The officiating has been quite good at this Cup. Until today.

1. The Germany-Serbia referee handed out yellow cards for minor fouls, leading to two yellows for Klose, leaving Germany with 10 and changing the entire match. The Serbs scored minutes after Klose's ejection and held on to win, although the Germans, even with 10 men, had the better of play. The card-happy ref changed the game; I don't see ze Germans losing with 11. (Heck, they almost leveled with 10 when Vidic had an absurd handball in the box, but Podolski missed the penalty.) Terrible officiating by the Spanish referee.

2. The US-Slovenia official was, unbelievably, worse. Coverage of the wrongfully disallowed winning goal is all over the news, so I'll just post an email I sent to a longtime friend about the match:

"To quote Didier Drogba, the referee was 'a f*cking disgrace.' Not only was there no offside and no foul by the Americans on the should-have-been-winning goal, Michael Bradley was affirmatively fouled.

Of course, I can't really blame the referee, because the US team itself was disgraceful during the first half. The strategy of not marking attacking players while simultaneously not blocking passing lanes was, surprisingly, unsuccessful. Yet I have no room to criticize, because my big thing was to bring on Torres to start, which Bradley did, and that turned out to be a terrible idea. Torres was rubbish."

Additional thoughts:

--Michael Bradley played an outstanding game, even before the enormously impressive finish on the tying goal. Every time he touched the ball, I felt either relieved or hopeful, depending on where the ball was on the field.

--Because England drew Algeria 0-0, the US advances with a win against Algeria, and even with a tie under some circumstances. The difficulty is that Algeria was the very definition of "tidy in possession" today against England, and look exactly like the sort of team that can take advantage of the inevitable US defensive miscue and then run out the clock. We'll see on Wednesday.

FF

Quick thoughts:

-- A huge percentage of free kicks and crosses are missing their marks. It cannot be that all the players are terrible. The Jabulani ball simply flies differently, and that's annoying, because it undermines skill.

-- Argentina's attack is wildly entertaining and Messi is definitely the best (and most exciting) player in the world, but man, the Argentine defense is iffy. La Albiceleste are wonderful to watch, just remember: in the Copa America in 2007, they looked brilliant all tournament and then got mugged 3-0 by Brazil in the final.

-- Four years on and the French still miss Zidane badly. We all do.

-- Blanco's penalty kick against Lloris was absolutely perfect. Blanco's a pain in the ass, but he's always been expert with the pelota.

-- Italy was criticized for the Paraguay draw, but actually the Italians were quite lively after Paraguay went up 1-0. Sometimes I suspect reporters don't even watch the Italian games, they just write the stereotypical "the Italians were boring" story.

-- Zonal Marking is an unbelievably fantastic site. It's what futbol commentary should be like. Tactical, technical, intelligent.

FF

Switzerland 1, Spain 0. A huge upset. The Swiss, playing approximately 27 men in the box, defended stoutly and scored on a counter. Not good for neutrals like me who enjoy the Spanish style.

Uruguay also beat South Africa 3-0, a terrible result. SA's effectively out, and I loved the stadium energy in their matches. I'm no fan of Uruguay, because they kick the opponent with the same frequency that they kick the ball. I only saw part of today's match, and Uruguay behaved, but that's unusual for them.

FF