U-G-L-Y

Wow, that Netherlands-Portugal game yesterday was the very definition of ugly. 16 yellows cards, 4 reds. And poor play and sportsmanship all around. On one play when the referee called a drop ball, after Portugal had possession but a man injured, Holland took the ball away and tried to get offense going, instead of kicking it back to Portugal, as they should have. Unfortunately, when Portugal made a hard tackle on the Dutch player running with the ball, they got the card. One of the worst displays I've seen, and neither team deserved to move on.
England didn't play great, but that's the story of their Cup so far. Get a goal, hunker down. Beckham's goal was pretty too. Just when you're asking youself what he's doing out there, he shows you.
Now if you want to talk about the "beautiful" game, look no further than the goals in the Argentina and Germany wins. Germany's two strikers (hear that, Bruce Arena? Two strikers! What a concept. You have to score to win) combined for their goals, with Klose as a decoy and setup man, and Lukas Podolski putting them away. We're in for a treat when they take on Argentina in the quarterfinals, in a game that's more worthy of a final.
Maxi Rodriguez had, in my opinion, the goal of the tournament in overtime. He took a long pass, chested it in the air, took a couple of steps just outside of the box, and rifled a left-footed shot right into the top corner over the keeper's reach. If you missed it, you got to try to catch it on the highlights sometime. Simply amazing.
Kind of boring matchups today. Italy-Australia and Switzerland-Ukraine. I'll be cheering on the Socceroos to pull off the upset. Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oy oy oy!