World Cup 2010: Favourites Spain Lose in First Big Tournament Shock

At last the first round of group games in the World Cup is over and we can move on to what should hopefully be some better football. With Uruguay putting three goals past the hosts South Africa last night, it was an improvement goals-wise and I'm hopeful that the pace will keep up. However, it does mean that the hosts are almost certainly on their way out of the tournament, which is a little unfortunate.

The day started with Chile getting a well-deserved 1-0 win over Honduras, and to be honest it could have been a few more.

Then in the afternoon, the Spain game against Switzerland promised us the best attacking team in the tournament against a very solid and determined Swiss defence. Spain started without Cesc in their team and dominated throughout, but Switzerland hit them on the break to grab a goal and managed to hang on for the three points.

The Spanish manager, in his wisdom, decided to  keep the player who creates goalscoring opportunities more often than any other player in the top five leagues in Europe on the bench. If it was a case of fitness levels, he would have left Torres on that bench too, but he came on and was obviously far from match fit.

Luckily for Spain, they get to play Honduras next and if they can beat them and then Chile they will be back on course for the knockout stages. 

From my point of view, I was delighted to see them lose as their team was dominated by Barcelona players and I am sick of hearing the likes of Xavi and Pique telling the media that Cesc has Barcelona DNA or should come back to his boyhood club. In my opinion, Xavi is a player on the way out and "Manure" only sold Pique to Barcelona because they knew he wasn't good enough to play for them.

Today's games start with Argentina against South Korea and the other game in that group is on in the afternoon between Greece and Nigeria. I expect Argentina and Nigeria to get wins, which should put Argentina through to the last 16 and set up a final winner-take-all game between South Korea and Nigeria. That's the type of game that will hopefully kick-start the tournament and see teams go on the offensive.

Then tomorrow night we go back to group A as France take on Mexico. If either of these teams can get a win they will almost guarantee themselves a spot in the last 16, but it will be interesting to see if Mexico can find a killer instinct or if France can manage to play at all.

In Arsenal news, we are rumoured  to be chasing Mesut Ozil of Werder Bremen and Germany. He was linked to us before the World Cup, but one good game for his country and he is apparently the hottest property in World football.

We are again linked with Koscielny of Lorient as he (or his agent) has apparently issued a come-and-get-me plea to Arsenal. This one just won't go away and it looks to be a real possibility at this stage as we need centre backs very soon. 

According to the Mirror we have agreed to a deal to bring Feyenoord's 16-year-old midfielder Kyle Ebecilio to the club on July 1 and we will get him for a small fee.

Cesc made a comment about Arsenal preparing for games by not concentrating on how the opposition play or how to counter that, but instead focusing on their own game, and it has been taken as a criticism of the club in some quarters. He's perfectly entitled to point out differences in how different teams are prepared for games and that doesn't necessarily mean that he is looking to criticise Arsenal or our boss.

Sol Campbell has spoken about his future and he said he is considering offers from a few clubs, but that the ones from Arsenal and Celtic are the most interesting. I hope he stays but I'm sure he realises that he will not be a first choice and unless we have an injury crisis like we did last season he will get very few games. Whatever he decides to do, I hope it works out well for him.

The Premier league fixture list will be published at 9 am this morning and I'll be eagerly awaiting them as I look to see if I can get a trip to Ashbourton Grove in next season. I'll run through the most interesting games in tomorrow's blog.

Here's a look at what a lot of people seem to think the second kit for next season should have looked like. The mock up is thanks to "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon " and it has my seal of approval.

Also I saw this on Twitter yesterday but I can't remember who posted it. It's a mock up of the rumoured new first kit that we will get to see on July 1 but won't go on sale until near the end of July. It's another jersey that I could definitely live with.

I saw something very interesting on Twitter thanks to @Highbury Ghost and @Ablockgooner and it's a history of Arsenal's change kits dating back to 1895. What's most interesting about it for me is that white was the predominant colour during all those early years and the first hint of a yellow colour was in 1950 when we used what could really be called tangerine. T

he actual yellow and blue that most fans are so in love with didn't actually appear until 1969. That's 74 years after the first white jersey, and I counted 13 white jerseys before that yellow arrived.

Finally for today, it was interesting to see how FIFA reacted when they realised that somebody was attempting to advertise a different beer than the official World Cup beer. If you've ever drank Budweiser, you will realise that FIFA don't truly care about the fans as they would rather you drank it as Budweiser are their official partner.

The tickets used to get the girls dressed all in Bavaria beer's orange at the Netherlands game on Monday were those that cost Robbie Earle his place on the ITV pundits panel at the World Cup. It makes me sick to see players and ex-players making a fortune selling free tickets on the black market as us fans do everything we can to see our teams as often as we can.

Here's  a look at Arsenal's 7-0 win over Middlesbrough a few years ago.

See you tomorrow.