And the villagers rejoiced. My teams have won so far. Brazil (of course), Turkey, Italy, Belgium, and Japan all advance. Of course, Belgium is going to run smack into the Brazilian juggernaut, but you never know... Those Brazilians aren't too defensively focused, which we saw in the 2 goals scored by Costa Rica in the final Group C match. Italy struggled into the second round where they could meet any of Korea, the US, or Portugal (to be determined in about 5 hours, but I won't know for another 10). Japan's got an excellent team, so it's good to see them advance. I just plain didn't like Russia, so I was happy to see Belgium win in a suprisingly exciting game to close out Group H.
On the subject of the World Cup, visit the homepage of the most terrifying referee on Earth. I've seen this guy in games; they picked flattering pictures on the website. I especially like the "action pose" of him handing out a yellow card to (it looks like) a French player. Why does a referee even have a home page? Never mind, I have an even more important question: why does this guy have fans?!?! Incidentally, more action poses in that site's galleries, including a red card. Then there are really scary pictures of him looking angry and even scarier ones of him smiling. Yeesh. I'm not going to be able to sleep now.