Quarterfinals

Germany 1-1 Argentina AET (Germany 4-2 pens.)

It's funny, people were talking about this being the best tournament since 1982 in the group stage, and now I think it's turned into the worst one since 1990. This game was okay but kind of uninspiring as a whole; the overtime was a typically blah affair leading to the always exciting but never satisfying penalty kicks. Germany won in large part thanks to Jens Lehmann, who guessed correctly on all four of Argentina's attempts, saving two of them. Argentina looked like the team to beat after the group stage, but I think that the drubbing of Serbia made them look better than they were - let's not forget, they didn't score against the Dutch (even if they were resting players, I thought they were supposed to be deep) and were a Maxi Rodriguez wonder goal away from potentially going out to a Mexico side that looked like crap in the first round. Pekerman's subs were also a bit odd - pulling Riquelme, never putting on Messi or Saviola. It was like he was either overconfident in the players on the pitch or playing for penalties. To be fair, he had one of his subs stolen because he had to replace the injured Abbondanzieri, but even so. Maybe it was fitting that Cambiasso was saved on the final kick, while both German subs in the PK line hit theirs.

Italy 3-0 Ukraine

Meh. I didn't even really watch this one, I just fast-forwarded through it looking for the goals. The first one, Zambrotta's, was pretty sick. Either way, I think it was obvious to everyone that Ukraine were easily the worst side in the last eight, so this result can't be considered much of a shock, even if Italy hadn't really looked great since coasting past Ghana in their first match.

Portugal 0-0 England AET (Portugal 3-1 pens.)

Really disappointing. Though I have to say, one of the reasons it was a little harder than I wanted to root for England was Rooney, who I really don't like, and it was his red card that helped shut things down for England - they already weren't playing that well, and had lost Beckham, but Lennon looked pretty good (clearly one of the future stars of that side) and with another hour looming you have to think England could have found a way to push one across at full strength with their best scorer on the pitch. It'll be interesting to see if the British press demolish Rooney in the same way they did Beckham in '98 - I think they've always had a touchy relationship with Beckham because it was felt he was a pretty good player made overly famous by his pinup looks. Rooney, clearly, doesn't have that problem. But he does have all the temper and in fact significantly more. It's not clear to me that the crotch stomp was intentional, but combine that with the shove of Ronaldo (his club teammate!) and that's probably why he got the red. Anyway. Lampard had a horrendous World Cup. Just an unbelievably poor showing. Gerrard did nothing in the knockouts. Basically, the team couldn't score when it mattered, and barely at all. The striker issue should be at least partly to blame. What on earth was Eriksson thinking bringing Walcott if he was never going to play him? Only one true striker started today (Rooney), and then Crouch came in after he was tossed, meaning that at no point did England have two strikers on the pitch. And okay, it's not impossible to win out of a 4-5-1 - that's basically what Portugal runs - but you need to have the right type of setup for that. England had too many shoot-first midfielders, not enough service to Rooney, and just in general not enough chances. Shots/on goal in today's game? Portugal 20/9, England 9/4. Yeah. They're lucky they didn't lose sooner than a shootout. By the way, nice work by Ricardo in the shootout. Very Lehmannesque.

France 1-0 Brazil

Best game of the round, possibly the only truly good one of the four - and it featured France, just like last round's best game. I'm starting to really appreciate France - they looked terrible against Switzerland, but they appear to be learning how to play better with each other and they're really hitting their stride. Great defensive performance in shutting down all of Brazil's weapons and rarely having to worry about Barthez's foibles; great goal by Henry getting in behind the defense. This whole tournament, Brazil looked like they were just sitting back, ready to ratchet up their play only when they absolutely had to; France exploited that by outplaying them before and after scoring, and then holding off the late flurry of attacks when the Brazilians appeared to finally wake up and realize that they were about to go out. I'm glad Zidane gets to keep playing, and I'm glad someone besides Brazil is going to win... although Germany and Italy, with three World Cups each, are both in the mix, which is a little annoying.

The last time the semis featured four European teams was 1982 in Spain, when the four were West Germany, Italy, France, and Poland. Sound familiar? Heck, Poland and Portugal even start with the same two letters, just for good measure. That year, Italy beat Germany in the final and Poland finished third by beating France. This year, I'm predicting a Germany/France final. Maybe it will be as epic as their semi matchup that year, which ended AET at 3-3 after France had gone up 3-1 in the first half of extra time, only for West Germany to score in the 102nd and 108th minutes to force penalties, where they won 5-4. We can only hope. (Although I'd rather France won, in terms of actual result.)