My Secchi Disk

So after two weeks of somewhat limited watching, I have a favorite team: Tunisia. I know, I know. Tunisia? Well, due to staying home sick, I ended up watching both Saudi Arabia v Ukraine and Spain v Tunisia on Monday. Maybe I was feverish, but I thought both matches were just great, the second one in particular. (To be scientific here, it could also have been due to my watching on Univision, which is pretty awesome, as Eleni commented in my last entry.)

Maybe all this methodical passing business that most of the European teams use is good for scoring goals, but frankly it’s infuriating to watch. It’s all set-up, usually for no actual shot, and there’s no confrontation. Teams seem freaking polite to each other. When the keeper has the ball, people just wait around, no one gets in his face to make him get rid of it.

But it’s different with Group H. Both Monday games had everyone actually running, actually on the other team. I’ve been told this may be because everyone was playing particularly hard, as they had little to lose with the way the points stood. Still, I wish all matches were like this. I think all four teams played great, but I like Tunisia in particular because they played really well against Spain… and because Tunisia’s keeper, Boumnijel, is one of the most intimidating men I have ever laid eyes on. He’s awesome.

So here’s to Tunisia! I think they can make it. Ukraine is pretty good, but I’m betting they’re going down tomorrow…

(A note on today’s Ghana v USA match: Of course the US wasn’t going to win. These people play like they’re reading a soccer instruction manual. Probably one that’s written in another language, because they’re reading it awfully sloooowly. Americans never were good at second languages. And the passing issue again. Except the US is even worse because they prefer to pass backwards more than 50% of the time. And if Reyna hadn’t needed to get off the field for some Prozac, we wouldn’t even have had that stoppage time that led to the questionable penalty shot.)