And so to the future.....

Right, now we've got through the World Cup and watched so many games that we've gradually become immune to the sound of the vuvuzela (did anybody notice them during the final?) we'll soon have to think about the new Premier league season.

With our dwindling numbers, I think the effort of running a full PTS-style game would be a little too much for me to maintain, but we could do a slimmed-down version of the game. If the scoring principle remained the same, each player could choose their own home team and perhaps also one Premier League team. There would be no actual need for the home team to be a Premiership side - the club could be anywhere as long as their fixtures and results were easily available: Jaime, for example could pick Barça and Liverpool, I could pick Leeds and Spurs (in real life I would never choose Spurs because they're simply too unpredictable) and then we could could either stick to our own teams or pool them for everybody to play. In the pooled version of the example, we'd predict for Barça, Liverpool, Leeds and Spurs.

That's just one suggestion. Other possibilities would be to run the PTS and 1st goal scorer games together so that the results are scored together, or to extend the scoring to cup games as well as league games.

These suggestions would probably have the effect of moving the focus away from the league to the teams themselves, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

So, does anybody have any suggestions or points of view that we could build into the game? I guess I'm expressing a preference for something that needs less time-consuming entering of fixtures on the spreadsheet, less effort for the players and yet still be open to newcomers.

Meanwhile, I'm going to lock off the World Cup game records and ''archive'' them. (ps. I think I've done that - let me know if it doesn't work for you)

Results....

So....

In the PTS-style game, our final points ended up as follows:

1st JaimeCule 47 points
2nd Red Wedgewood 45 points
2nd Marmoset 45 points
4th MikeJapan 38 points (self-eliminated after 1/4 finals)
5th Chazzer 21 points (self-eliminated after 1st knock-out round)

Only 3 players in the 1st goalscorer game.

1st JaimeCule 32 points
2nd Marmoset 29 points (forgot to predict 3 times)
3rd Red Wedgewood 20 points (forgot to predict 6 times)

So congratulations to Jaime in both games (though none of us really scored loads of points and the main rule about winning seems to be remembering to participate...)

And finally, Señor Webb gains the prize for most card flourishing in a World Cup final.

Well done Spain. Shame on Holland

I wore an orange shirt and for the first time supported a national team other than England. This morning it's difficult to talk objectively about the way Holland played the game. Most Dutch people will admit that Spain were the better side, but they prefer to blame Webb for giving a goal kick to Spain, from which they started the move that led to the goal and for sending Heitinga off and not Puyol. They don't want to hear that Holland tried to kick Spain out of the game, or that De Jong and van Bommel should have received red cards. De Jong's assault was shocking. Webb was on a hiding to nothing - it's not possible to control a team that only wants to foul. Fair enough to recognise that you can't beat Spain by trying to out pass them, but this was not the way to do it.

A header. By Carles Puyol. A defender. With 2 goals with the national team. Who scored his previous goal on May 2nd, 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7r4csIn5hQ).

And thanks to his great jumping skills, Spain is in a World Cup Final. Something that not just me, but most of the Spanish wouldn't expect to see at all.

The world is changing: Spain beats Germany. In a World Cup semi-final. From a corner.

I do love this game

Semi-final: Spain Vs Germany

Couple of moments:

1994 World Cup



2008 Eurocup



I hope on Wednesday it goes fine... but it's pretty difficult

One of my picks

Even though it's hard to say, this is one of my favourite moments from the match Spain Vs Paraguay. Not because it's funny, but because Ramos is shite and idiotic. He does not defend, and he doesn't know how to attack. What's the point of having him? I really think Arbeloa should occupy his place in the first 11.

Optical Illusions