The9

Nothing to do with the ball either, any football would swerve like that when hit by someone running full tilt at an angle to it.

Can't blame the keeper for that, he'd have been covering a cross, the ball was running out of play and Maicon just lamped it across, he was lucky as hell it went in.

Makes me laugh commentator is bloody clueless, frigging obvious he sliced it in and the keeper was never going to get it. Bit of a fluke, but clearly never took a deflection even without a replay.

Not that I saw this kind of performance by North Korea, but from the Predictions thread : Portugal haven't scored in aeons and can't score, NK are a superbly drilled defensive side... could happen. Shame this is ruining the odds for me, I was hoping for at least 10/1 ! Also, watch the video here if you want to see what Tae Se is capable of (and some awful NK defending) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ65eKjd6ak&feature=player_embedded And this article on their tactics : http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/05/26/north-korea-a-better-side-than-you-might-expect/

The ball HAS been designed for the World Cup but Bundesliga uses adidas balls and that's the latest adidas ball. Evidence here from April 10th - though I've seen other pics with sides using the Nike ball as in the Prem, so I assume it's on a club by club basis. http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/association=ger/news/newsid=1474591.html

I assume that none of you lot complaining about the standard of this match suffered the earlier match ? Slovakia v New Zealand looked like a poor League One side against a poor non-League side in places.

I'm not getting into the "which matches are at altitude and which aren't" discussion, way too much research and effort even for me, but there seems to be a general over-hitting of crosses and the usual ballooning (literally) of shots. And sheesh, imagine how dull it would have been without the superball-caused errors.

Is it really news to anyone that the Premier League uses a Nike ball, they've been doing it since we were in the division ? There are contracts involved, and anyway, it would benefit pretty much every other country as much as England given the breakdown of player nationalities.

Hardly adidas' fault that La Liga, Premier League and Serie A all use Nike balls is it ?

I can't wait to see how defensive North Korea are, ZonalMarking.net have them playing a back 5 with 2 defensive midfielders (though too short to defend set pieces well), and it'll be interesting to see if Jong Tae-Se gets a kick up front, cos he's pretty decent.

You're not the only one : http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/entry.php?10-Day-5-(Part-1)-This-Had-Better-Be-The-Low-Point#comments

I've got a couple of flat caps around, quite fancy that for a laugh once I've bought my sash kit.

Funnily enough I tried it and I hated it on iPhone, would much rather zoom and scroll.

They said it was fine when it happened all the way through the 2009 Confederations Cup and have already ruled out doing anything about it during the World Cup (a long time ago), so don't hold your breath.

I haven't heard much about this 1968 World Cup - probably as it sounds like an under 10s competition.

Looking at fixtures so far, it was officially SAF v MEX and URU v FRA, so as Mexico were in away kit and so were France, as it's ENG v USA I would expect England to be in White (same v Algeria, and then away v Slovenia so red for that one). You can double check if South Korea are in red v Greece's White, and Argentina are in Stripes v Nigeria in green, though there's no clash with home kits there anyway.

I've kinda been saying that for months (without the "we"). Both Group A and Group B are full of pants underperforming teams and if England and Argentina win their groups and England get past D2, chances are it'll be one of France, Uruguay, Mexico or South Korea in the QF. Of course England have to beat the US first, or it's probably Germany in round 2.

What a miserable, closed minded bunch of complainers you lot are. It's a WORLD Cup. It's in South Africa, they support their teams in a different way. The differences are part of the thing that makes football supporting so fantastic, and anyone who's been to a World Cup (I've been to 3) will tell you meeting other fans and seeing what they do is a huge part of the experience. Also, I zoned them out at the Confederations Cup 2009, so I barely even notice them now, like any background noise when you're concentrating on something else. Wouldn't fancy sitting next to someone with one for long, but I'm only watching it on the box, so I have options. Grumpy bstards!

France v Northern Ireland? I must have missed that one...

That's one way of looking at it - the other way being that only Mokoena of the South African defenders was aware of the 4 attackers behind him and he was the only one switched on enough to get anywhere near them. He's a Skate and he's shoite but he still looked better than the other 6 who switched off and ambled out in that situation without a care for the attackers behind them.

I went to see that at the Odeon last month, it was only on for one night and afterwards they had a live Q&A with the author, director and Stuart Pearce. It was hosted by Jim Rosenthal. Unfortunately the Q&A was held in Newcastle, which was a bit weird to watch on a cinema screen in Southampton. Good film though, I should probably buy All Played Out now - even though there's not that much similarity other than the events covered!

What, with North Korea playing Brazil, and New Zealand in the thing ?

France are 50/1 to not score in the entire tournament...

And WHAT a picture. Well, it was Ormerod, but...

Yes. That's all I've got.