The Italian Diving Team

Happy Father's Day!

The Big Kid sat through all of USA vs Italy, and enjoyed it.

Made for a good lesson in sportsmanlike conduct.
And. I was wrong, the USA team did show up, about 10 minutes into the game, and played at a world level, at least the few players that rather overzealous referee left on the field in the second half.
Bad luck not to beat the Italians, maybe next time they'll send their football team on, not the Olympic Diving team.

Ghana vs Czech was a joy, although the Czech's let themselves get ruffled and didn't play to their true level. Strangely group E now looks to be the most exciting first round group and the USA vs Ghana match will be a real nailbiter while Italy vs Czech is likely to be an all time classic.
Woo hoo.

Now I just need to figure out which sadist scheduled my talk during the England vs Sweden game.
Nothing for it, unless I can keep a WiFi connection life on the podium and run the Grauniad live blogfeed on a hidden screen...
Oh no, they won't let us use our own laptops! I have to transfer to a dedicated speakers laptop.
Aargh...

Update: France vs South Korea - nice game.
And a good contrast with the Italy vs USA game. South Koreans got bounced like pinballs by the bigger french defence and midfield, but they didn't try any theatrics, just rolled to their feet and kept using speed and skill to try to play through the french - and they did.
Both games were good, but the Fr vs Kr game illustrated some nicer aspects of the game.

I was wrong, my talk was during the Germany vs Ecuador game. Phew.