Luckily I was prepared for a pride obliterating bitchslap

Yeah... the US got pretty much worked. Not much more to say. Well, I guess I could add that thanks to the Italy win and the goal differentials, the USA pretty much needs two wins. I predicted that, but I also thought that the defense would be decent, and that the wingers would have some ability at all. I really was most down on Convey and Beasley. And if EJ doesn't start against Italy, Arena should just go ahead and follow the coach of Togo's lead. And I can't leave out a tip of the hat to Rosicky. Kanu, the Goooooners got them a good one.

On some other cup notes, those last 10 minutes of the Japan-Australia match were awesome. The best goals of the cup have been Rosicky's first for the Czechs, Cahill's second for the Aussies, and best of all, Frings for Germany. The most exciting matches were Germany-Costa Rica, Japan-Australia and Sweden-T&T (probably the most exciting match of them all. The most boring match was England-Paraguay.

I still feel OK about my predictions, but England have to become a completely different team over the next three weeks in order to keep advancing. Lucky for them, they have a few pretty easy games to work out the problems.

No big surprises just yet (T&T was kind of an upset, but they still aren't in a position to advance). This may end up the cup that goes to form, unlike the last several major competitions.