It was just too much for me. I lasted about a week and then I fell behind. Coincidently, that was when the World Cup went from 3 games a day to 4. It's not as easy as it looks. I tried blogging every day but even being on vacation for the entire month I still had responsibilities.

In the end, I got what I wanted and what I had been dreaming about since I was 16 years old. Italy are champions! Yeah! Beautiful and stylish it was not, but they won anyway with little credit afterwards. I feel satisfied, that the weight of 24 years of failure is gone, and that I can begin again for 2010, but for four years I have bragging rights as Il Campione di Mondo.

It was just too much for me. I lasted about a week and then I fell behind. Coincidently, that was when the World Cup went from 3 games a day to 4. It's not as easy as it looks. I tried blogging every day but even being on vacation for the entire month I still had responsibilities.

In the end, I got what I wanted and what I had been dreaming about since I was 16 years old. Italy are champions! Yeah! Beautiful and stylish it was not, but they won anyway with little credit afterwards. I feel satisfied, that the weight of 24 years of failure is gone, and that I can begin again for 2010, but for four years I have bragging rights as Il Campione di Mondo.

I'm way behind and rather than recap each game of the group stage I'll just write them all at once in one post. Another reason for doing it this way is that these games have mostly no value for the next round of games.

1) Germany v Ecuador: Ecuador had already qualified so the game was no real match. Klose scored a brace and Podolski added one, but Ecuador which had played inspired soccer to this point, was a much too careful shadow of himself.

2)Poland v Costa Rica: A game for pride for these two disqualified teams. Poland scores, everyone yawns.

3)Sweden v England: Michael Owen is injured and is stretchered off, Joe Cole shows how valuable he is with a wonderful goal off of his chest from 25 meters. Allback ties the game with a patented header and finds out that he had just made the 2,000th goal in FIFA World Cup history. Gerrard heads the ball from his diminutive friend Little Joey Cole and the England fans were singing that they had finally beaten the Swedish. In injury time, with England tiring, Larsson stabs a decisive header past Paul Robinson to bring another winless match between England and Sweden to an end.

4)Paraguay v Trinidad: Paraguay finally found a team that it could play up to. 2-0 to the South Americans.

5)Argentina v Holland: 0-0, both teams qualified so it was a lot of blustery action but both keepers were too solid in goal to let anything in.

6)The Ivorians finally came to play in this match. After falling down 2-0 to Serbia and Montenegro, the Africans looked to be going home in disgrace. As one of the few matches played in the rain this World Cup, the teams muddled through until a penalty was conceded in the 37th minute. No one believed that this would mean the start of a barrage of goals; a header at 67' to draw the game level and the winner at 86' on the second penalty of the match to secure a bit of pride from one of the better African sides of the tournament.

7)Portugal v Mexico: Portugal had already qualified for the next round, but Mexico entered the match needing a little help from the other teams in its group to qualify.

After suffering the ignoble 4-0 defeat to Spain, Ukraine and Andriy Shevchenko finally arrived in Germany, and offered Saudi Arabia a taste of what Ukraine suffered in the previous game. The game was open ended with fast counter attacking and the goals came from every possible angle, Rusol scored on a rebound at 4 minutes at close range, Rebrov scored from 30 yards out at 36 minutes, and with a 46th minute header by Sheva from a low cross, the rout was on. The Kalilnchenko goal was a nice goasl but not the decider he was expecting all game. The Ukrainians had finally made their mark.

This match shows how resilient and deep Spain really is. When Tunisia took a first half lead on a rebounded goal from Jaouhar Mnari and it looked like the resurgent African nation would shock the world and take 3 points from the "over-confident" Spaniards. The red clad Marcos Senna and Luis Garcia were substituted by captain Raul and the boy-wonder Cesc Fabregas and their spirit and leadership brought out the best in the Spanish. With time running out and a frustrating 71 minutes in Raul slotted a perfectly timed rebound from a Fabregas spot kick and the teams were level on the scoreboard but Spain were ahead in the heart of the game. 5 minutes later Fabregas contributed again with a perfectly timed entry pass to Torres who scored decidedly. El nino was only getting started. With seconds remaining Torres was brought down in the area and scored a well deserved penalty for an unlikely Spain comeback in the World Cup finals.

Another day goes by in the World Cup and another African team disappoints.Togo entered the game having played well in the other group games in the 2006 German World Cup, but had been missing an important piece to the puzzle to reach the next round. The games was open ended and many chances at goal which kept the GK's very busy, especially the Togo goalkeeper. It seemed that someone was going to score when Alexander Frei, the dangerous Swiss forward scored into the roof of the goal on a powerful right footed blast. Late in the game the aptly named Tranquilo Barnetta whose first name means tranquil gave Switzerland a well deserved win and giving them top in the group.

This was a bittersweet day for me in this year's World Cup. The sweet part was that Thierry Henry ended the goal-less drought by France who hadn't scored since the final in 1998 against Brazil. The bitterness came 81 minutes later when the match had ended, the tired French were dejected and the Koreans had equalized at minute 74 by the Manchester United midfielder Park Ji-Sung and the one greatest French player who ever lived, Zizou- the equal of Fontaine and Platini- had played his last match for Les Bleus. Oh, they'll play another match in the deciding round of the qualifiers for "octavos de final" (I love how the Spanish announcers call the elimination round)but Zidane won't for having challenged a Korean in frustration during the goal that brought the Amazing Koreans level with the aging champions.

Bogey number two. An apparently frustrating match that I slept through with little results on the pitch, but a very nice result for the other two teams in their group Brazil and Australia who realized after dozing off that instead of a Group of Death, this is a Group of Cheese-Whiz.

This is my opportunity to welcome all of my friends to my personal obsession: Futbol aka Soccer in this backward land of Xtreme Sports, Golf and Neck-Car being more in the public zeitgeist than the most important global sport bar-none. Welcome, and be glad that I will give you some great information, some highlights of the week and my personal opinions. A little about who I am and how I have become a fanatico.

I, like many Americans, have been on the periphery of "Soccer" for more than 20 years. As a kid I saw Pele play for the New York Cosmos and I saw Maradona play for Argentina in Mexico against England when God's hand and EL-Pive's gonads entered the public consciousness. It was like a time lapse picture of a generation of players, Dennis Bergkamp, Christian Vieri, Ruud Gullit, Hristo Stoichkov, Romario of Brazil and Roberto Baggio that had all taken hold of my senses but by the time that I could give the sport my undivided attention, by watching DirecTV's coverage, my favorite players had gone or had aged badly.

Today I have imparted my passion for the game to my oldest son, my youngest is following his brother and I am happily single and free to follow my passion for the sport. I follow Arsenal because Dennis Bergkamp still manages to make his much younger Gunners better every day. Nick Hornby, who writes my favorite mainstream novels (of which Fever Pitch denotes his own Gooner-obsession) cemented my own Arsenal fanaticism. I also follow Real Madrid in Spain, AS Roma in Italy and pretty much anyone who plays an exiting, attacking game of football that reminds me of Maradona's Argentina, Romario's Brazil, or Baggio's Italy in my youth. The rest is for tomorrow.

The future lies in the 2005 FA Cup final of Arsenal v ManU, the 2005 Champions League Final of AC Milan v. Liverpool and finally the summer transfer window which is my favorite time of the year. Until next season, Cheers! Go Arsenal, Go TiTi, Go Reyes and Go Totti.

This is my opportunity to welcome all of my friends to my personal obsession: Futbol aka Soccer in this backward land of Xtreme Sports, Golf and Neck-Car being more in the public zeitgeist than the most important global sport bar-none. Welcome, and be glad that I will give you some great information, some highlights of the week and my personal opinions. A little about who I am and how I have become a fanatico.

I, like many Americans, have been on the periphery of "Soccer" for more than 20 years. As a kid I saw Pele play for the New York Cosmos and I saw Maradona play for Argentina in Mexico against England when God's hand and EL-Pive's gonads entered the public consciousness. It was like a time lapse picture of a generation of players, Dennis Bergkamp, Christian Vieri, Ruud Gullit, Hristo Stoichkov, Romario of Brazil and Roberto Baggio that had all taken hold of my senses but by the time that I could give the sport my undivided attention, by watching DirecTV's coverage, my favorite players had gone or had aged badly.

Today I have imparted my passion for the game to my oldest son, my youngest is following his brother and I am happily single and free to follow my passion for the sport. I follow Arsenal because Dennis Bergkamp still manages to make his much younger Gunners better every day. Nick Hornby, who writes my favorite mainstream novels (of which Fever Pitch denotes his own Gooner-obsession) cemented my own Arsenal fanaticism. I also follow Real Madrid in Spain, AS Roma in Italy and pretty much anyone who plays an exiting, attacking game of football that reminds me of Maradona's Argentina, Romario's Brazil, or Baggio's Italy in my youth. The rest is for tomorrow.

The future lies in the 2005 FA Cup final of Arsenal v ManU, the 2005 Champions League Final of AC Milan v. Liverpool and finally the summer transfer window which is my favorite time of the year. Until next season, Cheers! Go Arsenal, Go TiTi, Go Reyes and Go Totti.