I spent most of last month writing about the World Cup, which meant that the other thing I usually post here – links to other efforts elsewhere – got lost in the shuffle. And so I have two things to mention today:

First, my weekly effort at SB Nation Minnesota is up – in which I give a few suggestions to improve fan interest in the MLB All-Star Game. I think a couple of them are good ones, so I hope you’ll take a minute to click through, read, and then tell me what you think.

Also, if you’re reading this on the blog, rather than via an RSS reader – look to the right side of the page. There’s a little section titled “Jon at SB Nation,” which will pull links to everything I write at Twinkie Town, Canis Hoopus, and SB Nation Minnesota. I’ll still post links to the major stuff, but everything from those three sites will show up there.

(You can also access my SB Nation page directly here, but I suspect this link will only be of interest to my immediate family. Hi, folks!)

Thanks to a woeful lack of time, I’d only done a single running diary for the 2010 World Cup – the Germany-Australia group match. High time, I thought, that I corrected this. Spain! Netherlands! La Roja vs. the Oranje! It’s live from Johannesburg, via ESPN, Martin Tyler, and Efan Ekoku.

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Pregame Tyler asks Ekoku to speak for the entirety of Africa about this World Cup. Here’s the part where we remind you that Ekoku is from Manchester, and spent his entire career in England (though he did play for the Nigerian national team.)</p>

In the studio, Ruud Gullit predicts a 2-1 win for Holland. Steve McManaman predicts a 3-0 Spanish win, then stares Gullit (a former Dutch star) down. Awk-ward!

FIFA’s propaganda campaign continues, as they pat themselves on the back for putting the World Cup in Africa. Apparently, soccer will save the continent, according to this commercial, which has public-access production values.

According to FIFA, the real winner of the 2010 World Cup is… South Africa! I suppose if we’re judging it in terms of “Number of useless stadiums built for single event,” then I agree, though it’s a tight race between South Africa and China.

National anthems! Spain’s sounds like it’s being broadcast from an iPod through a megaphone, and heavily features the glockenspiel.

Ekoku thinks that the Dutch will be affected by their Final losses in 1974 and 1978. This seems unlikely, given that all but three Dutch players weren’t alive in 1978. This might be a good time to start the match.

0 Tyler says that for Netherlands, “This might not be ‘Total Football,’ but they hope it’s ‘title football.’” Martin Tyler, as always, should fire his writers.

2 David Villa is offside for Spain. Get used to that.

4 Great save from Maarten Stekelenburg, the Dutch goalkeeper! Sergio Ramos got loose from a set piece, Stekelenburg had to punch away low and to his right. Almost 1-0 early, but the keeper has the Orange still in the game.

7 Either Holland are waiting to counter-attack… or they plan to park the bus in front of the goal for ninety minutes. Everyone in the world is hoping for the former.

10 Apparently Holland has been staying in the same hotel as the ESPN folks, as the team failed to extend their reservations through the final. I’d say “so much for journalistic distance,” but, well…

11 Dutch defender John Heitinga nearly scores an own goal. In fact, I can’t see how he avoided it, as he somehow stabbed the ball almost vertically from two yards away, despite just sticking a foot out. Either it was the most impressive clearance ever, or the luckiest.

14 Mark Van Bommel, the Netherlands midfielder, is apparently well known for somehow avoiding yellow cards. He doesn’t look innocent; I don’t know what he has going for him. Maybe he’s a witch.

15 Robin Van Persie goes into the book for his second horrible challenge. He really could have been carded in the first 45 seconds for a bad tackle – two was apparently enough for English referee Howard Webb.

16 Now Carles Puyol goes in the book for fouling Arjen Robben. I muse on whether Puyol deserves a medal, rather than a card.

18 “While you were looking at that replay, David Villa was caught offside.” Less than surprising commentary from Martin Tyler. The game is starting to open up, by which I mean that sometimes Holland now have the ball.

22 Van Bommel can’t escape that yellow card. Horrible, horrible tackle. Nearly a leg-breaker. The Netherlands are apparently trying to steamroll the Spanish, and I mean that just about literally.

23 Now Ramos goes into the book for Spain. Howard Webb’s carding arm is getting a workout.

28 What. The. Hell! Nigel de Jong fouls Spain’s Xavi Alonso with a kung fu kick to the chest. I have described that correctly. He was about four yards from getting the ball, there. Somehow this only earns a yellow card, though I have no idea how. It was worth a red, plus another yellow, plus a free kick in the butt from two selected Spanish players.

The BBC’s text commentary on that tackle: “Crikey.”

31 Even odds right now: First goal, or first Dutch player sent off?

34 Holland attempts to kick the ball to Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas following a restart. The ball bounces gaily over Casillas’ head, off his gloves, and out for a corner. van Persie has to run seventy yards to go attempt to kick the ball to Casillas again. Not the finest moment ever in a World Cup Final.

39 Things are sloooowing down. You get the sense most of the players are waiting for halftime.

42 Halftime naps all over the world begin early, thanks to the excitement of this game. The only entertainment involves Howard Webb halting the game to yell at various players.

HALFTIME: NETHERLANDS 0-0 SPAIN

45 It’s usually not a good sign, in terms of entertainment value, when the biggest story of a half involves one player karate-kicking another in the chest.

51 Not much exciting happening in the second half, though Joan Capdevila swings and misses following a Spain corner. It’s always fun to watch a world-class player do exactly as well as I would do in the same situation.

52 Robben does the same thing every time: Get the ball, cut inside on his left foot, shoot for the near post. It’s one of his two talents; the other is being a bald, diving idiot.

54 So far this half, both teams have evenly split their time between 1) soccer and 2) admonishing the referee. To say I am annoyed by this would be an understatement.

55 Now Giovanni van Bronckhorst goes in the book for Holland. I think Tyler just said that we’ve already set a record for the number of yellow cards in a World Cup Final. Xavi wastes the resulting free kick.

56 Villa rolls around on the ground clutching his foot. I rage at Spain for being the typical continental, diving, cheating, attempting-to-get-other-team-carded kind of team. Howard Webb, not helping things, cautions Heitinga based solely on Villa’s performance in his new one-man show, I am David Villa, look at how much my foot hurts, the pain is excruciating! That’s some bad refereeing, right there.

58 Right now, Webb has done more to influence this match than any player or coach. Possible man of the match honors coming his way.

60 Jesus Navas is on for Spain. If this were in the States, someone would have a sign that said “CASILLAS SAVES, JESUS SCORES” or something like that. Sadly, none is forthcoming on this broadcast.

61 Tyler says that, according to ESPN analyst Roberto Martinez, Puyol grows his hair long because he is embarrassed of the size of his ears. I’m sure Puyol will be thrilled with the both of them.

62 BREAKAWAY FOR ROBBEN! SAVE CASILLAS! Robben was all alone away on goal, but his shot hit Casillas in the foot. The keeper didn’t do much, but the deflection flew wide. Wow, was that a game-saver. Robben was almost too open, a perfect pass from Wesley Sneijder, and he dithered a bit too long. Should have been 1-0 Netherlands there!

67 With things settling back down, Capdevila is booked for taking out Robben. So far, the most important things in this match are Casillas’s foot, and Webb’s yellow card.

69 Villa is offside for what I estimate to be the 4,967th time.

70 – Cripes! Villa with an awful miss. Heitinga fell down, the ball went straight to Villa five yards from goal, but his shot hit the prone Heitinga and bounded away. Thought that was the first goal; the goal was “at his mercy,” as announcers say.

75 At risk of sounding silly later in this commentary (or like I made this part up afterwards), the game looks like it’s headed for extra time. I suspect many around the world have fallen asleep or wandered off to do something more interesting, like burning ants with a magnifying glass.

Webb, sensing my boredom, stops the game to yell some more. He’s like your dad on a long car trip. “You two knock that off or I will TURN THIS WORLD CUP AROUND and we will NOT GO FOR ICE CREAM.”

77 Ramos just missed a free header from four yards away. Horrible.

78 Please excuse my caps lock for a moment.

GAAAH! I AM SO SICK OF SPAIN FALLING OVER AT THE SLIGHTEST TOUCH AND ROLLING AROUND CLUTCHING AN ANKLE IN THE HOPES THAT THEY CAN GET SOMEONE SENT OFF. IT HAPPENS ONCE PER MINUTE AND I WANT TO STOMP SOMEONE EVERY TIME.

Thank you.

80 Spain has given up on scoring, and is trying to convince the ref to win the game for them.

82 The last ten minutes of the game: Spain attacks. Holland boots the ball out of bounds. Repeat one million times.

83 Robben again! He managed to get on the end of a punt from the keeper, and somehow behind both defenders. Puyol, desperately, fouls him repeatedly from behind, but in an upset of epic proportions, Robben stays upright and tries to score. Casillas smothers a shot before he can get it off.

Robben wanted a foul called, of course, and is so angry he chases Webb across half the field, screaming. He gets a yellow card for his efforts. If Robben had gone down when Puyol wrapped him up, Webb would have called the foul and sent Puyol off, no question. Robben instead chose to go on and try to win the match. This is better than I expected from Robben, although he immediately ruined it with his temper tantrum.

87 Slouching towards extra time, but Robben has to know he had two glorious chances to win the match and couldn’t convert. Spain’s had more possession, but the chances have been equal.

90 Robin van Persie is offside by three yards. Villa heartily approves, I’m guessing.

END OF REGULATION: NETHERLANDS 0-0 SPAIN

We’re off to extra time. This was… predictable.

91 THREE SPANISH DIVES IN TWO SECONDS GAAAH (/blood spurts from eyes)

On replay, the final count: One “went down too easy” from Cesc Fabregas, one “went down for no reason” from Andres Iniesta, one “blatant dive after tripping over himself” from Xavi. I hope Xavi is eaten by wolves. Howard Webb sensibly ignores Xavi, which is better than I expected from the ref.

94 This World Cup has gone about 5,800 minutes, the majority of which took place this afternoon. The commentary makes it seem more exciting, but nothing – abjectly nothing – is happening for long stretches of this match.

95 Fabregas is away – but Stekelenburg saves with his foot. His second good save of the match, with the two coming more than 90 minutes apart. A better save than Casillas’s game-saver on Robben, too, because Stekelenburg actually had some idea of what he was doing. Casillas was just taking up space.

99 Everyone, please, a warm welcome for Rafael van der Faart!

100 I just like writing “100” in these running diaries.

101 Navas hits the side netting. He reacted like he thought, for a moment, it was in. Worst feeling ever, I suspect.

102 We must give a hand for David Villa, who can be offside in the 102nd minute just as well as he could in the 2nd. He’s a real talent, this one.

105 van Bronckhorst, who’s retiring from football after the World Cup, gets substituted. Harsh, coach. You’re telling me he couldn’t play fifteen more minutes in his entire life?

HALFTIME: NETHERLANDS 0-0 SPAIN

Fernando Torres comes on for Villa, who will now fulfill a lifelong dream by standing in a permanently offside position.

107 For the Netherlands, Edson Braafheid gets drilled in the back of the head with a cross, which causes the commentators to chuckle indulgently. Let’s see you take a soccer ball off the rear of the cranium, guys, then see how hard you laugh.

108 This game is getting sloppy… as has every other extra-time match in the history of soccer, at this point. TO be expected, I guess.

109 Heitinga fouls Iniesta on the edge of the area – and he’s off! Red card for a second yellow! I did not expect Holland to hold out this long with all eleven players on the field. That’s seven yellow cards they’ve earned – by sheer mathematics, you’d almost expect two of those seven to land on the same player. Well, down to ten men, you have to expect Netherlands to play for penalties now.

Replay shows that Iniesta dived. I narrowly avoid another caps lock tirade, mostly because Xavi sails the free kick over the bar.

111 Now it’s Gregory van der Wiel in the book for Holland. Their yellow-card performance is impressive.

112 Ekoku just described a player as at “full pelt.” We are at the point of this game where this makes me laugh out loud. HA ha!

114 No matter who comes out on top, the real winner today is Howard Webb’s family. He’s been on camera more than any three players put together.

115 Sneijder takes a free kick – which takes a deflection and flashes just wide of the post. Boy, would that have been a story.

116 INIESTA SCORES! DRAT!

I’m quite angry about this, as Spain’s theatrics have turned me solidly against them. There was a deflection in the center of the area, Fabregas picked it up and slipped the ball to Iniesta to his right, and the Spaniard made no mistake, scoring what surely must be the late winner.

You will think I’m making this up, but the aftermath results in two more yellow cards – one for Iniesta for taking his shirt off in the celebration, one to Joris Mathijsen for haranguing the linesman. Mathijsen wants offside, but replays show Iniesta was onside by about two yards. No dice. Drat and blast, Spain are going to win this one.

119 There’s just not enough time for the ten men in orange to get the ball back and downfield.

120 Just to sum things up, Xavi gets a yellow card for kicking the ball away. That’s fourteen yellow cards in this game – nine for the Dutch, five for the Spanish. If I remember Tyler’s earlier comment right, the previous record was five.

FINAL: NETHERLANDS 0-1 SPAIN

Spain, supposedly the most offensively breathtaking team in the tournament, wins the World Cup with eight goals in seven games. The 2010 World Cup was about defense, not scoring, unless you happen to be Diego Forlan.

Spain is now your European champions and your World champions, and we can all probably stop writing about how they’ve been underachievers.

This won’t go down as a classic final, which would be surprising except that no major-tournament final is ever a classic. This was a match with long stretches of boredom, punctuated by regular stoppages for yellow cards and lectures from the referee.

Arjen Robben is about to have a long, sleepless night, I suspect.

And after one of the best matches of the World Cup… we got one of the worst. Spain has yet to play a particularly exciting game, winning a bunch of workmanlike 1-0 games to get to the final. Germany has played effervescently a couple of times – 4-0 over Australia, 4-2 over England, 4-0 over Argentina – but looked impotent and distracted in this one. I think they missed Thomas Müller more than they expected; without him, they consistently failed to string much together in the way of attacks.

Carles Puyol, who is variously described as looking like he’s in Anvil, Iron Maiden, Spinal Tap, or “like Steve Coogan with an awesome mullet” (this may just be me), scored Spain’s only goal with a pretty good header in the 73rd minute. Given that he missed the net with a header in the first half that could not have been from more than fifteen feet away, I’d say he’s shooting .500, at best. Still, Spain had the better of the possession, and deserved the win.

(This despite Pedro putting together the worst move of the World Cup: he had the ball, a step on the lone German defender, and an un-covered Fernando Torres in support. He was away on goal. A shot was a good bet to make it 2-0; a cutback for Torres might have been an even better bet. Pedro chose to cut back directly into the defender, then slip and fall over, failing to even get off a shot.)

So let’s set up the third-place game! It’s Germany, the country of Nazis, against Uruguay, the country that used to hide Nazis! (This is unfair, but this kind of description is what the World Cup’s all about.)

Frankly, I don’t care about the third-place game. Neither does anyone, except for soccer junkies and fans who couldn’t get tickets for the final. No one ever remembers who won the third-place game in any competition in any sport, and the World Cup is no different. (The only exception may be bronze medal games in the Olympics. And even then, nobody really cares.)

Sunday’s final, though, now becomes rather meaty, as commentators say. Neither Spain nor the Netherlands has ever won a World Cup, despite being traditional powers. Neither team lost or drew a single game in the qualifying process. The Netherlands hasn’t lost a game for almost two years, and hasn’t lost a competitive game since the quarterfinals at Euro 2008. Spain lost to Switzerland in the group stage and to the USA in the semifinals at the 2009 Confederations Cup, but otherwise hasn’t lost since November 2006.

These, then, may be the two best teams in the world right now. Spain was many pundits’ pick to be here; many thought Holland would lose to Brazil in the quarterfinals, but otherwise was the third-best team at the tournament.

If it’s like Spain’s other games, it may end up as a boring 1-0 tilt. But if we’re lucky, it’ll be like the Netherlands’ last two games: wild matches with goals aplenty. I’m hoping for the latter.

Strange that it should take more than 60 matches to get to one real classic. Even the most exciting games of this World Cup – USA-Algeria, USA-Ghana, Ghana-Uruguay – didn’t have anything on this one. USA-Algeria was likely less than compelling, if you were a neutral, as Algeria (confusingly) played for a draw right up until the 91st minute; USA-Ghana was notable mostly for Ghana’s extra-time winner; and Ghana-Uruguay was only thrilling in the last minute of extra time (though the pain Ghana endured was enough for three or four World Cups.)

But this one – wow. Start with the absolute strike of the tournament from Giovanni van Bronckhorst in the 18th-minute, an unsaveable 35-yard rocket from the left flank, off the right post and in. Seriously, go over to ESPN and find a replay. Two keepers could hardly have stopped it, and it took place from across the field.

Then add in Diego Forlan‘s equalizer, another dagger from the Uruguayan, this one in the 41st. It was Forlan’s fourth goal of the tournament, yet another scored from long range, and this from a guy who used to be unable to score from four feet. Stunning.

And then, the second half. Wesley Sneijder scores with twenty minutes to play to put Holland up again, another goal from the suddenly-prolific midfielder, and one I’m still convinced was offside. Discussion should rage; the ball nearly hit Robin van Persie, who was offside and in the goalkeeper’s line of sight, which strikes me as “interfering with play,” but was somehow ignored by the referee.

Arjen Robben scored three minutes later and that looked to be it – but then Maxi Pereira slammed a shot home with two of three extra minutes off the clock to make it 3-2. Surely there wasn’t time for another goal… was there?

93:00 ticked by. No whistle from the ref, except to (confusingly) card Mark van Bommel. Uruguay desperately swung the ball into the box. Holland had to make three game-saving lunges.

94:00 ticked past. Still no whistle. There was no time-wasting, no substitutions, just the goal, and somehow four minutes of the maximum three minutes of stoppage time had elapsed, and still the referee allowed Uruguay to throw the ball into the Netherlands penalty area. van Persie had to make two defensive plays. Still no whistle.

I think the referee must have just been caught up in the drama. I know I was.

Finally the ref signaled the end of the game. There were minor fisticuffs, of course. A game that tense couldn’t end with mere handshakes.

Two laser strikes, one controversial goal, an extra-time prayer, followed by two incredibly tense minutes that probably shouldn’t have happened – how exciting can you get?

Tomorrow, Germany-Spain. Can Miroslav Klose tie Ronaldo – or surpass him – as the World Cup’s greatest-ever goalscorer? Can somebody other than David Villa score for Spain? Can the Spanish live up to expectations? Can the Germans be stopped?

The World Cup quarterfinals start today, and with the USA out, I’m not sure who I should be pulling for. Had they not lost, it would have been England, under the theory of “I would hope they would cheer for us, in the same situation”; this makes little sense, so let’s nonsensically examine the other contenders.

Uruguay – They haven’t been this far since 1970, after winning the Cup in 1930 and 1950, so they’ve got the underdog thing going for them. That, and that they have Diego Forlan, is the sum total of my knowledge about the Uruguayans. This does not form a good basis for fandom.

Ghana – Knocked the USA out of the last two World Cups. Um, no. (Yes, I am bitter. Are you surprised?)

Germany – I have some German heritage, and they might be my favorite team to watch in the tournament. That said, as I said to someone before the England-Germany match: “I can’t root for Germany. They tried to kill everybody’s grandpa.”

Brazil – Sure, and then I’ll cheer for the Yankees, too. I can’t wait to see where LeBron signs so I know what team I’m a fan of, too! To sum up: No.

Argentina – Very good, but they have Diego Maradona for a coach, and Maradona is a first-class idiot. Plus Lionel Messi scored four goals in a half against Arsenal. I am not above pettiness, either.

Spain – Half of the Barcelona team is on the Spanish national team, which makes them immediately annoying, especially Xavi. Plus they won’t play Cesc Fabregas. BOOOO!

Paraguay – Their snoozefest with Japan set soccer back ten years. No thanks.

So that leaves… The Netherlands! Allow me to enumerate the things I like about Holland:

• Yes, I know why they wear orange jerseys despite their country’s colors being red, white, and blue. It still makes no sense. I love this.
• Bert Blyleven is from there.
• Robin Van Persie threw a tantrum after being substituted last week, and it’s always fun to cheer for a team that might devolve into intrasquad fisticuffs during a match.
• Rafael Van Der Faart.
• Dennis Bergkamp was Dutch. He also refused to fly on airplanes, earning himself the nickname “The Non-Flying Dutchman,” which is so wonderfully perfect that you’d swear I made it up.
• They do tend to play fast-paced, scintillating soccer, and any of about eight guys could pop up and score the goal of the World Cup at any moment. Or they could go through to the semifinals thanks to an own goal and somebody scoring with their knee. You never know what you’ll get with them.

So count me aboard the Dutch bandwagon! I’ll just get out my bracket and find out who they’re playing next here…

Brazil. This morning.

Oh, balls.

Spain and Paraguay won, thus completing the quarterfinals, and also setting up a statistic that has the USA rather shamed: of the eight group winners, only one failed to advance to the quarterfinals. Take a bow, America – we’re special!

This got me thinking about what needs to happen between now and Brazil 2014 – besides the USA successfully qualifying again, of course – for the Americans to be in the quarterfinals and beyond. Here’s my top five things:

1. Tim Howard has to stay healthy and stay effective.

Howard will be 35 by the time the next World Cup rolls around, but right now, the crystal ball says that’s all we’ve got. Brad Guzan may challenge for that spot, but first he has to get a few games at Aston Villa (or elsewhere) to prove that he’s actually got what it takes. Brad Friedel at Villa retired from the national team early, but he’s still getting it done in England at age 39, so – as long as he stays healthy – I see no reason that Howard can’t be back in 2014, if he wants to be.

2. Jozy Altidore has to learn to be a real striker.

He’s shown flashes, of course – the hat trick in qualifying springs to mind – and he’s just 20. And yet, Eddie Johnson was just 20 at one point, too, and so was DaMarcus Beasley. Altidore hasn’t showed any real nose for goal for his club teams, either, scoring just once in 28 games at Hull City last year.

An American striker hasn’t scored at the World Cup since Brian McBride in 2002, and apart from the goal-poaching ability of Herculez Gomez and possible developments on the Edson Buddle front, the cupboard is looking a bit bare beyond Altidore. America needs a legitimate threat up front; it can’t continue to count on Landon Donovan, grit, and shinned-in goals from corner kicks to score.

3. The team needs to develop, or possibly adopt, some new defenders.

Like the American defense, I’m at a loss, and have no idea what to do at the back of the team. All of the American defenders are the wrong side of 30 (Jay DeMerit, Carlos Bocanegra, Steve Cherundolo) or demonstrably useless (Jonathan Spector, Jonathan Bornstein, Clarence Goodson, Heath Pearce, Chad Marshall). The jury’s still somewhat out on Oguchi Onyewu, but he had horrible World Cups in 2006 and 2010, and still is mostly living off his manhandling of Jared Borgetti six years ago.

I guess the only hope is that the USA can cobble together four mediocre defenders and somehow teach them to be a disciplined unit. Failing that, I say we forcibly naturalize young defenders from other countries.

4. The team needs to hire a new coach.

If you want a summary, there’s two easy words that can explain this: Ricardo Clark. He wasn’t exactly working with top-notch clay all of the time, but Bob Bradley has a record of curious and confusing team selection, which has been combined with some underachieving from his team, which means it’s probably time for the end of the Bradley era. The Americans made a mistake by letting Bruce Arena hang on until 2006 after his success in 2002; the country may be better off this time by moving on to a new coach for the next four-year cycle, rather than letting the current one stick around too long.

If they could get a coach that begins with discipline and tactical acumen, it’d go a long way towards solving problem #3, too.

5. Somebody besides Landon Donovan needs to step up as a world-class outfield player.

I’ve spent plenty of time criticizing Donovan, but he’s truly the best non-goalkeeper this country has ever produced. That said, he’s currently the only one at that level. Clint Dempsey probably won’t get there, nor will some of the other old hands (DeMarcus Beasley comes to mind), but the USA needs more players who, on any given day, can step up and be a force. Michael Bradley may be the team’s best hope. Some other young midfielders – Benny Feilhaber, Jose Torres, Sacha Kljestan, Maurice Edu – have shown very occasional flashes of being special, as well.

Donovan went through his lost-in-the woods period around the 2006 World Cup. We can only hope that one of those other players, or Altidore, or someone else, can step up in 2014.

The World Cup, for all of its bluster, is basically about setting up the quarterfinals.

Only the top team in each group was seeded for this tournament, along with hosts South Africa. Each top seed is made to go through the group stage, but the bracket is set up so that theoretically, the winner of each group will play another group winner in the quarterfinals.

It’s not that easy, of course. Italy collapsed in the group stage and went out. England failed to win its group and had to play Germany in its first knockout round game. South Africa was only nominally seeded, and failed to qualify themselves. But the other five seeded teams – in order, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, and Argentina – won their groups, and four are already through to the quarterfinals, with Spain to play tomorrow.

Already the talk is all about two of the quarterfinals, with Germany set to take on Argentina, and Brazil slated to face the Netherlands. Those two matchups represent the four best teams in the tournament so far, and frankly, it’s the way the organizers meant this tournament to go.

Tomorrow, Spain also plays Portugal, a knockout round match that looks drool-worthy on paper (which probably means a boring goalless draw and penalties.) And then, another less classic matchup… Paraguay against Japan.

Really, aren’t those the interesting matchups left in this tournament? The moment the draw was complete, you could have predicted Germany-Argentina and Brazil-Netherlands quarterfinals. But who could have seen Uruguay-Ghana coming, or a theoretical Paraguay-Portugal matchup? Spain may yet make it through, but either Uruguay or Ghana is going to play in a World Cup semifinal. Uruguay hadn’t even been to the quarterfinals in forty years. Ghana qualified for the first time ever in 2006.

So yes, there will be some classic quarterfinals, and yes, nobody’s really looking forward to Japan-Spain or Ghana and Uruguay or whatever may happen. But frankly, I think the latter might be the most interesting matches left in the tournament.

The weekend links are up at RandBall, and of course, there’s plenty of World Cup content. Just over two hours until the match today. I’m ready for anything.

The USA, in the end, exactly met everyone’s expectations – through to the knockout round and no further. The favorable way the bracket set up, and the wave of emotion following the way the Americans qualified, had us hopeful that better things were possible. In the end, though, this was exactly the team we knew we had.

Throughout qualifying, the USA seemed determined to play from behind. Yet again, they went behind early, allowing a sixth-minute strike by Ghana. We’ve seen a team with a propensity for disastrous defensive errors – and Ricardo Clark and Jay DeMerit combined on that first goal to turn nothing into something for Ghana, and DeMerit and Carlos Bocanegra allowed a goal early in extra time in the same way. Both of Ghana’s goals came out of nothing, and really, those were the only two chances the Africans had. As it so often has, the game came down to whether Tim Howard could bail out his defenders – and the keeper was not at his best on Saturday.

We knew those defensive flaws were there. We knew that the USA had never found someone to play next to Michael Bradley in midfield; Clark lost the ball that led to the first goal, picked up a stupid yellow card two minutes later, and was substituted half an hour into the match, with coach Bob Bradley basically admitting he’d made a mistake starting Clark. Maurice Edu was the best in this tournament in that midfield role, but he’d hardly made an impression in qualifying, any more than Jose Torres or Sasha Kljestan or Benny Feilhaber or anyone else the USA tried there.

Up front, too, the Americans never really found someone to partner Jozy Altidore, who was good as a target man, but unable to find the back of the net. All three players who did score – Bradley, Clint Dempsey, and Landon Donovan – scored from midfield. Robbie Findley did a lot of running but hardly had a sniff of goal; Edson Buddle and Herculez Gomez did very little when coming on late.

All these problems we knew – but we still got our hopes up. After Wednesday, anything seemed possible.

And now, the hardest part – waiting four more years for another shot. Donovan, the best player America has ever produced, will be 32 years old in 2014; Howard, the first-choice goalkeeper, will be 35. Much of the rest of the current team – with the notable exceptions of Bradley and Altidore – will be into their thirties by the time the next World Cup rolls around. A new batch of players will need to step up, by then. Someone will need to score besides Dempsey and Donovan. Someone will need to plug the holes.

We knew that this day was probably coming. We had hoped it wouldn’t come quite so soon. And now, we wait for Brazil, four years from now, for another shot.

After the first set of group games were completed, I ranked all 32 teams at the World Cup. Looking back now, of course, I see that I was an idiot. North Korea at #16? Switzerland at #4? France as high as #21?

Now, of course, all of the group games are done, and so it’s time to hand out the awards. Sixteen teams remain in the knockout round, but others deserve recognition, like the following:

• The Leaky Sieve Award (Defensive Incompetence): Take a bow North Korea! You’re headed for the coal mines, as the only team to concede more than six goals. Having let in an astonishing even dozen, you’ve also taken the award for worst goal differential, a robust -11. In fact, you’re the worst team at the World Cup since Saudi Arabia in 2002, which let in twelve but scored none.
• The Mercury-Redstone I Award (Offensive Incompetence): This award is shared by Algeria and Honduras, both of which failed to score a goal at the World Cup and ended up with a single point apiece. Nice trip to South Africa that they got out of the deal, though, I guess.
• The Departing in Shame Award (Overall Failure): North Korea is your winner here, but a special mention of Cameroon, the only other team to lose all three of its group matches. The Indomitable Lions do win an award for the best team nickname, however, and to be totally fair, they lost each match by only one goal.
• The Stan Gable Award (Beating Up on the Weak): Portugal wins this one for their epic performance in Group G: Scoreless draw with Ivory Coast, scoreless draw with Brazil… 7-0 beating of North Korea.
• The Chastity Belt Award (Defensive Excellence): A tie between Uruguay and Portugal, both of which allowed zero goals in their three games. To end this paragraph, you may write your own coarse “tougher to score on than…” jokes, if you like.
• The “It Happens To Every Team and It’s Not A Big Deal” Award (Peaking Too Early): Slovenia and Switzerland won their first group games – and then failed to qualify for the knockout round.
• The Bloodied But Unbowed (But Still Going Home) Award (Unbeaten but unlucky): Those poor Kiwis. New Zealand didn’t lose any of its three matches, but didn’t win any either, and heads out of the competition.

In a way, we’ve now played the final qualifying round for the 2010 World Cup. The USA have now survived groups that have eliminated Barbados, Guatemala, Cuba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Algeria, and Slovenia. We’re down to the real tournament: 16 teams, no second chances, and no excuses.

It starts tomorrow. You know it’ll be exciting.