Arena's men take the pitch on Monday

[Scersk '97]

On diving:

Wouldn't it be pretty simple for FIFA to video review the games afterwards and start looking for players grabbing their heads when they haven't gotten elbowed and grabbing their shins when they haven't gotten slide tackled?  Oh, that's right, FIFA is institutionally against any sort of video replay for games.  The thing is, a few yellows handed out *after* games, causing players to miss the next game for accumulation of cards, would still have the desired effect.

Boy am I glad the f-ing Argentinians are gone.  Their game with the Netherlands was a joke.  England, without Owen, just didn't have the quality striking to make it through, so feel glad for the Portuguese that their usually woefully inconsistent team has finally put a run together.  (It'd be like Scotland making it to the semis, in my mind.)  And, finally, where did that French team all of a sudden come from?  They sleep-walk their way through the first stage and then blitz Spain and pretty well dominate Brazil.  Quite impressive.

[min]

Sorry, but what was about the Argentine team play at this World Cup that you didn't like? Their display of soccer was pretty remarkable (see their game against Serbia), and on numerous occasions they played much better than the other soccer powerhouses. Argentina just ran into the host team, played to their equal for 120 minutes, but did not have the instinct or the confidence to win the game at the end.

In my case, I'm glad to see that teams that didn't play well at all exit the World Cup (e.g. England, Brazil). Argentina -and to a degree Spain and Netherlands- fielded good enough teams to be in the final four, but history/God/luck/(fill in blank here) was surely not on their side.

[Molgestron]

I'm not a huge fan of Argentina, but I don't understand why their game with the Netherlands was a joke. That was simply a case of both teams making it to the next round so they sat their best players,

You may be referring to the card-fest that the Netherlands played against Portugal in the round of 16. Portugal in my mind is a mess and I'll be rooting hard against them the rest of the way- at least in the game against England, the referee caught most of the theatrics and called a fair game.

[Scersk '97]

Yep, I switched the teams around for the quick comment.  It was Portugal vs. los Paises Bajos that I was in a tizzy about instead.  I did feel that the Argentines were doing a lot of diving and whining vs. Mexico, whom I felt had the better of play on the day and was sad to see lose.

On England vs. Portugal I quite agree:  both sides were a mess and it was more a contest to see who would avoid losing.  "min" above is certainly correct that neither Brazil nor England really deserved to advance, and, no matter how much it pains me to say, I was kind of glad to see a (crippled) England go.  (I mean, really, Crouch as a lone striker?  Laughable.)  Of the ENG/POR/ECU/NED quartet, I do feel that the Dutch would've put up much more of a resistance to the French, who really dominated the game with Portugal despite the 1:0 score.

France continues to impress and I'll be rooting for them on Sunday.