I hope the four referees have good games.
HOLLAND v BRAZIL has a Japanese ref, Yuichi Nishamira.
URUGUAY v GHANA has a Portuguese ref, Olegario Benquerenca.
ARGENTINA v GERMANY is in Cape Town on Saturday at 3pm with an Uzbekistan ref, Ravshan Irmatov.
Veron has been playing OK. I had regarded him as a Harlem Globetrotter. But in one game they were actually better without him.
PARAGUAY v SPAIN is at 7.3O on Saturday in Joburg with a Spanish-speaking ref from Guatemala, Carles Batres.
That will be abrasive if Paraguay play for 0-0 and penalties again.
Call me crazy, but I still think Cesc Fabregas will have a major role to play in this tournament.
I’d have brought Fabregas on for Iniesta at half-time against ultra-negative Portugal. Spain’s passing triangles needed to be faster, more dynamic. As soon as Torres went off, David Villa scored.
Can Fernando Torres become sharp enough to play in this World Cup by playing in this World Cup? Doesn’t look like it.
I thought USA would beat the young Ghana side 2-1 but Ghana won it 2-1 in extra time with a thrilling left-foot shot by their top scorer Asamoah Gyan.
If Ghana beat Uruguay they will be World Cup semi-finalists and become the most successful African team of all time. That’s an incentive for anybody
Can they stop Forlan and Luis Suarez?
I\’d like to thank readers from Ghana who written in. Yes, I enjoyed reading an informative article by Nana Apau : Ghana Oil II- Transforming the Ghanaian Economy.
Two days off has been brilliant, hasn’t it?
I needed a two-day break. Was unable to comprehend 56 games in 19 days.
Andy Murray now has a fantastic chance of winning Wimbledon, his first slam. He can beat Nadal today.
Roger Federer is bored now. He still does everything on a tennis court better than anybody else. But he’s bored. Roger went out and then got upset and asked himself : Why did I do that?
On Wednesday night, Mark Jacob and I went to an evening lecture at Birkbeck by Sean Hamil and Brian Burgess.
Mark introduced me to a lovely guy called Eric Golding who is, among other things, a referee.
“Do you know Kenny Goldman?” I asked.
Eric laughed and said, “Who doesn’t know Kenny Goldman?”
Afterwards we went for an Indian with Kate, a friend of Mark’s who teaches at Birkbeck, and Sean joined us a little while later. Sean is a Celtic supporter. We talked about Rangers, Celtic, Portsmouth, Scudamore, Bates, Dein, Scholar, Redknapp and many other characters and had a lot of laughs until I realised that we were the only diners left. Then we went home.
Last night Book Slam was sold out and the crowd was the rowdiest I’ve ever known.
Today, back to football.
I’m really up for Brazil v Holland because it should be a good battle.
Hope I’m not tempting fate by saying that.