that argentina vs. germany game was good. i'm at work, so i just listened, but i did NOT expect that outcome really. i mean, the germans have been playing really good and bringin' it hard.

wow...that was a **** good game. the argentinians thought they had it in the bag.

poor crespo.

i think italy will roll over ukraine personally. but as we see, anything can happen.

the only dude at work i can talk to about it is taping the game, so i can't say nothing to him!

i'll miss the england game tomorrow (a sis gotta get her hair done), but will be listening on my walkman.

i'm a little bitter about ghana being knocked out, but it's all good.

yeah no doubt. Its an ugly thing to see all these coward people screaming things in matches that they might not would have done outside of the arena. Big shame without a doubt and it makes you feel very umcomfortable. Seems like they are working a lot with this in english football but it seems like its still a big problem in Italy and Spain. It has been very sad to see La Liga (the spanish league) the latest season.

Sadly I've seen a lot of that coverage regarding racism at European matches as well. The one report I caught summed it up well when they stated that the difference between the US and Europe is that Europe has never truly had the equivalent of the US' Civil Rights movement. That and the fact that there are much less people of color in most European countries than there are in the US. It was insane to see what gets said and what people do physical from monkey chants to Nazi salutes at some of these games, but I don't think it means that the US is really any better. I just think that racism in public is perpetrated in much more subtle, but equally harmful ways. I certainly don't expect it to be cleaned up before the World Cup, but there's definitely widespread awareness of the problem.

recently I've read a few articles of the racial intolerance of European soccer fans towards people of color. It's quite disappointing because I always thought of Europeans being a little more progressive than white Americans. Non-white players are being verbally abused and having bananas thrown at them.
WOW!!!

EN-GER-LAND, EN-GER-LAND, EN-GER-LAND, EN-GER-LAND!!!!!!!!!!

Guess not too many care over in the US but still its one of the few sports thats truly global and a sport where anyone can participate whether you are rich or poor.

USA seem to have some new star rising in Freddy Adu but from what I understand he wont play this time.

It will never happen but this is how I think the semi finals will look:

Germany- Argentina
Italy- France


England- Portugal
Brazil - Spain

I can't speak for everyone in the US, but I do know that there are a LOT of cats over here who are extremely pumped for the World Cup kick off (no pun intended) this Friday. I'll be looking forward to seeing the games in Hi-Def on a nice 42" plasma screen TV, that's for sure! Hats off to ESPN and ESPN2 for broadcasting the games in HD. I get the sense that there is a serious effort being made by numerous parties this time around to get Americans excited about the World Cup. From pieces on the sports channels to the incessant bombardment of futbol/soccer themed commercials, the presence is definitely being felt on this side of the pond. Sorry I'm going to have to cheer against Italy as we're in the same Group, but it's all love :-)

should be a nice competition with a lot of people watching it but the games are not always that exciting even if i sometimes catch myself to still watch a game attending to see the better moments. should be interesting also for us residents and would be interesting to know what you think about. i am livin in italy where it is the number sports game.

2006 World Cup Germany
fifaworldcup.yahoo.com