So I Was Wrong!

Um, okay...A four-goal scorcher from Spain, featuring at least one world-class beauty...a four-goal draw between Tunisia and the House of Saud, featuring a last-gasp equalizer...and ultra-late heroics for Germany to snatch victory from the jaws of lazy historical parable against Poland.

Maybe this wasn't the most boring day of the Cup, after all.

After swearing off the Mundial in favor of the Protestant Work Ethic today, I saw that Sexy Jurgen's men were level at half-time, figured a man's gotta eat, and strolled over to Porque No, an upscale taco joint on Mississippi Ave. Most of the second half was the kind of soccer that appears designed to give aid and comfort to this country's Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy against the sport. The Poles appeared stricken with DaMarcus Beasley Disease, being the mysterious inability to hold possession or make an incisive pass into the box. The Germans just looked generally frustrated and put out. (Michael Ballack could have burst out crying at any sec.)

Once Polonia was down to 10 men, though, it seemed the Panzer tanks of cliche'd World War II analogy would soon roll. Unfortunately for English soccer writers everywhere, the brilliantly constructed hammer of gawd came courtesy David Odonkor, whose dad hails from Ghana, and Oliver Neuville, a French-speaking Swiss. Downright cosmo, these Germans.

As I strolled home, I thought to myself in a thick-skulled way, well, there's the first team eliminated. But no! See, if Costa Rica beats Ecuador, then Poland rains goals in against the Ticos and the Germans, y'know, somehow manage to beat Ecuador, Poland can still go through! That's the magic of the World Cup, eh?