Yanks yanked, Croats croke, Japan panned, Saudis sussed, Tunisians turfed, Togo go, Korea see ya and, of course, CZECHS BOUNCED!(Fat Eck’s World Cup Diary - Days 14 & 15)

Poland - Nice strip. Amazing support. bad tactics.

Costa Rica - Paolo Wanchope’s a leggy legend.

Trinidad & Tobago - No goals. One point. Smallest nation ever provides some great, big frights.

Paraguay - Only wore the groovy home strip once. Only won once.

Ivroy Coast - Unlucky in the draw: Semis in 2010

Serbia & Monetengro - proving that too great a qualifying campaign is a curse. Never to be seen again.

Iran - Ali Daei is a myth. Big lads, though.

Angola - not bad for a beginner. A subtler strip would help.

USA - have a nice day, y’all! Coz we’ll only be taking a point off ya, buddy.

Czech Republic - time for the youngsters to take over.

Japan - get nasty!

Croatia - get less nasty!

South Korea - not good on the road. A disgrace to your 4th place in 2002!

Togo - nice combo of bad strip colours: Could have done the biz if you’d been less concerned with the biz.

Tunisia - fast enough, fit enough, big enough: No skill.

Saudi Arabia - a continued embarrassment to the qualifying system.

So that’s that. The group stage is over. Finito. Finished. Gone.

Day 1, a fortnight previously, brought two games and an opening ceremony. Okay, Diana Ross didn’t miss a penalty but Germany and Costa Rica laid on an unexpected goal-fest and Ecuador provided an Opening Day shock against Poland - all live on yer telly.

If you could get the time off work, Days 2 to 11 of the 2006 World Cup Finals brought you three live games a day, all staggered to allow you just enough time inbetween for food, napping, tea, beer, a phoencall to your dealer or to Dominos. Heaven.

Days 12 to 15, Tuesday to Friday of this week, have been something like the last brightening of the light bulb before it goes out, the “he’s sitting up in bed talking away” moment which is usually the prelude to a bedridden uncle finally carking it: FOUR games a day but only two you could watch all the way through.

Now the tournament begins to rapidly peter out in terms of quantity but, hopefully, not in terms of quality. What we’ll definitely see, thanks to the Shakesperian intrigue that is the penalty kicks decider and thanks to the fact that all the heavyweights are in there thinking they have a god-given and UN-sanctioned right to lift the trophy, is an upping in the drama levels. Unlike that uncle or that lightbulb, the World Cup gets even more potent as it approaches the end. The 16 games still to be played will provide far more lasting memories - for the neutral at least - than the 48 which have just gone. The only question is whether or not they’ll provide better football. Coz, so far, that’s not been half bad.

Day 14 was, for Yours Bluely, all about Gerdy Muller’s World Cup scoring record being equalled - see the rambling, self-involved piece below for my “take” on that little moment of big history.

But the real matter at hand in the latter stages of this week was, of course, who was staying and who was going home from Groups E, F, G and H.

In Hamburg, Italy showed that the old addage - Gli Azzuri reach one World Cup Final Every 12 Years - is as pertinent as ever. The fact the boot-shaped nation also had players who’d been embrolied in a match-fixing scandal in the team which won the 1982 World Cup should have us all getting down to those very bookies who got Paolo Rossi into so much trouble before Spain 82.

The other addage about teams starting TOO brightly in a World Cup, applied perfectly to Italy’s opponents in the AOL Arena (”FIFA World Cup Stadium Hamburg”, MY ARSE! Why not, if they’re gonnae ban all the corporate names for this summer, at least return to the old, pre-stadium sponsorship names for the new grounds built on famous sites: For older fans, Italy met The Czechs at the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg - other teams this summer have played at the Mungersdorfer in Cologne, the Waldstadion in Frankfurt, the AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, the Westfalen in Dortmund, the Neckar in Stuttgart … ye get the idea): The Czechs had us all wanting to change our bets when we saw them destroying the USA in the first round of games. Then they were all but destroyed themselves by Ghana, however, and Italy could even afford to have Nesta dissapearing down the tunnel injured early-on, just to compund Marcello Lippi’s suspension problems, and still win at a acanter.

Group E was the only one which, as far as I can tell, afforded every team involved a very realistic chance of both progressing and being eliminated on its final day: Seeing Inzaghi come off the bench to do his rounding-of-the-goalie thing to make it 2-0 in the dying seconds was confirmation Italy have really arrived - as were his determined efforts to work himself into that mad-eyed, Tardelli-esque celebration of running alongside the stands screaming at the crowd. He’s more used to doing it at the San Siro - he has it down to a fine art on his home ground but Inzaghi is now almost a goal-every-two-games man and deserves to celebrate however he likes. Only the Latins can really communicate what scoring in the Copa Del mundial is all about.

The USA - my big “Dark Horse” tp before the competition started, ended up bottom of the group, thanks in no small part to a fantasticly spirited, fit, fast, big Ghana side. It was tight in Nuremberg but Claudio Reyna had a ‘mare, ending in injury, and Michael Essien’s team showed they’re adding a bit of nous to their all-action style to win this one by the odd goal in three. This really was THE Group of death. Too bad Essien himself killed off his chances of playing against Brazil with his second booking - this maybe ended his team’s slim hopes of knocking out the champs next week.

Croatia v Australia had threatened, from the moment these two teams were drawn in the same section, to be an actual “GAME of Death”. The to-ing and fro-ing of the Croat peoples to Australia’s shores and back to the land of their forefathers to perfect their professional game, sometimes rejecting the national colours of the Oz that reared them for those of the Sahoivnica they weren’t born under, meant it was sure to be a tasty derby-type meeting. The fact both sides could still go through to the next round made it even meatier. Oh man! - the Croat fans are SO scary. That low, gutteral, never-ending, melifluous and quietly threatening song they chant at every game epitomised the difference in footbaling cultures on the Stuttgart terraces. The Ozzies managed a couple of “Go Australia, Go!” chants - all sat there in their rugby and cricket colours. They reeked of outdoor living, barbies and peace-time economic prosperity. Like the US sports crowd, Aussies embody that idea of exercising your aggression in daily life - us Europeans and South Amnericans like to put as much menace and bitterness into our sports spectating as a well-rounded person would channel through work in teh New World. They’re as chirpy as a team with a man called Chipperfield playing should be. Croatians are lovely, warm people - but football is about more than sporting prowess as part of the national image: After war, it IS their national image.

On the pitch, however, Australia were worth so much more than just the draw which eventually got them through. The Croats, despite twice taking the lead at pivotal times and being up against the worst goalkeeper I’ve seen at these finals, just couldn’t wait to throw it away. If they weren’t handling the ball as many times as they could in their own area, they were launching into psychotic tackles on their opponents and then man-handling and verbally abusing the ref. Ahhhh - the ref. He’s the reason one Croat got THREE yellows and a red. England’s Graham Poll had previously made it clear he thought the only reason he wouldn’t get this summer’s World Cup FINAL was if Sven’s boys made the Berlin decider on July 9th. Nah - sorry, Graham - there’s another reason you won’t get that final: Coz you’ve just put in the WORST REFEREEING PERFORMANCE OF THE TOURNAMENT! I did laugh - again because the English commentators are so quick to condemn “foreign” refs in major tournaments and to bum up their own in a desperate bid to bring some “home interest” to games between two foreign nations. But, I have to say, every pundit I heard from Thursday onwards was quite happy to SLAUGHTER Poll - a popular ref by all accounts!!

Guus Hiddink has finished fourth at the last two World Cup finals. That’s all I’m saying, Italy - that’s all i’m saying. Think he was South Korea manager when they beat you at the 2002 finals too. So - be warned - the sons of Ayres Rock could be a stone in your shoe.

Brazil had a wee scare against Japan in the Westfalen but their reserves, with Ronlado perhaps given 90 minutes for the last time in a political move by Alberot-Pareira (”Get the record tonight, son - coz you’re noh starting any of the knock-out games with THAT gut!”), were never really pahsed. The Tubster scored two - one a back-post header from six yards, the other a turn and shot from the edge of the box - to show he’s worthy of the record he’s just equalled. Japan showed why theyre going home - they have too much respect fro everyone they play … and they can’t even fall back on the Kirin Cup!!

Spain can only fall back on one major cup in their entire history - the 1964 European Nations, won on their home soil. Before and since they’ve been the biggest guaranteed dissapointments of every major finals. No more it seems - no more. If we thought Brazil had fielded a weakened team against Japan the previous evening, Louis Aragones, the racist Spanish caoch, showed how it’s done: ELEVEN Changes from his last starting line-up, but a third straight win for Espana: The Saudis go home with a point and a couple of goals to their name but no a lot of credit.

With Dado’s Croatia going out, like Libor Sionko’s Czechs that afternoon, Hamed Namouchi was left with the task of ensuring it won’t be 20 years before a Rangers player scores at a World Cup finals. Amazingly, again, the Ukraine-Tunisia match looked like a sell-out, in Berlin, the biggest capacity stadium for these finals, and on a weekday afternoon too! Hamed didn’t score and Tunisia are out. Shevchenko dived for the only penalty of the game, which he scored himself, which puts him on a miserable tourney total of two. The Ukraine will have to stop being so grateful for just BEING THERE and actually work a minor miracle against Switzerland if I’m to get anything back on my tenner on Sheva as Golden boot winner this summer.

Perhaps Switzerland will provide just the right kind of opposition for Sheva and his team-mates to come out their shell. In the quaifying campaign, Ukraine did for Turkey and Greece. The Turks were pushed into the play-offs, where they lost after a bit of a battle with the Swiss. Switzerland, in other words, are looking just strong enough for the Ukraine, who obviously favour the counter-attack, to beat them in the last 16. Alexander Frei got his second of the tournament thanks to the reffing decision of the tournament and Senderos got the first in the neutral country’s 2-0 win over South Korea thanks to the bravest header of the tournament. How cool would he feel, running away to celebrate with the blood pishing down his face??!! Hard or what??!! Never mind the whole “not going to war, ever” thing - Swiss blokes can be RIGHT MENTAAAALL!!

Talking of tough cookies, Advocaat, you imagine, must have loved working with South Korea: If he didn’t want the Rangers players to start eating until he’d lifted his fork at the communal table, then the team representing a country as inately disciplined as South Korea must have been manna from heaven to The Little General: After their shock draw with France, the Korean fans - one of the noisiest sets of supporters at the tournament - went ballistic on the strasses, allees and Platzes of Leipzig. Next day, however, the East German city’s bin men woke to find their job done for them - the visiting Asian fans had partied long and hard, but they’d all brought their own bin-liners and had totally cleared up after themselves!

France’s football team had to do likewise in their final group gamne, against Togo. They had to win 2-0 and win 2-0 is what they did. They were still shocking though and why anyone should think they’re BETTER without Zidane is beyond me. There was absolutely no service to Henry or Trezeuget against the disrupted off-field but disruptive on-field African side - Thierry had to make his goal for himself and, for me, the problem is clearly the manager. Spain will hump Les Bleus if things don’t change before the next round. Spain - they’ve won both the European trophies in club football 2006. maybe now they feel they can make it a clean sweep - just like a Korean in Leipzig.

For now, though, let’s just consider those nations who’ve fallen on their footballing swords in Deutschalnd this summer. Let’s remember and respect the 16 countries who now go home but who helped make this summer what it is and who will, no doubt, do our fucking nuts in as we try to remember who they were and who played for them in endless trivia quzzes for the rest of our natural lives:

Roll on, the last 16!