DoofersDad

I always thought there was something not quite right about him. I wouldn't worry about it. He'll be fully Scottish again tomorrow once he's lost to Nadal.

Here's a suggestion to address the problem of footy free days. After the group stages and each subsequent round they could have separate knock out competitions as a mirror image of the main competition for the winners. Every team would end up in a position of 1 to 32. This would allow good teams who disappointed to restore some lost pride and play some more relaxed and attractive football. Games could be scheduled so that there were matches on every day. Venues could be used in towns where folk don't normally have a chance of seeing international football and prices could be set to allow local folk to watch the matches. Rooney might even get to score!

Arguable . England are currently ranked 8th in the world and Scotland 43rd. Scotland are ranked 13 places below the lowest ranked team in England's qualifying group. Despite England playing well below the level they did in the qualifiers, none of the 3 teams in their qualifying group beat them and neither would Scotland. Anything can happen in a one off game but there can be little doubt that England are a very much better side than Scotland at the moment.

Check the thread title. If we are going to keep on subject then it's a bit unrealistic to expect many English supporters to wax lyrically on the subject. Now, if it was the Greatest Ever Goal by England there would be a few more to chose from

I hope the Japanese lad who missed his penalty has not fallen on his sword.

Brazil were impressive tonight. Defensively they were everything that England were not and despite a lively and committed Chile side trying all they knew, Brazil never looked like conceding. With that solidity at the back and the obvious ability up front I think it will take something exceptional to beat them. Now that England are out they've got a real chance :(

Less than that! MJ Lives! Heard the women who runs this site being interviewed on the radio last night. Totally barking mad. Apparently Jacko's coming back at some point to warn us all about the Illuminati and the Anti-Christ that's going to take over the world! I wonder if he'll have news about England winning the World Cup in 2014 :(

Oh well, I guess it's thick skin time again for the English amongst us - but then we're used to that. At least we have done better than the French and Italians. It's difficult to understand why England have been so bad. Everything has been so inept from tactics through to performance and substitutions. Why did Capello play players out of position in a system they don't like? Why did so many top quality players play so far below their club form. Gerrard, Rooney, Terry and Upson have been poor all through the competition and would be lucky to get in their clubs' reserve teams on performances like that. Playing out of position is a factor but only up to a point. Why, in particular was the defence so poor? The way they were pulled out of position was schoolboy stuff. Why did Capello take off the two outfield players who might just about have got pass marks today and replace them like for like? And why did they not go for more than a one nil win against Slovenia to top the group? Had they done so they could have expected to avoid Germany and Argentina and would have had a real opportunity to get players playing to their potential leading into the semis. It's always disappointing to lose, but if you go out being beaten fair and square after giving your best then fair enough - going out with such a display of managerial and player ineptidude is deeply frustrating. Of course, had England not been cheated out of a perfectly good goal just as the team was beginning to click, the whole momentum of the match and the campaign would have changed and we would probably have gone on to win the competition.

Someone remarked today that the World Cup was turning out a bit like the 2nd World War. The French were defeated early, the Italians are running off home having achieved nothing, the Yanks have left it late in getting involved and so it's down to the English to take on the Germans.

That sounds like a Marathon headline to me

New Zealand could do what Scotland did a few years ago and become the only unbeaten side in the competition. I hope that doesn't happen because that would probably mean Germany would win the cup.

Enjoyed watching Japan tonight.

You got the numbers right, just a little bit jumbled up - final set finished 70 - 68. The equvalent of playing roughly 18 sets of tennis in 11 hours 5 minutes. Mahut looked fresh right through until he lost when the big Yank went from looking dead on his feet to being full of it, til the commentator asked him how he was looking forward to his doubles match in 30 minutes. Thanks for the correction. I can't cope with such big numbers.

Isner won today 78 - 60. I don't think Mahut had time to warm up properly.

59 games all when bad light stopped play. Apparently the final set alone has lasted longer than any other entire match in the history of the game. It's quite astonishing. I watched quite a bit of it and the quality of the play was remarkably high. The French guy must have put more effort into this single match than the entire French World Cup squad combined put into their 3 matches.

Slick England slam slovenly Slovenia to progress from group of death.

I feel a bit uncomfortable about the mixed messages this gives. One the one hand we tell children not to talk to strange men and then we tell some poor kid to hold hands with Wayne Rooney! Whatever the arguments about that, I just don't see the point. If the idea is to give the kids a great memory then why not let then run onto the pitch a couple of minutes before the teams appear and kick a ball into the net in front of 60,000 supporters who would cheer each time the ball trickled over the line. That would be much more fun than holding hands with Wayne.

I look forward to spending many a happy hour with that. Will we get a choice of North and South Korean shirts to put our hilarious names onto?

Vuvuzela is a strange name for a horn. In case anyone was wondering where the name comes from, it is in tribute to the former German international Uve Zeller who used to make a similar noise in the dressing room as a result of pre match nerves.

As Alex says, cost closer to ?400 million than 200. Original estimate was ?200 million but the lawyers get double time for Sundays. Seriously though, and this is a very serious subject, I don't think this looking back and trying to get at the "truth" serves any purpose. You never get the whole truth and the what emerges is not necessarily going to help anyone. This inquiry may have helped some families achieve closure but their pronouncements of justice being done only serve to open up the wounds for very many more whose loved ones were murdered by the paramilitaries on both sides of the divide and for whom there will never be hope of justice. It would be far, far better to have spent the money on building a future rather than in digging up the past.

Another battling draw as England remain unbeaten in the Group of Death

The Irish must have mixed emotions. Good to see France get gubbed but the fact that they were so poor and seem to have so little desire to be there must surely have grated with the Irish to whom being there would have meant so much. The lack of passion shown by the French was just unbelievable - whoever takes over as the new coach should start from scratch and not let any of that shower pull on the national shirt again. After tomorrow night it might be difficult being English but at least I will have the consolation of not being French. On a more positive note it was good positive play from all the winning sides today and that bodes well for the knock out stages.

Is this the consensus? I thought it's been a pretty decent WC, so far. One or two duff matches but pretty decent overall. Doofer's Mum thinks the World Cup is very disappointing - but that's because she had to cut the lawn whilst I watched the South Africa game last night.

Disappointing to see so many South African supporters leaving early from the match tonight. It's the world cup for heaven's sake! Seeing so many leaving early must have been just the kind of inspiration their team needed. Uruguay looked pretty decent though. One of the few plusses in an otherwise disappointing World Cup so far.