With the World Cup in full swing, it's easy to forget that, as soon as it's over, we'll be thrust back into the cold, uncaring world of club football. Okay, okay, maybe it's not that bad for most of you, but I'm a Liverpool fan, so, yeah, it's that bad. Probably worse. My favorite soccer site in the world is Oh You Beauty, written by a man who goes by the Brazilian-esque singular name of nate. Normally Liverpool-focused, he also has some of the clearest, most insightful World Cup game recaps on the interwebs, so I highly suggest checking him out now and in the future. As the Cup semi finals loom, and with some exciting(ish) developments in the Liverpool world, I thought now would be a good time to conduct our first-ever Pandagoal interview. Hit the jump to read what nate has to say about the World Cup, England's shortcomings and more in part 1 of our interview. Part 2 runs Thursday, so stay tuned!

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Happy German Fan is happy...and a little scary. Part of me finds Germany's 4-0 crushing of Argentina rather unsurprising. The European side turning in another strong performance, knocking in multiple goals and keeping a tight defense is no big shock to the system. But it's not as though Argentina has been twiddling their thumbs all tournament, and their lackluster performance was decidedly unforeseen. The tone was set early - earliest thus far in the tournament, in fact - when Thomas Müller headed Bastian Schweinsteiger's free kick into the net in just the 3rd minute of play. Argentina actually responded decently - their defense still looked leaky but their midfield play was calm rather than flustered as it could well have been. The reaction seemed to be to try to slow things down, although Germany didn't want to play along. They were given a lot of room and a number of chances, and pushed hard through the first half. Carlos Tevez and Lionel Messi were pushing back just as hard, and though each side took a few more shots, the score remained 1-0 at the half. The second half is where things eventually got lopsided. Argentina came out brightly, but once Miroslav Klose tapped the ball in to put Germany up 2-0 in the 68th, it was largely one-way traffic. The Germans' pace and skill continued to rule the pitch, and a goal from Arne Friedrich in the 74th and a second from Klose near the end drove the nails in further for Maradona's men. And that's where my surprise is focused - that Argentina would exit the Cup in such a humbled and largely quiet manner, after winning all four of their previous matches while never having trailed and allowing only a single goal in the process. The fact is, a lot of results from this game would not have surprised me. If you told me it ended 0-0 and went to a shootout, or 1-0 to either side, or 3-2, etc etc, no raised eyebrows here. But both of these teams are strong and favored, so my prediction was for a battle, hard won by whichever side was the eventual victor. I'm not sure what you could point to as a reason, other than a shoulder-shrugging "That's soccer for you" kind of thing. Argentina's wins came against teams that are certainly inferior to Germany, but was it really just weak opposition that gave the South Americans those Ws? Is it the specific German style of play that troubled Argentina? Did Maradona just not nom on enough rosary beads? They'll have plenty of time to ponder these questions on the plane home, while Germany will wait to see which side they'll meet next Wednesday.

No real surprises in today's results: two strong teams continue to roll on, and the officiating continued to induce head-meets-desk collisions around the world. Probably the best evidence in support of goal-line technology and/or video replays came in the Germany-England match. We've seen a few disallowed/non-called goals so far (haven't we, USMNT fans?) but Frank Lampard's would-be equalizer being missed was pretty damn egregious: You can point out the Germany went on to score two more goals, and England couldn't net another, so it didn't matter in the end. My thinking on that kind of argument is that you never know how one moment affects the rest of the game. It's highly likely that the frustration at the call being blown left the English side angry and unable to focus, and that had the goal been correctly awarded and the score tied up, the elation could have given their morale a needed boost and their performance a needed kick in the collective ass. In addition, it's not just about "did this one call directly affect the outcome of the game" - it's about players, coaches and fans needing to be able to trust the officials and to know that the outcome of the game is dependent upon the abilities and performances of the teams, not upon the luck of the draw with awful calls. A whistle instead of a yellow here or there is one thing; clear goals being missed or called off is entirely another. The teams looked fairly even in the beginning, but after Miroslav Klose scored in the 20th thanks in part to a defensive blunder by Matthew Upson, England started to look shaky. Just 12 minutes later Lukas Podolski added a second as the Germans played right through the opposing back line. But England started to kick up the attack, and Upson responded with a goal in the 37th. They continued to press, and then moments later came Lampard's shot and the stupendously wrong call. In the second half, England was pressing and looked hungry and focused...except for the defense. With two goals knocked in by Thomas Muller in the 67th and 70th minutes, it was clear that England wasn't going to overcome anything when only half of their team came to play today. A 4-1 loss sends the Three Lions home while Germany moves on to the quarterfinals. But the early match didn't hog all the controversy...

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When you need 2 and play to score 0, you might be Greece. What was Greece thinking? What was their grand plan to get through? Samaras had maybe two decent opportunities, one due to Argentina's Dimichelis whiffing on a slide, but that was it. A draw would've been as helpful as a loss, yet the Greeks looked set to play for 0-0 from the start of their game against the Leo Messi All-Stars. Shameful. To top it all off, they still coughed up 2 goals to Argentina, one rocket off the head of Demichelis, another off the foot of Palermo. And Messi himself came close a few times but still couldn't get his first of the tourney. The South Korea-Nigeria game was memorable for two second-half errors. The first came courtesy of Yakubu, who had the ball about 2 yards from goal, perfectly still, with the keeper entirely out of the picture. Missing a penalty wide left is embarrassing, but doing the same with the Oxford English definition of a sitter is humiliating. Yakubu did precisely that before being given a reprieve via a stupid leg assault in the box by South Korea. Yakubu stepped up and redeemed himself with a clinical penalty that sent the keeper the wrong way. But it wasn't enough to prevent Nigeria's demise, and the 2-2 draw sent South Korea through to the round of 16. It'll be Uruguay v South Korea and Mexico v Argentina in a few days. Both favorites will like their chances.

I am THIS MANY TIMES better than you. Messi was pulling the strings today, eh? With the South Koreans mounting multiple confidence-building challenges in the second half, it was Messi who squashed the upset. At 2-1 in the 77th, he slalomed into the box and fired at a sharp angle from the left. South Korean GK Jung Sung-ryong made a brilliant kick-save, but it fell right back at Messi's feet. He fired again, and this time it bounced off the post and into the feet of Higuan (who was a touch offside) about a yard from the sticks. He slotted it home. A few minutes later, Messi floated a tall ball over a wall of South Korean defenders to sub Sergio Aguero, who did his best to copy the move as he floated it across to Higuain on the right for a confident header, a hat trick, and a 4-1 finish. Higuain's first goal was also the result of great passing, coming off the head of Maxi Rodriguez to the head of Walter Samuel replacement Nicolas Burdisso, who sent it to Higuan's dome for what seemed at the time a suffocating 2-0 lead. Strikers are on the field to finish, and Higuain did that today. You won't find many people collecting hat tricks in the World Cup who don't deserve them, and I am not here to suggest Higuain is a fraud. But it's worth mentioning that there are a lot of players in the world who would love to spend their club days with Kaka, Alonso, and Ronaldo (okay maybe not Ronaldo) and then suit up for country with Messi, Tevez, and Aguero. Higuain puts himself in the right place to benefit from the creativity of others; that's his job. But he also left a lot on the table today, enough that I'm wondering how much better than "pretty good" he really is. There were whiffed (and unnecessary) bicycles, unmarked shots skied high, and a feeling that, unless he was point-blank, you weren't gonna get much out of him. Again, he's a very fine striker. But I wouldn't even call him the man of this match; that was Messi. Messi not only created most of Higuain's chances, he drew so much attention with his moves forward that he even created the space for Higuain to operate. One piece of advice for the hobbit-esque Maradona: when you get a 2 (much less a 3) goal lead late, rest the best, most energetic player in the world, mmmmmkay? Not only does he need to conserve energy, some teams won't be as gentlemanly as South Korea was and Messi could become a target. Speaking of South Korea, they put in a very good effort today, certainly better than the scoreline showed. There were at least 2 great chances to tie it, one when striker Yeom Ki-hun rumbled forward with the ball and pulled Romero toward him. A shot across the face might've gone in, but Ki-hun went for a same-side shot and fired into the side-netting. Later, Argentina's keeper Romero came out for a ball and misjudged it. The South Koreans nearly beat him to the spot, and if they had, it would've been an open goal for the equalizer. There was a bad own-goal to open play, but the biggest gaffe of the game belonged to Argentina CB Martin Demichelis. Seconds before half, he turned his back with the ball and South Korea's Park Chung-yong swiped it from his feet and shot his team back into the game. This came on the heels of the injury to Walter Samuel, Argentina's rock at the back. A brutal mistake, a crucial injury... and now Maradona's decision to exclude Inter Milan defender and captain Javier Zanetti looks even more foolish. But thou shalt not question the Ego of God, especially after a 4-1 win.

That's the Argentinian soccer team holding a banner supporting the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the late 70s/early 80s, more than 500 babies were kidnapped as part of the Dirty War. These children were stolen from leftist activists placed in military detention. What happened to most of the babies remains unknown, but the ones we do know of typically wound up the care of families friendlier to the junta. One website mentions a visit between Diego Maradona and the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo, but other than that, nobody seems to be talking about the support of the Argentinian football squad for the Abuelas. Why is that? Well, in Argentina at least, Louis Proyect has a theory:

Dear friends, I am attaching a picture of the Arg World Cup Team holding a banner in support of the candidacy of the Grandmothers of May Square for the Nobel prize. I am sending it for good reason. It seems to have been censored on every mainstream media outlet, including Internet concerns they control, because the main owner of the main private media group in Argentina, Ernestina Herrera de Noble, has a couple of stolen children. After a most protracted justice process, they are at last to undergo a confrontation of their DNA with data in the world famous National Genetic Data Bank of Argentina. The CEO of the group has been reported as boasting long ago that he had obtained the kids for Mrs. Herrera de Noble. In the midst of a war against the great media, the results of this comprobation are unfathomable.

According to NPR, the President of Argentina supports the Abuelas, so I don't know if the claims above are true. But we've certainly seen enough in America from Rupert Murdoch's empire to know anything's possible when it comes to the media. Either way, we should applaud the Argentinian team for taking a stand on an issue of national importance. I'd like to think I'd see that from a team in my country someday, but I won't hold my breath.

Title courtesy of my coblogger, Auguste. I doff my hat to you, sir. As exciting as it was, as proud as I am of the team, as pleased as I am with the result...dang, am I ever glad that's over with. My nerves were frazzled to the point of a near-dissociative state and I felt like I'd drank a pot of coffee on an empty stomach...coffee mixed with oven cleaner and shards of glass. It's exhausting being a soccer fan! BUT! At times it is also rewarding, and while of course I was hoping for a US win today, I will gladly take a 1-1 draw. Overall, I'm happy to say that the US was the better team for good portions of this match. It didn't start that way, with England's goal coming in just the 4th minute after Steven Gerrard easily got away from Ricardo Clark. This was worrisome not just because of the obvious but because the US tends not to recover well when they allow an early goal, whether in the first or second half. But rather than getting deflated and coming apart, the team buckled down and responded very well. The defense, including Oguchi Onyewu in his first full game since his knee injury last October, gave one of the best performances we've seen from them in a long time. It wasn't without blunders here or there of course, but was much stronger and more cohesive than usual. In fact, Capello's reason for subbing out James Milner in only the 31st minute was that "he was having trouble with [Steve] Cherundolo". Tim Howard was unsurprisingly great, making several key saves even after taking Emile Heskey's boot to his ribs. I do not ever want to see this again:

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