World Cup Soccer: Uruguay 2 South Korea 1

South Korea played nervous and timid at times, and the first goal was due to atrocious defending, but Uruguay have a very strong team with two astonishingly talented goal scorers up front. With Suarez' 2 goals in this one, Uruguay is the only team with 2 different players to score 2 or more in different games. (Portugal did score 7 goals in one game but also played two 0-0 ties in the first round.)

The awful condition of the pitch was really the star of the game, but a slippery ball could have led to more goals.

World Cup Soccer Statistics: Goals by League in Group Stage

So far, the leagues whose players have scored the most goals in the World Cup -- as of the end of the group stage -- are:

Spain: 20
England: 14
Italy: 9
Germany: 8
Netherlands: 6

All multi-goal scorers are from Spain except for Slovakia's Vittek, who plays in Turkey.

The players who play in Spain and have scored more than one goal in a game are Higuain (Argentina / Real Madrid), Forlan (Uruguay / Athletico Madrid), Fabiano (Brazil / Sevilla), Tiago (Portugal / Athletico Madrid), and of course David Villa (Spain / Valencia). The Spanish league clearly has more than two teams in it -- and while one Real player is on this list, none from Barca are on it -- yet.

This shows that Britain and Spain derive their strength from having a real contest and from importing high quality players.

The Italian national team, unusually, featured players who all play in their home country. The only other teams that also feature players in their home league are Germany, England, and Spain. Going only by this goal count, I think things look good for England and Spain.

World Cup Soccer: Spain 2 Chile 1

A surprising game that could have gone either way. Torres is not up to his tournament winning form and should be rested next match. I hope they do so. David Villa can handle the load.

In the Honduras vs. Defensive Switzerland game, Honduras had a few chances and could have won but go out with pride, eliminating a European team that beat Spain, and proving that they deserved to be at the World Cup (many thought Costa Rica a better team).

World Cup Soccer: Brazil 0 Portugal 0

I would say that this was a cynical draw -- except for the 8 yellow cards that the two teams accumulated. Those yellow cards could hurt them later.

Cote D'Ivoire went out in style, but should have tried to get more goals. The entire tournament would have been different had Drogba not broken his arm just a few weeks ago.

World Cup Soccer: JPN 3 DEN 1

I expected this game to be won by Danish-style total football with midfield domination, lots of goals, and every player playing a full 90 minute marathon of movement and it was -- but it was the Japanese playing total football. Paraguay, watch out! Ref was bad, slightly below the very low refereeing standards set at this world cup, but not the worst.

In the other match, Holland cruised to a win against a good Cameroon side who scored only from the penalty box.

World Cup Soccer: NZ 0 PAR 0 (SLV 3 ITA 2)

I had been hoping for NZ to score 1 goal in a wide open match, but that did not happen.

Meanwhile, the Italians showed that they never deserved the last World Cup (they should have been eliminated by Australia).

The 2006 World Cup was rigged in Italy's favor but results in this World Cup show that the top 3 European leagues are ENG, GER, and, at the top, SPAIN. FRA, ITA, and Holland are in the second tier. I will update these stats when the opening round is complete.

World Cup Soccer: Australia 2 Serbia 1

Australia have now been cheated out of 2 World Cups, with 2 red cards in 3 games in South Africa and 11 yellow cards in 4 in Germany 2006. They were eliminated by a penalty kick in Germany in 2006 and effectively by the red cards and a penalty kick in 2010.

World Cup Soccer Red Card: USA 1 Algeria 0

Donovan's game winner in the 91st minute was one of the best in the history of US soccer, but this game shows yet again that FIFA must install instant replay and position an extra official behind each goal. The USA should have won by 2.

World Cup Soccer: Nigeria 2 South Korea 2

The Africans came into the match with a poor understanding of the referee, but both teams played a good, clean, and entertaining game.

World Cup Soccer: South Africa 2 France 1

South Africa needed to win by four goals to advance, but at least salvaged their pride. The same cannot be said for France.

World Cup Soccer: Spain 2 Honduras 0

Perhaps Torres should still be recovering from his knee injury. Great chances but no goals for him. Great play by Spain.

World Cup Soccer: Portugal 7 N Korea 0

Great game for Portugal. North Korea will play hard in their final game, which is against CIV, who will try to score 7 goals against them.

A quick word about corner kicks

When taking corner kicks, especially with a soccer ball that is difficult for Caltech to understand, place one player on the far side, just in case the ball travels too far.

So far, I've only seen Japan do this.

World Cup Soccer Red Card: CIV 1 BRA (3)

If Brazil continues to be treated as favorably in the rest of the competition as it was today, it will surely win the World Cup. This reminds me of 4 years ago, when the Italian football association needed -- and got -- a world cup win in order to avoid an investigation of league corruption.

Makes you wonder what Brazil has to hide.

Drogba did have a moment of brilliance.

Brazil had a goal scored by a player who touched it twice with his hands. The Univision commentator said, "if Maradona's goal was scored by the hand of God, then this one, with two handballs, featured both of God's hands."

Kaka got thrown off with a red card only after the Brazilians taught the CIV players how to dive in order to get the referee's attention. If the ref had yellow carded a Brazilian early in the match for diving, the game would have been different -- but CIV might have won, and FIFA cannot allow that.

World Cup Yellow Card: ITA 1 NZ 1

Melissa: "It's their Miracle on Ice" Semi-pros beat the heavily favored pros.

"This is pathetic. The theatrics are really sad."

Italy tried to cheat in order to win this game and their cheating only managed avoiding a loss.

World Cup Soccer: Denmark 2 Cameroon 1

One of the cleanest and most beautiful games played so far. These teams and their fans are world class in terms of sportsmanship and politeness and civilization.

World Cup Soccer Red Card: Australia 1 Ghana 1

Just as in 2006, Australia is felled by a blatant miscall and a penalty awarded. In 2006, Australia was eliminated by a penalty kick unfairly awarded to an Italian professional bellyflopper.

World Cup Soccer: Holland 1 Japan 0

A very good match, one of the few so far, and one that might have seen many more goals except that both goalies were very good.

World Cup Soccer: England 0 Algeria 0

England have to score another goal and to play better as a team -- but at least they're not France...

World Cup Soccer Referee: Slovenia 2 USA 2

In a World Cup filled with poor refereeing decisions, this was the worst. Great play by team USA opposed by a referee from Mali who hated them. Referees do sometimes hate team USA.

World Cup Soccer: Germany 0 Serbia 1

The boring team won again, but Germany should have been more aggressive. The only bright side is that the result means everyone in the group could still advance.

The Italian Strategy

In a computer game, the Italians would have the following abilities:

1) Acting. Any opposing foul turned into a yellow card. Any opposing yellow card turned into a red card.

2) Entitlement. Preferential treatment by refs in every game.

3) Catenaccio. Number of goals scored by each team are divided by 2 and rounded down.

World Cup Soccer: Argentina 4 South Korea 1

Both teams played a beautiful game. It could be argued that South Korea were punished for making it interesting by attacking instead of playing the whole game on defense. I hope that these are the two teams that qualify from this group.

I also think that Messi needs a rest and should not play in the next game.

World Cup Soccer Red Card: Greece 2 Nigeria 1

This game shows that soccer needs instant replay in order to get rid of the acting. Vassilis Torosidis should be suspended. The only good thing is that Greece is unlikely to advance as they play Argentina next (who may go easy on them) and South Korea should beat a demoralized Nigerian team. I had picked Nigeria as the African team most likely to win this world cup.

World Cup Soccer: France 0 Mexico 2

Mexico played a beautiful game and won. I'm glad the agressive team won one (unlike SPA vs SUI).

World Cup Soccer: South Africa 0 Uruguay 3

South Africa could still qualify by beating France in their next match, which I hope they do, as long as Mexico beats Uruguay.

World Cup Soccer: Spain 0 Switzerland 1

Spain is one of the most entertaining teams to watch. I hope they win the cup and that they score many goals the next time they play so well. I hate the boring defensive soccer that is too often rewarded.

Goals by nation that the player plays in professionally

Spain: 7
Eng: 6
Ger: 4
Fra, Mex: 3
Italy, Turkey, Greece: 2
Japan, South Africa, Russia, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal (and North Korea): 1

Sure, everyone's tracking which national team scores how many goals. This shows which leagues have the best players.

World Cup Soccer: Brazil 2 North Korea 1

Brazil gets punished for playing 60 boring minutes. They have to hope that North Korea ties one of the other two opponents (I hope North Korea punishes Portugal for playing boring soccer. Brazil v. CIV on Sunday on ABC. I'm looking forward to it.

World Cup Soccer: Cote D'Ivoire 0 Portugal 0

A boring and disappointing game.

BTW, CIV recognizes only its name in French, not its name in English. The
Spanish is Costa de Marfil.

World Cup Soccer: New Zealand 1 Slovakia 1

The highlight of the day and upset of the tournament so far, New Zealand scored a goal for the first time ever and showed that Oceania has a place in the World Cup.

Why Nate Silver's World Cup model is doing so badly

Quick thoughts, but Nate Silver's world cup statistical model is doing badly for several reasons.

1) Soccer is not baseball. It does not have repeated activities that are easy to measure statstically.

2) The World Cup delivers little data. Teams perform differently in the finals than in qualification. Those such as the USA that face poor quality opposition get ranked too high. Others get ranked too low.

3) The Africa factor. The African teams are underfunded compared to, for example, Japan, and therefore naturally perform less well than better funded teams. England's coach makes $9 million per year. The US coach makes $500,000. African coaches make less, and also may have a shorter tenure.

4) A low scoring game can have unpredictable results -- especially in games decided by a red card or penalty kick (or even a free kick).

World Cup Soccer: Great Websites for US Viewers

The ESPN / ABC TV schedule is here (I have it in EST).

This excellent diagram (h/t Glenn Strachan) provides several ways to slice and dice world cup data.

The official site of the world cup finals is here, and the qualifiers are here. Both are large sites with a lot of data, but you have to dig to find it.

Italy 1 Paraguay 1

Italy played the usual boring catenaccio. Paraguay, the number 2 team out of South America, played a far more timid game than I expected, but this bullet to the head is the likely reason.

Italy substituted their superstar goalie out of the game. I wonder how it will effect his confidence. The press was told he had a hamstring injury, but I suspect vicious Italian pique ("I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian soccer").

World Cup: Japan 1 Cameroon 0

Sometimes, African teams choke on the world stage. This was sad to watch, but the Japanese played very well.

World Cup: Netherlands 2 Denmark 0

A strange game. No total football was played by either team. I hope these teams play harder in the future. I had expected a 4-3 win for Holland.

World Cup: Serbia 0 Ghana 1

Serbia played better than I expected them to and Ghana played worse. This game was decided by a penalty kick and a red card. I hope both teams do better in subsequent games.

World Cup: Germany 4 Australia 0

Australia is much worse without Kewell, who is very much like Michael Owen, but I expected more from them. They were brilliant in the last world cup and lost only to Italian cheating.

Germany played a perfect game, but one astute commentator noted that Argentina had a perfect game in the first round in the last world cup and did not win it. Germany's next game is very important and will show whether that perfection lasted only one game.

World Cup: England 1 USA 1

England scored both goals; USA happy with the result. But I expected more from both teams. Sloppy play from everyone but Gerrard, and Gerrard was playing solo too much. The English need better teamwork, and the Americans need better individual performances. Howard is a superstar. I hope he moves to Liverpool FC.

World Cup: Argentina 1 Nigeria 0

I felt bad for Nigeria, a team that has played beautiful soccer in previous world cups. I also expected more from Argentina.

World Cup: France 0 Uruguay 0

As expected, the Euros played boring and defensive soccer. Uruguay, one of the lower ranked South American countries, has potential but little confidence.

World Cup: South Africa 1 Mexico 1

This was a fun game with two good goals and a good lesson on the offsides rule. I think the offsides rule should be changed to "one player other than the goalie between the ball and the net".