speeeeeeedie

USA: Keller, Onyewu, Conrad, Cherundolo, Bocanegra, Dempsey, Reyna, Lewis, Beasley, Donovan, McBride. Interesting USA line up. Beasley floating? I don't know enough about Ghana to post theirs.

Sven earns £4 million. Lagerbeck earns £100,000. £76,000+ per week so not true, but not far off.

Good first half, usual serving of dross in the second. However we played this bad and still won the group. I'll take crap and wins any day over style and losses. Their first goal started not from Hargreaves, but John Terry arsing about with the ball instead of hoofing it. It caused a loss of possession leading to the corner. On the corner we had our worst header of a ball, Beckham, marking a striker. Goal. Then Beckham goes walkabout again for one to hit the bar. The second was criminal defending from Terry letting the ball bounce. Robinson is not a bad keeper. I don't know where this is coming from. You'll see a difference if James comes on. Hargreaves played well and I think deserves the nod against Ecuador. You cannot have two world class keepers playing at the same time, why have 2 midfielders playing for one position? Counter to that is that they are both brilliant they should be able to share the duties. Eriksson's subs were again confusing. "Gerrard and Crouch will be rested because they are on jellow cards" said the Swede, so 2 mins in on comes Lurch. 20 mins to go here comes the second. Sense? Rooney did well, but needs more space. Walcott could give us that as defenders will have to play deeper to accommodate his speed but all signs point to the the same system that limped around against Paraguay; Crouch up top with Rooney supporting and the divorced couple of Gerrard and Lampard in the middle.

The USA were unlucky. They played quite well. The only sending off I would question is Mastroeni. A straight red would have been harsh, I thought he'd already been booked, if so he had to go for his second yellow. The ref was stood right next to him when he tackled and I reckon that from where the ref was it looked like a two footed lunge. The question has to be asked; what was he doing putting in a tackle like that with 1 minute to half time near the opposition box? For Pope to get the same ban as De Rossi is not on, De Rossi should get at least 2 games.

I agree Eddie, Zidane's ban will ignite the French. They can now play to Henry rather than the ageing maestro. Malouda looked very good, who does he play for?

Flopsy you are on one here. I don't know what you are on about. It seems that you are having a go at the Germans and holding a grudge for something that happened a while ago and you have no recollection of as you were not around. I don't think forgiving has anything to do with forgetting. Think before you write, you are making yourself look stupid.

I'm not going to get into a cultural debate but Serbs aren't suited to the Premier League. Some time ago I listed about 10 Serbs (I need to add Kezman, Jokanovic, and Croat Stanic) who have been to England and gone back quickly as they didn't do anything, and I believe that Zigic will be another. We'll have to play him loads and all he'll do is sit on his stringbean ar$e and collect the cash.

I was talking about their mentaltiy.

And some want to sign Zigic?

Thanks Phil, if you can't get it either I guess that the cohorts caught up with them, for now.... American it's nothing to do with the Beeb, it is about licensing. ESPN/ABC paid for the WC, they have sole rights, and should broadcast the games online.

Phil, I've installed the player but everytime I launch it it says that it cannot be initialized and to find a network connection. Any ideas?

T&T wasn't as boring as Paraguay but in the cold light of day we've won both and are moving on. I too wonder about our performances, and I think we need to drop Crouch to make us play it on the ground, but with Owen looking lethargic it may not happen. Sven tends to stick to what he's got, but you have to give him credit for having the ba!!s to switch it up. We completely changed when Lennon came on, not just for the fact that he ran at players but it gave Beckham more space. T&T played for a draw and nearly got it. We should play Rooney against Sweden, get our first 11 out there to get ready for a long run!

American, I think France '98 was a different case than the current one. In 1998, team captain Harkes got booted 3 weeks before the tournament (alleged carnal indiscretions have been mentioned) David Regis played every game despite getting a US passport 2 weeks before the tournament. Then the manager played the most bizarre system ever seen in a World Cup; 3-6-1. How I laughed when I saw that line up. Separately, Harkes, Wynalda, Balboa, and Lalas have all commented indirectly about Steve Sampson and his mis mangement of that team. Lalas has also got more revenge by firing Sampson from LA. Wynalda may have sour grapes but it doesn't detract from the fact that he's right. The 2006 team played awful on Monday, unless they get something out of the Italy game, which I doubt they will, they are home with the public switching off as usual. I believe that Arena's days are numbered if the USA come back with 0 points. DanLad, I mentioned Johnson ages ago on here, the lad is fast and can score. His touch needs improving but a good coach like Sparky will do that. Rover6, do you really need someone with insider knowledge to answer that one? Of course not. The only male-female debate ever in the USA came in the 1970's when some crackpot actor/pseudo star said that women shouldn't play sport and challenged manimal tennis legend Billie Jean King to a game. She beat him.

I heard Wynalda on the radio this morning, he is still seething. He had a right go after the game and did so again this morning. He said that how can the USA play that badly when they have a great chance to show the nation that they are decent. It makes a change that commentators are saying what they think. It's normally glory glory glory with Americans. This is refreshing as journo's don't have a clue. Arena needs to make changes. He needs to give them a kick up the ar$e. Play Eddie Johnson (who we should sign), drop Beasley or Convey or Donovan (it wouldn't matter who after their performances) and Mastroeni. Tactics: get the ball wide and in the box, Mcbride will eventually get something. Donovan may now be rueing his decision to stay in the MLS, he got found out yesterday. It does look bleak though as the Italians were very impressive.

The New York Red Bulls (formerly Metrostars but Red Bull took over sponsorship). He was there last week. No news on a contract yet. Mo Johnston is the coach there.

As a side; how do I change my name, I'm fed up of typing all those e's in. Is there a way to shorten it?

The Czech's were good, the USA were bad. Lacklustre with no imagination would sum it up for the Yanks. I think Arena has to take some blame, his plan did not work. The Czech's are up there with the Argies as the best team I've seen so far. Arsenal have themselves a player in Rosicky, he was very good. IF Spurs get Reid I doubt that Arsene will be worried.

Lathund, I agree that you had the majority of possession and were quite tidy, but playing for 45 minutes against a 10 man WC debutante would give you that space. I also agree that England weren't the best but wasn't comparing the two. The fighting story was on soccernet, I'm not Swedish so don'tknow who posted it first. Who is Chippen?

I heard a snippet that FIFA are thinking about putting roofs on the stadiums to stop "shadowing". As for coverage, I mentioned that you can't complain until you've watched a game on US TV. They don't show national anthems, cover half the screen with graphics, adverts all through half time, don't give the line-ups until the game has started, and keep harping on about rankings. The Spanish language station is great though, shame I don't speak a word.

The Scandavanian alliance! Sweden were not very good, and you've now got your skipper and star man fighting again. It's not looking good.

JK, most of what I've read so far has been positive. Maybe it's because of all the live games ESPN needs to recoup its outlay by using journos to promote it but there is far more coverage this time around.

Woy: a highly pedigreed continental manager with a knack of paying vastly overpriced sums for Championship players. Sherwood: a common retort whenever someone perceives that another has done something wrong. Normally preceded by "bloody".

Good one this, especially for me living in the USA and having heard these stories since I arrived here. The article is taking the Michael; the LA Times is well known as being a liberal, left leaning, newspaper (see always having a go a George Bush). Los Angeles has 2 MLS franchises, one of the best university teams in the country (UCLA; Friedel's old uni), loads of kids playing, and even Rod Stewart's Hollywood United! He's playing to his audience by having a go at the intolerant folk who don't understand the rest of the world and actually get mad when football is mentioned. Some American journalists do not like the sport, they do take any opportunity they can to put it down to promote their own favourite. It will get interesting over the next few weeks as for the first time ever all world cup games are on live on TV. ESPN has been promoting it quite well and some journo's will jump on the bandwagon as it will get them reads and ESPN will be friendlier later on to those who promote what they are showing. I hope the US does well just for the coverage; they start winning and it will be like last year's Ashes series. I can't be ar$ed debating baseball, basketball, college American football attendances, it's all apples and oranges.

The US looked OK against Latvia, they gave them the runaround for a while. Donovan needs a free role, which I expect he'll get. Convey was very good when he came on.

There are a good few. The tournament is very even. The Serbs and Croats can beat anyone on their day (amazing that they were the same team at Itaila 90), the Ivory Coast will scare some, the Aussies might surprise a few, Sweden could beat anyone with Larsson and Zlatan up front and their stingy defence, the USA are a strange bunch too. Mexico will capitulate. They had all this talk last year too, during the Confederations Cup, but it will go nowhere.