Today at the World Cup was the final games in Group A and B. In the morning, Mexico backed into the knockout round despite losing to Uruguay, thanks to South Africa not making up three more goals on goal difference. In the afternoon, Argentina torpedoed Greece’s hopes, while a South Korean draw with Nigeria was enough to see the former through.

Only Nigeria provided much excitement. Had the Nigerians grabbed a late winner in their 2-2 draw with South Korea, they could have placed second in Group B, despite entering Tuesday with zero points. The “Super Eagles” took an early lead, but South Korea scored on either side of halftime to go ahead. And then, around the one-hour mark, came perhaps the miss of the tournament: Yakubu, open three yards in front of goal with the goalkeeper out of position, needing only to stab the ball into the yawning net to tie the score.

He missed, of course. Somehow, he redirected the pass from his left wide of the left post, which you or I couldn’t have done even if we had tried.

He later scored a penalty to make the game 2-2, and the Nigerians came close to a winner in the final minutes, so perhaps his miss will be forgotten. Yet for me, the look on his face after his miss – a combination of disbelief, embarrassment, and laughter at the hand he’d been dealt by fate – is so far the enduring image of this World Cup. To come so close, and to have glory within your grasp, and have it slip through – in a way, that’s what sports are all about.

In honor of that: an old clip with some of the worst misses of all time. (An updated version would include Yakubu, methinks.)

Kind of a predictable day in South Africa today – Portugal slaughtered North Korea, Chile beat ten-man Switzerland, and Spain rolled over Honduras – so instead, a few essays.

The FIFA Disciplinary Committee needs to get it together.

The committee only has the power “for rectifying obvious errors in the referee’s disciplinary decisions, for example in the case of mistaken identity,” according to FIFA.com. Yet every match contains refereeing mistake after refereeing mistake. Kaká will miss Brazil’s next match after his sending off, even though his second yellow was due to the biggest dive of the competition. Robbie Findley will miss the USA’s final group match after being carded for deliberate handball on a ball that hit him in the face. These are ridiculous decisions, but since they don’t fall under the purview of the disciplinary committee, they haven’t been overturned.

In the same vein, I wonder when instant replay will finally make an appearance at the World Cup, if for nothing else than to review goals. We’ve yet to see a “did the ball cross the line or not?” moment at this World Cup, but leaving this decision to referees and linesmen – none of whom could possibly be in position to call this as well as video could – is silly. (And you wonder if there’s a way to prevent Luis Fabiano’s double-handball goal as well.)

Speaking of Fabiano – where’s the outrage?

France defeated Ireland in qualifying thanks to a blatant handball from Thierry Henry. (Never mind that Ireland benefited from a handball of their own in qualifying, against Georgia.) Now, Fabiano scores in the actual tournament, handling the ball twice on the way to his goal – and all I heard were a few “perhaps a hint of a handball there” chuckles from commentators. No one has castigated Fabiano. No one has labeled Brazil a bunch of cheaters.

Why not?

John Terry is my least favorite player of the World Cup

I have always hated Didier Drogba. So, too, Cristiano Ronaldo, the A-Rod of soccer. I have great distaste for several Barcelona players in Spain’s side, who continue their public attempts to get Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas to switch to the Catalan side.

And yet, John Terry is my least favorite by a wide margin. Perhaps I hardly need remind you that Terry not only carried on a four-month affair with the significant other of club and England teammate Wayne Bridge, he got her pregnant, then paid for the end of the pregnancy. (Terry is married with two kids, by the way.) He was stripped of the England captaincy for that, but still went to South Africa with the team.

Now, Terry – a big part of the team that’s scored once in two matches, with two draws to show for it – led an publicly-conducted, no-followers, dressing-room coup against manager Fabio Capello, attempting to shift the blame onto the manager. (Reminder: England, with Terry but without Capello, failed to qualify for Euro 2008.)

I cannot imagine a player being more hateable than John Terry. What a ludicrous human being.

Three quick essays on Sunday’s matches at the World Cup…

Brazil 3:1 Ivory Coast

Three talking points from this one.

1. Kaka was sent off in this one, thanks to one of the worst dives you’ll ever see. Kader Keita, the Ivory Coast forward, ran into Kaka, whose elbow therefore hit Keita in the midsection. Because Keita ran into him, remember. Keita then went down, grabbing his face – which again, had not been touched – thus earning Kaka a second yellow card and a sending off. I am sad, not for Kaka, but for soccer.
2. Luis Fabiano scored what originally I thought was the goal of the tournament, somehow working the ball over and around three defenders in the penalty area before booting the ball into the net. Replays showed that two of those touches were fairly obvious handballs. Oh, replay, you have ruined my youthful wonder.
3. Brazil has two wins, have qualified for the next round, and yet there are still those talking about how they have not played well. How dangerous is Brazil?

Italy 1:1 New Zealand

Three talking points from this one:

1. If I happened to be a New Zealand fan, I would have been pretty peeved about commentator Ian Darke‘s call of the Kiwis’ seventh-minute goal. He misidentified goalscorer Shane Smeltz as Winston Reid, despite – and I wish to be sensitive here – the fact that Smeltz is white and Reid is black.
2. I think we could all enjoy the sight of Fabio Cannavaro falling over and thus directing the ball directly to Smeltz for the goal. (We are, however, surprised that Cannavaro didn’t stay down clutching his face for five minutes.)
3. After saving a draw against Slovakia for their first-ever World Cup point, this draw is surely New Zealand’s greatest-ever World Cup result. I’m quite pleased for them. (Not least because if they pulled off their first-ever World Cup win against Paraguay next week, they’d be into the knockout round.)

Slovakia 0:2 Paraguay

Three talk… no, I don’t have them in me. I didn’t see this match; the highlights jumped directly from Paraguay’s 27th-minute goal to their 86th-minute goal. They also showed only one Slovakian shot on net, which didn’t come until the 93rd minute. This one must have been a doozy to sit through.

Monday, though, has all the makings of an exciting day. Portugal tries to beat the pants off North Korea, while Switzerland and Chile battle for control of Group H, and Spain must win against Honduras to keep pace.

I wrote plenty last night about referee Koman Coulibaly, but here’s the latest from ESPN. This week’s Weekend Links at RandBall also covers Coulibaly in some detail, mostly to ruminate on what might be an appropriate punishment.

A few notes on today’s games:

Denmark 2:1 Cameroon

The Danes got the win, Cameroon is going home, and both teams should be fairly embarrassed with how they played. The highlights were littered with horrible giveaways – I’m talking things like “keeper, apparently blinded by the sun, accidentally passes the ball directly to opposing forward.” Dennis Rommedahl set one up and scored one for the Danes, who mostly got better goalkeeping than did Cameroon (even though the Danish defense might have made more horrible, horrible errors.)

Cameroon is the first team eliminated this year, and the Danish win also made The Netherlands the first team to advance to the knockout round. (That Cameroon-Holland game next week should be a real doozy.)

Holland 1:0 Japan

It’s funny – as I mentioned, the Dutch have two wins, something only one other team has managed from their first two games, they’re through to the next round, and yet all anybody can talk about is how disappointingly they’ve played. We’ve all come to expect glorious, entertaining soccer from the Oranje, and they’ve scored two goals along with a Danish own goal so far. Everyone’s so disappointed. (I suspect no one from Holland is too concerned about qualification, though.)

Ghana 1:1 Australia

The Aussies finally scored, with Brett Holman putting them in front after just 11 minutes, but they can’t seem to stay on the field. Tim Cahill was sent off in their match against Germany, and Harry Kewell got the gate after just 24 minutes against Ghana, with a deliberate handball on the line causing the dismissal. Ghana scored the resulting penalty to tie it, but couldn’t take advantage of their extra man to get a winner, mostly thanks to the goalkeeping of Mark Schwarzer. And frankly, the Aussies could have grabbed their own winner; they may even have had the better of play after Kewell left the field.

Group D, then, is incredibly muddled; any two of the four teams, with Germany and Serbia, still could go through to the knockout round (though the Aussies need a win, some help, and a wheelbarrow full of goals to do so.) In Group E, Denmark needs a win against Japan to go through; a draw or a loss will put Japan in the knockout round.

It’s all so complicated, really. (I think we’ll all feel better if Italy loses to New Zealand tomorrow, which would frankly be hilarious.)

Now that the match has been over for nearly twelve hours, I’ve finally calmed down enough to talk about USA-Slovenia. It was… disappointing, for lack of a better term.

Koman Coulibaly. We might as well start there, for the discussion of this match starts with he, the Malian referee. All match, the USA would swing the ball into the box, only to have play stopped for some mystical, invisible foul that had been committed. The disallowed USA winner was not the first.

But that’s the talking point, because it should have counted. I’ve seen the replay a few (hundred) times now, and here’s what I notice:

1. Maurice Edu scores, of course.
2. Michael Bradley is locked in a bear hug by a Slovenian defender.
3. Josy Altidore is being held.
4. Clint Dempsey is thrown to the ground.

Perhaps FIFA would like to go back and give us three penalties? (We would settle for the goal.)

My greatest wish is that I had not heard the whistle go before Edu scored. I knew what that whistle blast meant, I knew the goal wouldn’t count; I regret hearing that, because had I not heard the whistle, I would have – for just a moment – felt that wonderful soaring late-winner feeling. There is no better feeling, people. Soccer is designed for that feeling. That feeling is why people become fanatics for the game.

All of that said, of course, it never should have come to that. Oguchi Onyewu‘s ridiculously bad defending made it 2-0 at halftime. I wrote before the England match that the USA was good for two comically bad defensive errors per match; I’ve been right on the money so far. Slovenia got two goals to show for it, England got a goal plus a breakaway that Emile Heskey hit straight at Tim Howard. Presumably, either Algeria will have to fail to take their chances, or the US will have to win 3-2.

I hardly want to think about Wednesday’s match against Algeria: win, or (probably) go home. There are unlikely scenarios where a draw works out, such as if England lose against Slovenia, but – even after the Three Lions drew with Algeria – it’s still hard to imagine this happening.

Still, on the flip side, it’s easy for the USA going into the match: just win. That’s all. Victory or failure. No shades of gray.

To sum up: to be denied the clear winner was disappointing. To draw is both frustrating and miraculous in equal measure; to fall behind was awful, to come back from the dead, tremendous. We live to fight another day, and I suppose, that’s all we can ask.

We’re fully into the second go-round for most teams – which means that the groups are beginning to separate into the haves and the have-nots. With this in mind, a look at today’s biggest losers at the World Cup.

Third Runner-Up: That Guy With The Flag

Mexico beat France 2-0, but their first goal was a good yard offside, a violation somehow ignore d by the linesman. I’m not saying that France deserved to win, but now Mexico’s a draw away from round 2. Given that their co-leader in Group A, Uruguay, is in the same boat, and the two teams play each other in their final group game… what’s the betting on a miraculous 0-0 draw?

Second Runner-Up: South Korea

Got waxed 4-1 by Argentina, which is no shame – the Argentines were awesome – but does present a problem in a group that could end up tied. The loss is bad, but losing three goals in the goal differential is even worse.

First Runner-Up: France

Failed to score a goal or win a game in their first two. Now, would need to beat South Africa and have either Uruguay or Mexico lose, plus get some help on the goal differential. In other words: Bye-bye, France!

The winner of the losers… Sani Katia!

Katia is the Nigerian midfielder who, in a moment of pure, unadulterated stupidity, got himself sent off for kicking a Greece player in full view of everyone in the stadium. Nigeria was leading 1-0 at the time; they lost 2-1 after playing most of the match down a man. Nigeria is now pointless, on the bottom of Group B, and in need of a minor miracle to qualify for the second round. If they’d even got a draw, they probably would have gone through with a win against South Korea; now, they’re stuck at the bottom of their group.

Tomorrow morning, the USA takes on Slovenia in what is a truly pivotal match for the Americans. In a lot of ways, it’s like a CONCACAF qualifying match; the USA will have more firepower and should win, but to do so, will have to break down a defensively determined team (and manage to avoid their own lapses) to get the job done.

Does it surprise you that I’m already so nervous I can hardly speak?

It’s Day 6, and every team has played at least once – so what better time to rank the teams 1 through 32?

1. Germany – It’s not even close. So far, they’ve put on the only dominating performance of the tournament. They were the only team to score even three goals in their first game, and they put four past wildly overmatched Australia.
2. Argentina – Only an acrobatic Nigerian goalkeeper held them to a single goal.
3. South Korea – Sure, Greece was terrible, but the Koreans dominated.
4. Switzerland – Beat a Spain team that was picked by many to win the tournament. Switzerland still hasn’t allowed a World Cup goal since 1994 (though they assisted themselves in that by failing to qualify in 1998 and 2002).
5. Chile – Overran Honduras, but couldn’t finish.
6. Brazil – Had trouble with North Korea, but showed flashes of their expected brilliance.
7. The Netherlands – Got the win over Denmark, but needed a Danish own goal to send them on their way.
8. England – Probably deserved better than the point they got. (Thanks again, Robert Green!)
9. Japan – Beat Cameroon through sheer scrappiness.
10. Ghana – Needed a late penalty to scrape three points against Serbia.
11. Portugal – Offensive strategy: Cristiano Ronaldo dives, followed by free kicks. I hate them.
12. Ivory Coast – Drew with Portugal. Everyone expected more entertainment from them.
13. Spain – Were denied a draw with Switzerland via the post and about eighty missed chances.
14. Nigeria – Playing Argentina to open the tournament is a tough job. Staying within 1-0 is respectable.
15. Uruguay – Admittedly, wouldn’t have been this high, except for their 3-0 win over South Africa in their second game.
16. North Korea – Lost to Brazil, may not win a match – but they could give both Portugal and the Ivory Coast problems. (Disclaimer: I am required to mention here that they are tools of a horrible fascist regime.)
17. United States – Got the draw they wanted against England. (One more time: thanks, Robert Green!)
18. Mexico – Held to a draw by South Africa, but possibly still the favorite in Group A.
19. Paraguay – Gah.
20. Italy – Double gah.
21. France – Triple… you get the picture.
22. Denmark – Lost to The Netherlands; scored the strangest own goal ever, as one defender sliced a clearance off of another’s back and into the net. With Japan and Cameroon in the group, still a chance to qualify from Group E.
23. Slovenia – Three points, but mostly due to an error by the Algerian goalkeeper. (Still, on track to qualify if they can get a result against the USA on Friday.)
24. Serbia – Unlucky to lose to Ghana.
25. Cameroon – The “boy, they should have been better” team of the tournament. Contrived to lose to Japan, which makes you wonder what else they might contrive to do.
26. New Zealand – Got a late draw against Slovakia. The feel-good story of the tournament, really.
27. Slovakia – Bet they’re not happy to drop points to New Zealand.
28. Honduras – If Chile could finish, they would have lost 5-0.
29. Algeria – Lost to Slovenia. With England and the USA left to play, staring way, way uphill at qualification.
30. South Africa – I admit, I wouldn’t have ranked them this low, except that they got whupped by Uruguay in their second game.
31. Australia – Positively spanked by Germany. Still could qualify, but getting beat 4-0 in your first match does not breed confidence.
32. Greece – I swore to avoid their matches because they were boring. I didn’t know they’d be terrible, too.

For another opinion on the rankings (though we’re in the same boat), check out the always-good Grant Wahl at si.com.

A bit of a non-World Cup announcement this morning. Today – last night, really – marks the official launch of SB Nation Minnesota, which is part of the SB Nation network’s nationwide stab at local sites. They’ve always had great team-specific sites – Twinkie Town, Canis Hoopus, Hockey Wilderness, Daily Norseman, and the Daily Gopher are the blogs of interest to local fans – but now the network is launching sites that cover an entire area. Minnesota’s just the latest of a bunch of them.

I already write for two of the aforementioned sites, and now, I’ll be contributing at the local site as well, with one feature a week, plus other random commentary. My first feature went up last night – an opinion piece about the fans who are always calling for the coach’s head.

I’ve also written a number of other short posts over there, all of which you can see here. But really, just read the whole site: http://minnesota.sbnation.com .

As I’ve done for Twinkie Town and Canis Hoopus, I’ll post the links to the longer features here as well. I hope you’ll check out the new site – it should be fun.

(On the subject of Twinkie Town, I wrote something about Drew Butera on Monday. Suffice it to say that the title is “On Futility.”)

What a strange, low-scoring tournament. Another 1:1 today, another 0:0 as well. Maybe we’re learning something about the futility of international soccer rankings. For all of the hype and all of the collections of superstars on display, these teams haven’t played very many games together, even in qualifying. Even the teams with the most firepower – Brazil, Portugal, et cetera – aren’t set to blow opponents away.

Notes on the matches today – which were exciting, if not in the traditional goals-for-all way:

New Zealand 1:1 Slovakia</p>

</span>Ah, my second-favorite type of goal: the late equalizer! My favorite is the late winner, of course – but for New Zealand, a tie has to feel a little bit like a win. The “All Whites” (kind of an unfortunate nickname for a tournament in South Africa, really) were said to be the weakest team in the tournament; in their one previous World Cup experience, 28 years ago, they’d lost all three matches. And after 90 minutes had gone from the clock, they looked to be continuing that record, thanks to a Robert Vittek header for Slovakia early in the second half.

With one of three added minutes to go, Shane Smeltz picked up the ball on the left wing for New Zealand. He dipped left, as if to head towards the end line, then cut back onto his right foot, as if to drive to the middle of the field – then swung a perfect ball in to the middle of the penalty area. The Slovakian defenders somehow got caught flat-footed, leaving Winston Reid alone in the middle of the penalty area.

What must that moment have been like, for Reid – to see the ball floating in his direction, to know that all he had to do was turn it on goal” I can only imagine. Reid won’t have to; he headed the ball just inside the post, turned, and sprinted for the stands, waving his shirt above his head, having scored by far the most exciting goal of the 2010 World Cup thus far.

Ivory Coast 0:0 Portugal

It was the match with the most hype today – the first clash in the Group of Death. Brazil, Portugal, the Ivory Coast, and (the afterthought) North Korea enter; only two can survive. With Brazil, as always, picked by everyone to advance, a winner from this match would have the early edge on qualification from the knockout round. Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Didier Drogba! What a show!

In the event, both keepers were hardly tested. Ronaldo hit the post early on, but also dived about ten times and was openly mocked by announcer Ian Darke for his lightness on his feet. Drogba came on late, and had a chance in injury time, but managed to drag his shot from six yards away about forty yards wide of goal (it wasn’t even moving in the same compass direction as the net). And we got a draw that settled nothing, and that could mean that the question of qualification between these two nations is settled based on their results vs. North Korea.

Speaking of whom…

Brazil 2:1 North Korea

For all of the jokes about the North Koreans, and the fact that their only fans are paid Chinese volunteers, and the fact that they tried to slip in an extra striker as a goalkeeper… okay, they’re sort of a joke. But they’re not a bad team. They held Brazil scoreless in the first half, and were only undone in the second half by a goalkeeping error (not covering his near post) and a beautiful goal (which happens to everybody who plays Brazil.) Meanwhile, they scored one of their own late in the second half, and had a few slight chances for more.

At the very least, they looked as good or better than another certain team which faced the Brazilians in South Africa.

The North Koreans got stuck in the hardest group of all, and they may very well end up with zero points in this World Cup. But they don’t look like the pushovers that everyone assumed them to be.

Another 1-1 draw today at the World Cup – but at least one decent upset, at well. A few notes from the fourth day of World Cup 2010:

HOLLAND 2:0 DENMARK

This match was at 6:30 this morning, so I taped it, then rushed home to watch it after work. In 2006, the Dutch were far and away my favorite team to watch, playing more or less entirely like the Germans did last night. Tie game? Attack! Up two goals? Attack! Behind? ATTACK HARDER!

Maybe I went into the match with my expectations too high, or maybe the Danes were just organized enough to disrupt the Oranje, but this one wasn’t particularly great. Holland scored via an own goal and a rebound off the post – a far cry from the super-exciting soccer that I expected. Holland certainly looked good, even dominating for stretches, but nothing like the team I remember from four years ago.

Then again, last time around they fizzled out, so maybe that’s a good sign for them.

JAPAN 1:0 CAMEROON

Allow me to sum up the Cameroonian offensive strategy:

1. Line up four players along the edge of the opposition penalty area.
2. If one of the other seven players should get hold of the ball, boot it in the general direction of the first four.

By the middle of the second half, I was wondering things like, “Do they have passing in Africa?” and “They know that they can kick the ball along the ground and nothing bad will happen, right?” Frustrating to watch, especially from a team nicknamed the “Indomitable Lions,” which is the greatest nickname ever.

As for Japan, they got a goal from a guy named Honda, which sounds like something out of a game designed by mid-80s American Nintendo game designers.

DESIGNER 1: What should we call the Japanese players for our game, Nintendo World Soccer?
DESIGNER 2: (dismissively) How about Honda, Honda, Toyota, Sushi, um… Yokozuna?

Much was made out of this being Japan’s first World Cup win outside Japanese soil. I thought this was cute. Then I remembered that the USA has a grand total of five, two of them in 1930. Then I stopped feeling superior.

ITALY 1:1 PARAGUAY

To be honest, I love cheering against Italy. They’re well-known divers and cheats, they tend to play boring and defensive soccer – and they won last time, so this makes it more fun. And so I was quite pleased when Antolin Alcaraz rose highest to head Paraguay into the first-half lead.

Of course, after that, Italy dominated the game, and they certainly deserved Daniele de Rossi’s equalizer in the second half – even if de Rossi was the jerk who tried to elbow Brian McBride‘s nose up into his brain in 2006. Italy may be the oldest team in the tournament, but they’re not tired yet, and though some are still predicting they won’t get out of Group F, it’s pretty inconceivable that they wouldn’t make it to the knockout round. They will find a way. It will be dive-filled and argument-with-the-referee filled and it will not be fun to watch, but this is the Italian way.