cristiano ronaldo

SPAIN INTO THE SEMIFINALS!!!

The review, replays, grading, opinions and coherent thoughts will come later…
… now, it’s time to celebrate!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Believe it or not, Villa's at the bottom of this..

For the first time in their history, Spain makes it into the semifinals of a World Cup!
Spain, the team everyone was writing off after the match with Switzerland. Spain, the eternal underperformers. *Our* Spain.

¡VIVA ESPAÑA!

Larissa Riquelme is incredibly popular for some reason

Sometimes television cameras at sporting events turn their powerful focus from the field of play to the giddy and/or inconsolable masses in the stands. And sometimes that focus sticks for more than just the few seconds until a beer ad can be readied or the athlete with a torn meniscus can be dragged off. In the case of Larissa Riquelme, that focus is sticking and has quickly heaved her to international popularity with at least half the population that has seen her. 
Described as Paraguay's No. 1 fan, Riquelme is a model like so many others you've never ever heard of but seen pictured in popular alleys of the Internet. Yet because of her emphatic support of her national team and the hypnosis she holds over cameras far and wide, she now overflows from the pages of leading sports sites like Spain's AS.com, Italy's Corriere dello Sport and Brazil's Globo, and has become one of the most popular names in search engines and on Twitter. On Tuesday, Larissa Riquelme searches on Yahoo rocketed 241 percent. 

[Photos: See more of Larissa Riquelme, Paraguay's biggest fan]

First rising to global popularity as she cheered on Paraguay in the opening-match draw that shocked their Italian opponents, Riquelme intrigued viewers with the curious yet prominent way she carries her mobile phone. As Paraguay continued their improbable run, finishing atop their group and advancing to the knockout stage, the cameras continued to seek her out, even as she watched a continent away, back home in Asuncion.
Sitting front and center (even if she really wasn't) at a public viewing party for Paraguay's round of 16 match against Japan on Tuesday, the cameras just kept snapping as she urged her team to victory. Paraguay won on penalties, putting them in the quarterfinals for the first time ever, yet it was Larissa Riquelme's name near the top of Twitter's worldwide trending topics list and surging up as one of the top 2,000 Yahoo search terms. 
Of course, her assertion that she will run through the streets in nothing but red and blue bodypaint should Paraguay somehow win the World Cup isn't hurting her quicksilver rise, which will probably outlast many people's memories of Paraguay's impressive run. But that's how these things go.
UPDATE: According to a new story from Globo (which accuses Larissa of overshadowing Paraguay's performance), her strategic mobile phone placement is just that. She was hired to publicly cheer Paraguay with the phone held firmly on display within her tank top. I don't think her new fans will feel at all betrayed by this sly marketing ploy. 

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Felipe Melo, Man of the Match (in a bad way)

Things were all going according to the Dunga-approved Brazil plan against the Netherlands in their quarterfinal match Friday. One of Dunga's defensive midfield prodigies, Felipe Melo, got off to a flying start as he sent a splitting through-ball in between a gaping hole in the Dutch defense, sending Robinho on his way to an early goal and Brazil to seemingly another semifinal appearance. Remember, Brazil hadn't lost in the 38 games all-time in World Cup play after scoring the first goal. But Melo was yet to leave his biggest impact on the match. 
In the 53rd minute, the match was turned on its head. Well against the run of play, Wesley Sneijder sent a dangerous cross from the right side into the mixer, where Melo decided to get in the way of assured Brazilian keeper Julio Cesar, impeding him from claiming the ball and supplying a touch of his own to help the Jabulani fly into the net and send the orange-clad Dutch supporters into raptures. Congratulations to you, Felipe Melo, you were just credited the first own goal in Brazil's long World Cup history. Ole! Be sure to send your thanks to Cesar as well, who probably had no business coming off the line in the first place.
The 68th minute saw the Netherlands take an amazing lead when it played a near-post corner to Dirk Kuyt, who flicked on to a wide-open Sneijder, who clinically finished with his head from a standing position at the back post. The closest man to him? Melo. 
The final stamp of the match was applied by the boot of, guess who — Felipe Melo. Fed up by Arjen Robben's constant pestering and near-deaths on the pitch, Melo intentionally stomped on Robben's thigh (video above) as he writhed on the ground after a foul was called, earning him a straight red card and effectively ending Brazil's hopes of a sixth World Cup title. It also cemented Melo's place as Dirty Tackle's less-than-positive Man of the Match.
The Brazilian supporters' ire will now surely turn toward Dunga, who may have imparted a little too much of that signature defensive bite on a squad that was bitten by its own aggression. But now it can at least turn its full attention to the inevitable samba domination it'll exact when Brazil hosts the tournament in 2014. 

Historic 2-1 defeat for Brazil is a Dutch dream

This World Cup was supposed to be all about South American dominance and European decline. Friday's quarterfinal between Brazil and the Netherlands has largely chucked that narrative out the window. It certainly didn't look that way leading into the match. While the Dutch won all of their group stage games plus a decisive 2-1 round of 16 game against Slovakia, they never seemed to match the form of the much-hyped Oranje teams of old. Brazil, on the other hand, looked unbeatable after galloping past able dark horses Chile 3-0. 
It initially looked like the Netherlands would pay for its lack of form when defender André Ooijer lazily played a charging Robinho, who easily slotted the ball past keeper Maarten Stekelenburg to give Brazil a 1-0 lead. But after a Felipe Melo own-goal and a Wesley Sneijder set-piece header later, a once-composed Brazil began to play like a bunch of spoiled children on a present-less Christmas morning. It led to Melo stamping an admittedly collapsible Arjen Robben on the hamstring, earning him a red card, and a 2-1 loss for the five-time World Cup winners.  
More importantly, the Dutch victory is now a part of World Cup history; up until Friday, Brazil went undefeated in a total of 42 World Cup matches held outside of Europe. The last time Brazil lost a non-European World Cup match was in 1950, when Uruguay stunned Brazil at the Maracanã stadium with a — you guessed it — 2-1 come-from-behind win, giving the Uruguayans their second World Cup title.
I guess they can run that ad now.