Cornish Steve

But now they are taking on Argentina. Frankly, the latter are rather messi at the back, and Iran should have had a penalty.

"Having waited behind Ashley Cole, Baines has earned his status as England’s first-choice. Yet what does he find once he gets there? A system which leaves him alone, exposed defensively, and unable to venture forward for fear of the gaps he will leave behind him...The key to good management is devising a system which gets the best from the players within it. It is why Roberto Martinez has had so much success at Goodison Park – he doesn’t ask his players to do things with which they are uncomfortable. Hodgson, it seems, creates a system, then shoehorns players into it. Baines has suffered, like Wayne Rooney has suffered and Danny Welbeck has suffered."

I wouldn't agree with this, though. Far more American youngsters play "soccer" every weekend than other sports. Just around here, I know of four sports complexes (maybe within 20 minutes' drive) that each have five fields with games played from 8am to 6pm on Saturdays and 1pm to 6pm on Sundays. Just think about the numbers: 15 games per field each weekend. 5 fields per complex (that's an underestimate, actually, because some have ten or more fields), that's 75 games. An average of maybe 7 a side (based on age group), that's over 1,000 kids per complex, so about 4,000 players. And that's just within 20 minutes' drive. You can probably multiply that by 5 across the Atlanta area, so that's a lot of children playing soccer. The issue in the US always comes back to TV advertising. For baseball, (American) football, basketball, and hockey games, there are commercial breaks every 5-10 minutes. Let's be conservative and assume 6 breaks per hour. You can't do that with soccer. Without the support of advertisers, soccer will not become a mainstream sport in the US. Huge numbers of people play, and large numbers attend some of the MLS games. Increasingly, it's becoming a popular sport at universities. But none of that matters nearly as much as finding out how to inject frequent commercials into broadcast games. But all that's irrelevant anyway because Brooks is really German.

I would agree that the MLS is about on a par with the English League 1 - not too good at all. However...that does not mean that there aren't very talented and world-class American players. I don't know what leagues there on in Cote d'Ivoire, for example, but the country has produced some of the world's best.

Personally, I find it boring when a team like Man City spend absolute fortunes on bringing in supposedly the world's best players in an attempt to crush every team they play. Where is the joy in that? Much better that a talented manager pull together a bunch of players with potential and mould them into a phenomenal team. Now, that is fun to watch and enjoy. Exhibit 1: Everton. Exhibit 2: Costa Rica.

To some extent, I do agree, although we'll need a replacement for Distin in place, too. The main issue is, perhaps, the fact that he's our captain. It's not easy to start benching the captain, and it would be humiliating to Jagielka to strip him of the captain's role.

IMO, racism and similar bigotry has to be dealt with at the personal level, not at the "official" level. The first person who saw that tweet should have confronted the sender, not passed it along to others. The second person to see it should have stood up to the sender, as well. Forwarding to authorities is no more than passing the buck. Yes, you may lose friends doing it. Yes, you may be the subject of the same bigotry. Yes, it takes guts sometimes, but the world won't change if we personally don't act.

Well done again to Alguna Vez Tonelada, who achieved a perfect score in this game. The race for this round remains close, whereas no one seems to be able to catch verreauxi for the overall lead.

Impressive.

Switzerland were lucky to claim a win against Ecuador. Maybe what results in this group are revealing is how off-base are the FIFA team rankings. However could Switzerland be ranked #6? Also, Portugal are ranked #4, Italy #9, and England #10. Costa Rica, on the other hand, are ranked behind Scotland.

Another amusing article on the BBC news site. Why do the English just assume that Scots, or any other Celts for that matter, will support the England team? And why get in a snit when we cheer an England loss? Scots cheer the Scottish team, Welsh cheer the Welsh team, and so on. Since Cornwall doesn't have a national football team, I cheer for all of the Celtic teams. Unfortunately, none of them are at the WC.

Both Alguna Vez Tonelada and verreauxi secured 3 points from the France-Switzerland game, so verreauxi extends his lead at the top of the leaderboard.

Congratulations to Rubecula for being the only person to score two points for the Italy-Costa Rica game (correctly predicting that Costa Rica would lead at half-time and also predicting the total number of goals they would score). Overall, verreauxi retains a 6-point lead.

I was being too simplistic when I suggested that Italy played just as poorly against England as they did against Costa Rica. There was one big difference: Costa Rica shut Pirlo down. They gave him little time or space, whereas England gave him as much as he wanted (symptomatic of England's very weak midfield). When Pirlo is taken out, Italy lack any kind of spark or creativity. They depend as much on him as Uruguay depend on Suarez.

Yes, I know. I'm not being too serious - just pleased that for once I was right, especially after you were so insistent! You have my full permission to gloat even more if Italy do make the semis.

Miguel provides a lot of useful insights, but he's been so arrogant and cocksure about Italy and England. I'm wrong more than most, but I knew I was right on this one. Might as well take advantage of my moment to gloat, because I don't get that many.

Robbie Savage: "An unbelievable performance from Costa Rica. In every single department they have been better than Italy. Second balls, first into the tackle, a great goal and should have had a penalty. But how can Italy be so good against England, with everyone lauding Pirlo, yet be so poor today?" Maybe because, in trying to believe that England was not really dreadful, too many pretended that Italy are a good time. The truth is, they were no better against England than they were against Costa Rica, but the opposition this time around was of higher quality.

Oh, and what was the question again?

We did find out, didn't we.

And that's the sign of a good coach with a carefully crafted strategy. You don't need the best and most expensive players in the world to build a great team or to achieve success. Costa Rica have the lowest valued team in the WC.

It's incredible how Costa Rica didn't get a penalty and the Italian player stayed on the pitch. Bias is breathtaking sometimes. Mind you, the bookies stand to lose a fortune if/when Costa Rica win, so I can understand it.

Ah - context of my comments is lost now the thread has been retitled. Mind you, I did a Google search earlier because I'd never heard of drugs being referred to as PHDs before.

Not sure that I'd characterize Jack Rodwell as a misfit.

That is hilarious! Mind you, it's just the kind of stupid decision for which the English FA is known. They're called the FA for a reason; it's what they know.

And let's not forget that Brendan Rogers simply followed the strategy initiated at Swansea by Roberto Martinez and then replicated it at Liverpool.