And then there were four...

In the blink of an eye, World Cup favorite Brazil is out of the tournament. Surprise? Disappointment? Not for me. I don't want to say I saw this coming, because I wasn't even remotely emotionally invested in any of the matches. When I said the Red Sox would come back from 3 games down to win the 2004 ALCS, I meant it. When I said France would beat Brazil last weekend, I meant it, but it was a casual comment at best. I also thought Portugal would beat England, but I didn't expect it to be a penalty shootout.

For the sake of the four miserable countries this week, lets mourn the losses...

BRAZIL
The heroic France victory is easy to explain. Brazil has had it easy since day one of the cup. They were a team of overachievers, and it showed in the first round. They won every match without even trying that hard. France was the underdog among the elite. Zidane was too old, Henry sucked in international play, blah blah blah. That may have all been true, but it motivated the French team to grind through the first round, then crush a powerful, young Spanish team. Against Brazil, they had nothing to lose, except for a chance to silence their critics. Henry's mid-air goal off the foot was awesome. Brazil woke up when it was too late.

ENGLAND
What can you say? You don't score, you have a stubby hothead on your team, you miss three penalty kicks... you lose! England played well after Rooney's red card, and they deserve credit for that. I suppose this team was plagued from the getgo: Rooney breaks his leg, comes back, gets red card, Owen injured, Beckham injured, etc. It's a bit much I guess. I don't want to use the C-word, because I might get an arse-whoopin' when I decide to visit the UK... oh wait, no one reads this blog anyways. Yeah, do I smell a curse?

ARGENTINA
Another PK shootout. It was a very exciting match, and it could have gone either way. Argentina was unlucky with their goalie injured. Not only did they lose their main goalie for the PKs, but they also weren't able to bring in Messi for a last ditch attempt to score a golden goal. Too bad...

UKRAINE
A pretty one sided loss. I didn't even bother to watch this match. A middle of the road team: they weren't bad enough to be a surprise candidate for the elite eight, but they weren't good enough to be considered to have a chance at the final four. Good job in getting to the Elite Eight, but better luck next time for Ukraine.

The news today was all about how Hong Kong fans are coping with England's loss (pride, I suppose), and Brazil's loss (gambling debts). Once again, I don't get it. I don't understand the passion Hong Kong fans show for the English team. There are guys who have been on the English bandwagon all their lives for no apparent reason. Perhaps they miss colonialism. Maybe they were given free opium back in the day and are still grateful. I don't know.

I had a fun albeit awkward time cheering for Portugal last weekend. Got plenty of evil gazes from the masses everytime Portugal did something positive. There was this one guy who looked at me and silently mouthed some words when I loudly proclaimed that Beckham was a wuss (it was just a joke). He was probably saying something like, "nice pants", but that's just my guess. Naturally, no one was drunk enough or had enough sack to cause any real trouble. My conclusion is that the place I went to had too many pseudo fans.

There were too many front-runners to count, but the most atrocious example was a girl decked out in yellow and green (I kid you not). She also had the Brazilian flag painted on her cheeks. Okay, perhaps she is a displaced Brazilian who speaks Cantonese. Maybe her great great great great ancestor had lived in Brazil for a weekend to get a tan. Then I overheard that she chose Brazil because they won last time, but that she knows nothing about football. Ladies and gentlemen... we have a winner.