Spain 4 Ukraine 0; Tunisia 2 Saudi Arabia 2; Germany 1 Poland 0

Sweaty pants,

I don’t know what that means, but sounds sweaty and it’s pants. Today had one drama and it was drama enough for me to be drinking sangria with a married woman. Scandalous yet dodgey. That’s my life, baby.

Group H
Spain 4
Ukraine0

I have to start out with a relatively sad news. I have broken up with Marlene. She said that she will miss you guys as she enjoyed all the MTBA gossip and she was also secretly in love with Jackie. :) I guess the mailman can’t win against a knight in 76ers armour. We both had a fantastic time together and although we both do have our regrets that this relationship could not last longer, it was best we parted ways.

This triggered two events. First, was that I should be in Germany now, but I’m not (for obvious reasons). Second, I will not be attending my first ever world cup game of my life (because I’m not in Germany, entiendes?).

I’ve already bought a ticket from my friend in Japan for this match. Please, ladies and gentlemen, do not shed any tears for me or Marlene or the ticket. The dear ticket did not go to waste (phew), as I asked Marlene to go to the match instead of me. From the tone of her text message she sent to me at the beginning of the match, the atmosphere was electric and subsequently she lost her world cup cherry.

Fate, if I believe in it, is involved like an annoying mother in law. My fate seems like that I will never ever ever goto a world cup match as I already missed France, Japan, and now Germany. But I now believe that my fate is to lose my world cup virginity as a photographer and not as a spectator. Now, if I had the choice between the two choices, you can probably guess which one I will go for. That’s right. I know I will be at the Olympic Stadium in Johannesburg 4 years from now, pitch level with that naff green vest that says, “South Africa 2010”.

Life goes on...

The score with this match does not paint an accurate story. Yes, Spain did win with 4 clear goals and yes, Ukraine scored none. The Ukis even had a player sent off. With the players that rolls off like a shopping list of Jose and Roman, Reyes, Xavi, Xavi Alonso, Raul, Torres, Casillas, Luis Garcia, Cesc Fabregas, and Howard’s favorite, Puyol. Doesn’t “Puyol” sound funny to anyone? Doesn’t to me, but hey, that’s okay. Oh yes, the Ukraines. They got Schevchenko and...um....wait, hold on...yeah and his wife who’s quite hot. No, trust me. She’s really hot.

So you see the point, it’s like Michael Jordan and 4 Atlanta Hawks lads against Detroit Pistons circa 2004. You also have to realize that this group is so weak that our Sunday football league can qualify out of this group.

1st goal was scored from a corner kick by Luis Garcia of Merseyside. It was an alright goal, but nothing to write home to your mom about.

2nd goal was also from Villa and it was a free kick that took a deflection from a walled Ukrainian. If it was a burger, it would have been a cheeseburger. Nothing more, nothing less.

3rd goal came from a dubious penalty call. I mean, first of all it wasn’t a foul on Torres and no one should blame him for slipping on a green banana. Secondly, this was the 2nd yellow for the poor Vashchuk and this really sucked the tension out of the match.

4th goal was a stunner (“stunna” and not “stunnerrr”) from my tip to become the top scorer of the tournament, Senor Torres. Puyol does a spin move and gets the ball to Torres who gives it to an anonymous Spaniard and back to Puyol and he heads it to Torres and SHABAANGA! He sucked at Euro 2002, along with his too-cool-to-be-true 80’s hairdo, but he is going to be his breakout tournament. As my mentor would say, “He’s a diaper dandy, baby!”. Oh I hate him.

Now let’s calculate. 2 goals from set pieces. 1 goal from a dubious penalty. 1 goal against 10 men. They weren’t dominating as they should be against a almost god awful Ukraine team with a semi-fit Sheva. I didn’t get the shivers down my spine like I did with Diegos kids. There are other reasons why. They are always the dark horse and they always always don’t live up to it. They have got great talent all the time and almost all the players play in top teams in the top leagues in Europe, but none of them are big game players. They have cool names like “Puyol” and “Reyes” and “Fabregas”. I also kind of think these names might be the english equivalent of “Smith” and “Lee” and “Tanaka”.

One bad thing that's going for them is that their manager is a racist piece of mother fucking shit and he should get his balls cut off and fed to the dolphins, but I have a nasty feeling that he will get the sack before he loses his balls. When would those racist fuckers learn...

Group H
Tunisia 2
Saudi Arabia 2

I had my podiatrist appointment at 4pm (like I said, I try to work around my busy “work” schedule) and once my consultation with the foot doctor was finished, I decided “NOT” to watch this match at Edgware road, a traditional hang out of Arab people. To be honest, I felt slightly tired as I’m not sleeping too well these days and my feet were hurting. So I was walking down the street and my football date cancelled to nix our appointment for the evening German match. Which meant that I could go home, cook some jap food, sit on the couch, and just watch the match in peace, which I haven’t had the time to do since this tournament started. With extra bounce in my consulted feet, I plugged myself to espn podcast and started to walk down the street when fate intervened. It was Taichi’s mom. Taichi is a friend of mine whom I had the pleasure of being his guardian/cool brother anyone wants to have/just a cool dude. He’s 18 and he’s big (almost 190cm) and he’s got mad football skills on the pitch and on the PS2. A

Anyhow, her mom is real cool as well and she took me by surprise by saying, “Let’s go to dinner.” She’s a bit of a foody herself and might be more than the regular jappers as she is a French chef (sans the long hat) in Tokyo. All of a sudden, my evening had turned into a shopping trip with Taichi’s mom (buying Taichi stuff, of course) and a Tapas dinner with Sangria. I had no interest in watching the Saudi V Tunisia game and whenever I make that sort of decision, weird things happen. One year ago and one champions league final ago, I decided to not watch it by going to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the musical with my friend and her kids. I had no interest in watching a match against an always boring yet efficient AC Milan side and lucky but not all that great Liverpool lads. As you may know, that match became the epitome of “never say, never again” or “never say never” as Liverpool came back from a 3 goal deficit to beat Milan in penalties. So as you have guessed tonight match was a rather nice one.

1st goal came from Jaziri of Tunisia and by all mother fucking means, it was dynamite and sexy, but more towards, “holy shit”. By the way, the Tunisians stunk at the confederation cup. There was some ricocheting in the box from a free kick by this Tunisian boy called Jaidi. A misplaced header by a Saudi defender seemed to be suspended in the air when in a flash there was Jaziri (no relation to Jaidi) with a gorgeous scissors kick to send the ball right into the gut of the Saudi goal. Must admit that it was a bit “Tai-chi wai” or “Captain Tsubasa” in this goal.

2nd goal from the 2nd half, a nice reply from the Saudis. A ground cross from the right and an emphatic finish by Al Kahtani. It’s nice, but not as nice as the 1st goal Game tied at one a piece. Saudi population starts lighting fires in the oil fields.

3rd goal is scored by the Saudis through al Jaber, not to be mistaken by the great Karim Abdul Jabber. Someone told me that they are distant cousins, but I for one shouldn’t be listening to a drunk Englishman at a Tapas restaurant with one dodgey eye. A break starts from the Saudi box and two passes later, al Jaber who was on time at this party sends a low shot diagonally to the Tunisian goalie. Game set and match?

4th goal came from Jaidi and this one was a reverse of their 1st goal. A cross comes from Jaziri on the left which is cleverly headed by Jaidi.

So was this match interesting? Don’t know because I’ve only watched the highlights. Should anyone care whether the Saudis or the Tunisians advance to the knockout phase? Not really, but if you got some stakes in the oil business or the dune business, then maybe.

Group A (2nd Phase)
Germany 1
Poland 0

Just want to say this first:

"Sorry Michael, but there's always South Afirca."

Well, well, well. Yes we won. “We?”. Yes, oui. I am too funny and I shouldn’t stop laughing. For those of you who know my true identity, I am one eighth german and seven eighth japanese. Which means that I am more japanese than german. Which means I can cheer for two teams at exactly the same time. End of discussion. Basically the entire match was spent eating some nice (and it was NICE) tapas with Taichi’s mom, discussing about Taichi’s life. Which is okay, but I had to watch the match and since we weren’t pounding the poles to oblivion at the first half and much of 2nd half was me biting my knuckles raw, I’m sure I wasn’t the best dinner guest in central London this evening.

As the german bombers pounded the strategic locations of the polish strongholds...I just heard someone say, “Please, no more WWII references.” What was happening throughout the entire match was in tune with a geek stalking the high school cheerleader, but not being able to push her into a limo with a busted door on one side. So many chances, so many missed opportunities. The Poles suck (sorry Iza) and the only thing they’ve got is the mighty Boruc catenacioing the goal (good job Strachan).

By the end of 1st half with Klose and Podolski each embarrassing the fatherland twice for a grand total of four, I felt like throwing up and by the 70’s minute, I had diarrhea. When 80’s minute rolled, I told Taichi’s mom that if I die, please tell my parents that seven eighth of me wanted to live and when the clock hit the dreaded 90, I felt as if something precious and dear has left me and came back just so it can spit on my face.

But miracle came from a rarity in German football. If you look at the French team from Spain 1982 led by the scrumptions Michel Platini, most of the team is white. Fast forward to 2006 and Abidal, Gallas, Thuram, Sagnol, Makelele, Vieira, Wiltord, and Henry are black and Zizou is French Algerian. At the same time, Germany’s 1982 team is as white as the French and this year, well, it’s mostly white. What’s happened here? Don’t quote me on this, but someone said that the French immigration law is softer than that of the German one. It is also true that there is a huge north African population in south of France and I can attest to that as I only saw 4 white people in 24 hours. Compare that to Germany where they still got some sort of strange beef with the Turkish people and you know, they got that whole Nazi thing in the past and the current Neo Nazi problem. So you might understand why that my amazement was sky high when I saw Asamoah play for the German side in 2002 World Cup. That was my first ever site of a black German footballer. Originally from a Ghanan dissident, Asamoah shocked my world and my fantasy grew to exponential proportion that with the racial barrier broken down in Germany, there will be more “foreign” (ie non white) Germans for 2006 to boost our absolutely horrendous talent level.

Looking at the 2006 model, I’m not impressed. I know there are talented non-white German players out there. Then why doesn’t the DFB do something to recruit these players? While the Kaiser said famously when the wall came down in 1989, “We will now have the best team in the world”, the true unification of Germany may be much further away than expected. But hey, Odonkor might be a very very very good start.

The only goal of the match came from Neuville, who at this point must be around 82. With the entire country watching his every bouncingn step, the 64th minute substitute Odonkor rips down the right flank with speed not seen in the German side since Schweinsteiger on the left. God knows why Klinsi doesn’t start Odonkor, but he might have to change his mind after this match. Odonkor drives past two poles (polish people) and sends a bouncing cross into the box. The old dude comes right in the nick of time to slot the goal and sends the country into euphoria with an added bonus of a single ticket to the sweet 16.

Ryu’s “It’s the Germans...” goal of the day. Who else, but Oliver Neuville who tamed a rather springy cross from Odonkor to get himself on the front of Bild Zeitung.

Tomorrow we start with the possible dance partner to germany challenged by the country germany pillaged followed by the match this country has been waiting for, the george’s cross will cross cleats with the country where I have no idea where it is, and finally the country who was supposed to give me my world cup accreditation but never did gets funky with the city of blonds blonds and more blonds.

Watch it.