FIFA World Cup 2010: Some Real World Cup Action at Last

It's Friday morning and I have another day of painting ahead of me before I get to see some World Cup action and play some football myself. Unfortunately, my Friday night football kicks off at exactly 7.30 tonight and it means that I will miss the England game against Algeria.

However, at the moment we are struggling for players this week and there's a possibility that we will have to call off the game.

Yesterday's World Cup games were a welcome change as we saw some teams coming out of their shells and attempting to play some attacking football at last. First of all, a Messi-inspired Argentina beat South Korea, 4-1, and Higuain bagged himself a hat trick.

That victory has almost certainly assured their progress to the knockout stages, but it's still possible for all four teams to go through despite the fact that Nigeria have no points at all.

In the afternoon game, Nigeria took a 1-0 lead over Greece and looked like they would go on to record a comfortable victory. However, one of the Nigerian players got himself sent off rather stupidly and Greece suddenly decided to try some attacking football for a change.

They were stunned when they discovered that if you try to attack a team and score goals—you can win a game—and they went on to record a 2-1 victory. 

If Nigeria beat South Korea by two goals and Argentina beat Greece then it will mean that Nigeria will progress in second place. I think South Korea can be fairly much assured of qualification if they get a draw as I don't expect Greece to get any joy from Argentina.

It all makes for a fascinating time next Tuesday night.

In last night's game, Mexico showed France what can be achieved if you try to play attacking football and actually care about playing football for your country. France's starting 11 had all appeared in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, but if they tried as little as some of them did last night I wouldn't have them in my five-a-side team on a Friday night.

The first goal may have been offside, but there is no doubt that the better team won and France are almost on their way home with only one point and no goals from two games. 

When the final games in the group are played next Tuesday afternoon, both Mexico and Uruguay know that a draw with each other will put them through to the next round. However, as it stands, Uruguay are on top of the group and a draw will see them play the runners-up in Group B.

The runners-up in the group will almost certainly face Argentina in the last 16 and avoiding that might just be the spur that both teams need to look for the win.

The only hope for France is that one of those two teams' wins against the other and they can give South Africa a spanking at the same time, but I just don't see it happening.

I wouldn't be surprised if South Africa beat France as it seems to me that the French players have a huge attitude problem and it doesn't look like Domenech could be too bothered either.

I thought that the French players would want to do well for themselves and their country but it would seem I overestimated them as people. The good news is that Sagna, Diaby, and Clichy can all start their summer holidays very soon.

It would seem that the second round of group games is already far more entertaining than the first round and the goals are flying in at a much faster rate. We only had 25 goals in the 16 group games in round one but we have had 13 goals in four games already in round two.

Hopefully, tomorrow's games will keep that going and help to keep the interest up.

Tomorrow starts off with Germany against Serbia in the early game and a win for the Germans will almost certainly qualify them for the last 16 as I expect Ghana to defeat an Australian team that seem to be in disarray tomorrow.

In fact, Serbia almost certainly have to beat Germany to get out of the group and it could make for a very interesting game.

In the afternoon, Slovenia play the USA, and with three points in the bag already, they will be hoping to get at least a point from this game.

The USA did well to get a point from England, but more will be expected of them today and I hope that they can raise their game and get a win that should set them up nicely to reach the last 16 by beating Algeria next Wednesday afternoon. 

As I said earlier it looks that I might get to see the England game as my usual Friday night football is in danger of being called off. I don't really mind if I miss out on football for one week as I am looking forward to a few beers while watching England thrash a poor Algeria team in my opinion.

I saw Ireland beat them 3-0 a few weeks ago in a friendly, and if England can play proper football against them, they will win and win well.  I just hope their manager picks a balanced team and makes sure that they go out and play the game rather than taking the easy option all the time.

In Arsenal news, the Premier league fixture list was published yesterday and we will kick off with a trip to Anfield to play Liverpool on Saturday, Aug. 14.

The dates are not set in stone yet as the TV companies have to decide what games they will show. A week later we play at home to newly promoted Blackpool before a trip to Blackburn at the end of the month.

After that we have three league games in September too before traveling to Chelsea on the weekend of Saturday October second.  There's three more league games in October before we have five games in November.

The most notable of these is the visit of local rivals the Spuds to our ground on the weekend of Saturday Nov. 20.

There's five more league games in December with the trip to "Manure" on the weekend of Saturday, Dec. 11, and the visit of Chelsea to us on Boxing Day.

In January, we have four more league games and the same amount in February. The most notable of these is the trip to the Spuds on the weekend of Saturday, Feb. 26.

March is a very quiet month with only two league games scheduled before we head into April and five more games. Of those five games, the home ones against Liverpool and "Manure" on the weekends of Saturday, April 16 and Saturday, April 30, respectively, are obviously the most interesting.

Finally, there are three league games in May, the last of which is at Fulham on Sunday, May 16, which will bring our season to a close unless we have a Champions League final to look forward to.

Some people think that it's a tough start to the season as we have away games to a lot of teams who beat us last season very early and the fixtures computer has been unkind to us as we are away from home on five of the weekends after Champions League group games. 

The way I see it is that we have to beat them all if we want to win the league, so bring it on and let the season and our march to the Premier League title begin.

It would appear that Arsenal and Atletico Madrid still have not agreed on a fee for the transfer of Fran Merida to Atletico. Despite being at the end of his contract, we are still entitled to compensation as he is under 24 and we put a few years of coaching into him.

When he signed on a "free" from Barcelona it ended up costing €3.2 million and I think that Arsenal will be looking to at least recoup that fee from Atletico.

Besides that, the Arsenal news is thin on the ground with the exception of more drivel from the president-to-be of Barcelona. I'm not going to bother repeating his drivel here, but it's nothing new and I'm sure we'll hear it all again time after time until the transfer window closes and Cesc stays at Arsenal.

That's it for today.

Here's a look at our 7-0 win over Everton a few years ago.

See you tomorrow.