eight, and it was a joy to watch their brand of football. Alonso was again sublime, whilst Villa just had far too much for poor old Honduras to cope with. Ramos was really good going forward, and Spain just have so many quality players both in their side and on the bench. They play football the way it’s meant to be played, and hopefully they’ll go a long way. For that to happen though, Nando is going to have to get his act together. His finishing was absolutely shit once again, and he doesn’t look himself at all yet. I get the feeling it will only take one thing to spark him into life, I just hope it happens soon.

The fallout from Mongo’s press conference continued, as Capello went on ITV and handed Terry’s arse to him. There was something a little hypocritical about having a go at a player for not keeping it in house and talking to the press, by errr….not keeping it in house and talking to the press, but hey, this is John Terry so it’s fair enough. If Capello were to send the cunt home I’d probably switch my allegiance from Spain and the Diego to England. Won’t happen though, but at least the big goon has been brought down a peg or two.

Day 12 opened up with the final Group A games. The French had one last chance to try and salvage some pride after the shenanigans of the previous few days, but they failed miserably once again. They went 1-0 down early, and then had Gourcuff harshly sent off. Not been a good tournament for that poor lad. He’s reportedly been bullied by Ribery and has very few friends in the squad as it seems he’s a decent, normal, shy lad, in a squad jam packed with huge arrogant wankers.

Evra was one of a few players dropped, but that little twat Ribery kept his place. He was mediocre again. I keep saying I’ve never seen him do anything to make he think he’s even remotely anything above average, and although he worked very hard and did set up their goal, once again I was hugely underwhelmed by him.

Liverpool old boy Alou Diarra not only played, but he skippered the side. He had a few training sessions when he was with us, and one of the players told me he couldn’t believe how bad he actually was. He was loaned out for a few years and then sold, but he’s forged a good career for himself since then and is now playing in the world cup, albeit for a piss poor French side.  He only touched the ball about three times (and I think two of those may have actually been Abou Diaby, who’s exactly the same size and build as him and wears 19 as opposed to Diarra’s 18).

I quite like Tshabalala for the South Africans, but there’s not a single French player who’s impressed me. Malouda is easily their best player but he spent most of the tournament on the bench for some reason. June is a traditionally bad month for Gemini’s though, so maybe that influenced mad Raymond’s thinking (and in case you are wondering, yes, I did actually check wikipedia for Malouda’s date of birth and also his star sign. No stone is left unturned in my research for these articles).

Domanech refused to shake the South African coaches hand afterwards. He’s a bad biff isn’t he? The French FA deserve all they get, as I remember writing after the last Euro’s about what a joke Domenech is, and yet they let him keep the job. Lunatic coach combined with a squad full of egotistical twats is a recipe for disaster.

Uruguay beat Mexico to clinch top spot and an easy game in the last 16. Didn’t see it as I was watching France, but I like Uruguay so I’m pleased.

Greece / Argentina. The first thing that struck me watching this, was that the Greek skipper Karagounis is a right fucking smacked arse. Never stopped moaning, and thankfully was subbed at half time. His card is marked, he’s on my list.   As an aside, looks like David Villa’s ugly older brother.

As great as Messi is, he didn’t cope too well with man marking and wasn’t really a factor until Greece went behind and had to abandon their gameplan. Maradona used to get that all the time, but he found a way to overcome it (even if occasionally involved starting a brawl with his ’shadow’). Until Messi can overcome this, he’ll always be in Diego’s shadow for me. Of course, as soon as they stopped man marking him he was fucking awesome, and Argentina’s hopes rest squarely on his shoulders.

Maradona has really surprised me so far. I keep expecting him to do something daft, but his substitutions in all of the games have worked well, and bringing Palermo on for ten minutes at the end was a brilliant bit of man-management. He’s probably only in the squad out of loyalty (I think they played together, and Palermo scored an important goal in qualifying), but by sending him on it showed he’s a real ‘player’s coach’.

Palermo scoring seemed to delight the entire squad, and there’s a real togetherness about their camp at the moment. Maradona is a big part of that, and I’ll never get bored of watching his celebrations. I think I want them to win it now, just for Diego. If they play Spain I’ll have a bit of a dilemma that’s for sure. Diego or Xabi. Tough call.

Argentina’s left back looked useful. Clemente Rodriguez from Estudientes. Never heard of him before this game, and I don’t know if he can defend as he was playing Greece so there was never any danger of him having to do that, but he was good going forward. Given Maradona’s taste in full backs (in addition to picking Gutierrez he capped Insua let’s not forget), I’m not holding out much hope for the lad’s defensive qualities.

Samaras’ display as a lone frontman was outstanding I thought. One blemish aside when he missed a great chance at 0-0, he led the line really well and gave Dimichelis a tough time. That probably says as much about the Argie defender as it does Samaras though, as he could have a hard time marking fresh air. He’s a weird one Samaras, very occasionally he can look really good but his career is going downhill fast. Great hair though, probably the best in the competition.

Going through alongside the Argies are South Korea, after they held Nigeria to a 2-2 draw. I only saw the highlights, but firstly I’d say congratulations are in order to the Yak, who is now unofficially the oldest goalscorer in world cup finals history. Well done old timer. That just about makes up for him producing the worst miss in the history of the finals. That was just awesome.

I’m glad that the Koreans are through, I like how they play and they’ll give it a go in the last 16, but I can’t see them beating Uruguay.

England scraped through, beating a woeful Slovenia side 1-0 in the afternoon game on Day 13. In fairness to England, it should have been more, but I was puzzled by the commentators and pundits raving about the performance. They won 1-0. Against fucking Slovenia. Some perspective please. If they played like that against half the other sides in this tournament they’d be in trouble. At least this was like a proper footy match though, with actual crowd noise. The ground was packed with England fans, who well and truly drowned out the vuvuzelas. Still, after the fifth chorus of ‘England til I die’ I was hoping the vuvuzelas might stage a comeback. I’ll take the England band over the vuvuzelas though, just. Admittedly that’s like saying I’d prefer a punch in the face to a kick in the balls, but I fucking hate those vuvuzelas.

Funniest moment was ‘big brave JT’ making a big brave block, and then flinging himself forwards and trying to make another big brave block with his huge big brave tefal head. The surprising thing was that he didn’t make contact. Little known world cup fact here; that gargantuan forehead of his actually has the same gravitational pull as a small moon, so the Slovenian player did well to keep his shot out of its orbit.

The thing that really stood out most about this game for me, had nothing to do with what was happening on the pitch. It was Lawrenson’s commentary. Fuck me, just how many pitifully bad ‘jokes’ can one man come out with before getting sacked. A couple of examples. Commentator: “just a little tap on the ankle” Lawro: “Is he a plumber?” That was bad enough, but worse was to follow: Commentator “No, I’m with you Mark” Lawro (sarcastically): “Yeah I’ve noticed” Eh? What does that even mean?? There were countless other ones, and what I want to know is which twat told him he was funny? Someone must have, as he’s doing less and less commentary these days and more and more shit stand up. Just pack it in Lawro, for fucks sake.

Seeing the over the top celebrations from the England players afterwards was a little toe curling too. You only beat Slovenia, try and be a little more low key about it eh lads? It’d be like our players celebrating wildly after beating Huddersfield 1-0 in an FA Cup tie. A mate texted me during those celebrations saying “They shouldn’t be celebrating they should be ashamed of themselves after that.” Harsh?  Probably, but only a little. It was Slovenia, their captain and most well known player has just been released by fucking West Brom!!! England were in the easiest group they could possibly have, and they’ve qualified by the skin of their teeth. In second place, meaning they now have a horrendous route to the final.

Slovenia were hopeless in attack, and thankfully they’re going home. I was made up USA got a late winner against Algeria, I like the yanks, they’ve got great team spirit and never give up. They’ll give anybody a game in the knockout stages because they are super fit and all work for eachother. By winning the group, they should have some winnable games coming up and may even make the semi’s, who knows.

The main night game was Ghana v Germany. In the build up to the game ITV spoke about how Kevin Prince Boeteng is hated in Germany after he put Ballack out of the tournament. Funny that, as for most people I know that’s about the only redeeming quality about this knobhead. It also emerged that he’s such a bad bell that even his own brother hasn’t spoken to him for a month.

It’s weird, I don’t even know specifically what it is about him I hate. Oh actually wait a second, I do. Everything. I’ve thought he was a twat since the very first time I saw him play for Spurs. I just remember thinking ‘what a fucking knobhead he is’. And I’ve thought it every single time I’ve seen him since. This isn’t a Jon Dahl Tomasson thing going on here, where it’s just me hating someone for no really good reason (other than his stupid fucking face). When I tell people I hate JDT, I’m always asked ‘why?’ With Prince Boeteng, they just say ‘yeah, he’s a right twat him’. It’s universal. Still, even I have to admit he had a good game against the Germans.

Ghana gave as good as they got, but Ozul’s brilliant goal was enough to give the dapper Joachim Low’s side the points and set up a last 16 clash with England. Sweinsteiger and Lahm were absolutely brilliant, and they’ve been impressive in every game. They look a good side, but Podolski has been rubbish in the last two games (poor man’s Craig Bellamy) and I’m not convinced by any of their strikers apart from Klose. England can beat them, but they’ll have to up their game considerably to do it.

Day 14 saw the World Champs dumped out. Lippi took full responsibility for it, and said he didn’t train or prepare the players properly. I wouldn’t know about that, but one thing he defo did wrong was pick the shittest strikers I’ve ever seen representing the Azzurri, and I include Andrea Silenzi in that. I’ve yet to see a worse striker in this tournament than Iaquinta. Seriously, what does he do? He’s fucking garbage. Italy may as well have been playing with ten men. In fact, they’d have been better with ten men, as they wouldn’t have had this buffoon giving the ball away all the time.

As dreadful as they were for 75 minutes, they were more than a little unlucky to not get anything from the game in the end. Howard Webb and his team had some key decisions to make, and none went the Italians’ way.  I thought the linesman got it right with the Skrtel goal-line clearance. I don’t think the whole of the ball went over the line, and even if it did Skrtel was blocking the linesman’s view so there’s no way he could give it. The offside was really close though, and the Slovak keeper should have been red carded for hitting Quagliarella in the face.  I don’t know how Webb missed that.  Actually I do, its because he’s Howard Webb and that’s what he does.

When you see the Italians play the way they did late on in this game, you have to wonder why they didn’t show anything like that in the two and three quarter games previously. Quagliarella’s goal was arguably the best of the tournament so far, but they’re out now, they can have no complaints as they finished bottom of a group that contained New Zealand. Italy have been worse than France, but at least their players only disgraced themselves on the field, not off it. I felt sorry for Cannavarro, as this was a shitty way to go out. He’s a proper world cup legend, he’s been one of the world’s  truly great defenders and a credit to the game.

He deserves a lot more respect than to have some nomark commentator like Peter Drury delightedly screaming “FAREWELL LIPPI, FAREWELL CANNAVARO, YOUR CAREER HAS BEEN TERMINATED” Go fuck yourself, you disrespectful little nobody. You know, all this time I thought Motson was the worst of the bunch, but he’s not even close. Sorry Motty, I may have been a little harsh on you.

Slovakia played well, but I can’t see them doing anything in the last 16 as they just aren’t very good. The striker who got two goals had a decent game, but what’s with all the shit tattoos their players have on their arms? That little Stoch fella who was at Chelsea, his looked like it had been drawn on with a green felt pen. Shocking stuff, he looks like a sailor from the 1970’s. Their keeper is a twat as well, he was acting up all second half. Don’t like him.

Speaking of twats, Bendnter was in action in the night game. He was using red marker pen to colour in the white tape on his socks. Not in the dressing room, this was whilst he was on the pitch. He might just be the only person in this tournament who can lay claim to being an even bigger whopper than Prince-Boeteng.

A mixed night for Jon Dahl Tomasson wasn’t it? He broke the Danish goalscoring record (apparently this chump has over 50 international goals!! All I can say is Denmark must have played a lot of friendlies against the Faroes and San Marino), but he didn’t exactly do it in style, missing a penalty and just about putting the rebound in despite almost missing his kick completely. Had that not gone in, it would have topped the Yak’s miss from the previous day. To top it off, the useless gimp tore his thigh muscle doing it. I felt sorry for him. Wait a minute, did I say I felt sorry for him? Haha, what I meant to say was I laughed so hard I soiled myself a little bit. Fuck you Jon Dahl Tomasson.

The Japs are really good aren’t they though? They work harder than any other team (with the possible exception of USA), they’re good on the ball and shit hot from free-kicks. I keep hearing people saying how this ball is impossible to take free-kicks with. Well someone needs to tell Japan, as they aren’t having any problems. Honda is brilliant, technically he’s probably as gifted as anyone here other than Messi, I’m well impressed with him. The two centre backs are solid and Matsui and Endo were brilliant against Denmark. I like them, I hope they go far.

Holland beat Cameroon in the other game, but no-one was really arsed about that as Holland were already through and Cameroon were already out. Van Persie and Huntelaar got the goals for the Dutch, Dirk played, Babel didn’t. Rigobert got on for Cameroon, with his blonde dreads and beard, the big leg. The most significant thing about the game was the return of Robben. Having him back makes the Dutch a match for anybody, and it will take a good side - or a lucky one - to beat them.

As for the punditry and commentators, surprisingly I’m loving Mick McCarthy. Yes, he really plays up to the ‘no nonsense, straight talking Yorkshireman’ stereotype, but it works, he is actually pretty funny (intentionally or not). He’s probably my favourite co-commentator so far. Lawro is the worst. Yes, even worse than Mark Bright.  The pundits have been mostly decent, and there’s not too much to get worked up about. Desailly continues to irritate me, but aside from him no-one really winds me up too much. Oh, apart from Klinsmann. He’s popping up far too often for me, I don’t like him and shitty yank accent, I just wish he’d fuck off, but the English media love him. Between him and that loudmouth fool Beckenbauer, I might just have to root for England this weekend.