Italy defeated France yesterday 5-3 in a penalty kick showdown to win the glorious World Cup. Their victory though will forever have two black clouds hanging over it. The odd thing about it is I’m not sure which one will be the bigger one years down the road.

The first black cloud is the HUGE scandal going on with Italian club teams and the accusations of paying off referees. There was eight players in the World Cup final who are on these accused Italian club teams. Juventus is a powerhouse in club soccer and literally could be cast to the minor leagues of soccer if found guilty.

The second one is the red card given to French star Zinedine Zidane. He came out of retirement at the request of the French prime minister to assist “Les Bleus” at World Cup 2006. This is the same man who lead the French to the World Cup in 98′ in a 3-0 win over Brazil. “Zizou” is the quintessential star with class, but he flipped his lid yesterday at an inexcusable time. Zidane ended up headbutting an Italian player and was kicked out of the match with ten minutes left in overtime.

I know you would never give up such an honor, but I’m sure Italy would have preferred to win in a simpler manner.

We have reached the final 16 of the glorious World Cup competition so now it’s lose and you are gone.  There were definitely some surprises to make the knockout round with Ghana leading the list of the underrated teams to advance.  Ecuador, Australia and Ukraine were other teams that played excellent soccer and surprisingsly made it past pool play. 

Today the first two games of the knockout round were played and host Germany kicked things off with total domination over Sweden.  German stud Lukas Podolski scored two goals within the first 12 minutes of the game and Germany really never looked back.  Sweden did have a golden chance to get back in the game in the second half, but Henrik Larsson put his penalty kick in the nosebleed section of Allianz Arena and Sweden was a done deal.  Germany won 2-0 and advanced to the quarterfinals of World Cup 2006.

The second game tilt featured heavily favored Argentina versus Mexico.  Mexico defensiveman Rafael Marquez scored five minutes into the game, but Argentina countered via Hernan Crespo only five minutes later to tie the game.  The score remained 1-1 until the first overtime when Maxi Rodriquez scored a phenomenal goal to ultimately lead Argentina to a 2-1 win.  Germany and Argentina will meet in the quarterfinals in what should be a classic battle. 

In all reality it is no grand surprise Germany the host country for the World Cup won their second game of the greatest show on the pitch. The shock was how well Poland played them today (easy now…no Pollock jokes) in what was the second game for each team. The German soccer team was able to cruise by Costa Rica in their first game and Poland was upset by Ecuador. All indications certainly led to an old fashioned German flogging, but it took the black, red and yellow until injury time to capture a 1-0 win. Substitute Oliver Neuville scored on a sliding kick off a wonderful pass from another sub, David Odonkor. A big win a close win, it sure seems to me that Germany is going to make a strong case for the World Cup Final on July 9th in Berlin.

This is going to be a very short post or else my venom might spew all over the place.  USA comes into the World Cup ranked #5 in FIFA’s world rankings and lay an egg in our first game.  Yeah yeah, I know the Czech’s are good, but when they score five minutes into the game on us and never look back it just becomes frustrating.  Italy and Ghana are left to go in the pool play so it doesn’t get any easier.  If we don’t make the round of 16 then it’s another classic American display in the World Cup.

The World Cup is now in full gear and man have the games been good.  The competition has been fierce and it truly appears the teams are more evenly matched than I can ever remember from previous World Cup matches.  I think by far the biggest representation of this came on Saturday when Trinidad and Tobago, a country with only a million people, tied the mighty Swedish team.  Trinadad and Tobago was able to accomplish this feat with a MAN DOWN in the second half due to two yellow cards against one of their players.

The host company Germany kicked things off Friday with a 4-2 victory over Costa Rica then  Ecuador defeated Poland 2-0 in the other match up from this past Friday.  Saturday things got kicked off with England winning against Paraguay 1-0 off an own goal by Paraguay. (OUCH!)  Argentina was able to hold off the Ivory Coast with a final score of 2-1.  Yesterday the Netherlands won 1-0 against Serbia, Mexico worked Iran 3-1 and Portugal held off Angola 1-0. 

Todays games:

Australia vs Japan

USA vs Czech Republic

Itlay vs Ghana