Days 1-4 in Review

Jabulani
If you hadn't already noticed by now, that ball moves and bounces beyond the expectations of the players. It has some comical results, seeing it bounce over some players, and also past some goalkeepers. The downside to it is that there seemed to have been less shots on target, especially from free kicks (has anyone seen a free kick on target yet?). But admist all the discussion of the ball's flight, the Japanese showed us how to cross it in their goal against Cameroon. Maybe being more light-weight as a person would give you an edge in ball control?

The goalkeeping has been up and down, Nigeria and Denmark seem to have produced the most consistent displays, Sorenson even actually held onto a shot swinging away from him, see people, they wear gloves for a reason! He was equally unfortunate that his same gloves gave the ball the spin that led to the second goal.

Referees
There has been little debate about the referees, I've only seen a few mistakes, and probably the undeserved red card against Cahill was the one bad decision that affected a group than any other. But let me congratulate the Uzbek referees, goodness, I thought they would screw up the first game, and I thought they got every offside call wrong in the first game, and every time the replay showed me they got it right. The linesmen must have been intent on being in the right place, because they got the close calls right too.

But on another level, I thought some games might be a bit of a flopalooza, particularly with the Mexicans, but the referees seem to be on top of any simulation, more so than before, there was a good example where a German was yellow-carded for his flop yesterday, and he went on to stay on his feet for the rest of the game.

Predictions
I've been trying to make predictions for the games, and I've gotten very few results right, but there's been considerably less goals than I originally thought, to be fair, there seems to be quite a few missed chances, and maybe as the group stage progresses, and people get to grips with their environment and the ball (right, Green?!) we'll see more goals.

Surprises for me so far are:
South Africa (for their passing and movement)
Japan (for winning outside their home country, and their ball control)
Ghana (in general, I didn't think they had much else other than Essein, I was wrong)
Denmark (Their well-organized defence against the Dutch was good news for them, the goals were flukes)

Non-surprises:
South Korea (seriously, Greece had it coming)
Nigeria (or rather, the holes in the Argentinian defence, Nigeria was wasteful)

England vs USA
There was some noise about two particular things, the lack of a holding midfielder in Barry's absence, and the US counter-attack. Neither were issues. People seem to forget that Gerrard covers the entire field, and tackles like a demon, he was first a holding midfielder noted for his tackles rather than his passing and his goals early on his career. Secondly, the one time I think the US genuinely tried to counter, Donovan didn't have the support. To counter, you need to do so as a team, and the only player I know who could run and pass with Donovan whilst progressing down the field at high speed was Charlie Davis.