Green Redeemed

Not the goalie Green - he was replaced in England's starting line-up, but the colour, courtesy of Algeria's valiant effort for a better outcome that keeps them in contention to qualify from Group C.  England's continued lacklustre performance allowed Algeria to put themselves back in the race.  Their change from white to green jerseys seemed to bring them luck. Improving from a loss to a draw gives us hope for another upgrade to a win in their last game. England need to find another striker, as much as they want Rooney to step up, he just can't seem to do it on his own.  Man U is clearly suffering without Ronaldo and England have not been able to benefit at all from Rooney, he has gone 7 games without a goal now!

Poor USA! Not only have I been riding ESPN about their coverage of the games and the team not understanding the essence of the game, but the poor call from Malian Referee, Koman Coulibaly, really denied them the chance to prove themselves on the world stage.  I have seen Coulibaly in action at the African Cup and remember thinking what a bad ass he is. Very disappointed :(! The denied goal scorer, Edu, didn't understand the call but didn't contest and Howard talked about how difficult it is to officiate corners and that he was satisfied with the way referees have been conducting themselves thus far.  Either something we didn't see or hear happened or Coulibaly made a terrible human error and none of the other officials had anything to offer to counter his call.  We can't rely completely on the camera angles as they don't tell us everything and don't give the same view referees have in the moment both in terms of sight and hearing and the ensuing conjecture from the pundits is just that, conjecture. Donovan  asked what happened and the referee said nothing.  Referees don't have to explain their actions to players, what they say goes, these are FIFA's rules.  Donovan went on to say that he didn't think that Coulibaly could speak English and his tone insinuated that this meant that obviously he wasn't very bright.  Speaking English does not equate to brains my friend. He should be weary of speaking in such a fashion on the world stage as things like that give people the wrong impression about Americans.  Reminds me of Andy Roddick when he gets mad and condescends to umpires, especially ones with native tongues other than English.

Germany have given Ghana the chance to top the group tomorrow.  THE BLACK STARS WILL BLIND THE SOCCEROOS. Because I said so ha ha ha! As they say "One Game Changes Everything!".  And once again one goal did too ;)

This World Cup is full of surprises and the ones today were a lot better :)