England v Ecuador

kind of questionable foul against Ecuador leads to a free kick 30 yards out, over the wall, surgical strike right inside the post, Mora can only get one hand to it but it's too strong. note to ESPN, the keeper was over on the left because the WALL IS SUPPOSED TO STOP SHOTS LIKE BECKHAM'S. christ all fucking mighty, is Mora supposed to stand on the near post and hope Beckham/Gerrard don't go far post?

I was a bit surprised by some of England's defensive choices, for instance starting Owen Hargreaves at right back, and starting the injured Ali G over Sol Campbell. Apparently Beckham was also not feeling too well in the days before the game, but didn't tell anybody. While he did certainly make a contribution to the game, he also threw up on the field. When Aaron Lennon came on for him 87 minutes in, I was a bit surprised that it took that long to give a breather to an old, dehydrated, vomiting player who thought it would be funny to wear long sleeves in the heat as part of some running joke with Wayne Rooney. Beckham did score England's goal, and it was a thing of beauty, but when Lennon came on and actually played like a winger, it did stand out a bit how limited Beckham's skill set has become, unlike back in the day when he still had a really high work rate.

Here's another thing, Wayne Rooney plays at Manchester United behind a classic centre-forward in Ruud van Kneestillsore, and really seems to shine playing as a mezzapunta where he can be more creative, and looked pretty good as the spark in a controlled short passing game for England earlier in the tournament. So instead he played up front on his own. And frankly I don't think England looked too good with him up there. For instance the play where he tried to pull the Andrew Katz move and poke the ball between two defenders then force his way between them didn't work as well as it did on the SPA coed 5th-6th grade team, and with no other striker and no midfielders who can get forward, he had nothing else he could do with it. Watching him try to move the pile like a fullback on 3rd and short was pretty amusing, until he started crying for a penalty. (It should be noted that like my analysis of the growing trade in securitized operating assets, this is all based on ignorant rambling and conjecture.)

The key play of this game, the one I'd expect to see again, was a ball flicked forward by Ecuador in the 11th minute. John Terry headed the ball way up in the air, still moving back towards England's goal, and Carlos Tenorio blew past him with no other England defenders anywhere in sight except Ashley Cole way across the field. What saved England was a terrible first touch by Tenorio that meant he took too long settling the ball for a shot, and Cole was able to dive into his path, meaning Tenorio had to put the shot too high to clear Cole and hit the crossbar. Playing that far up and having some seriously shaky plays by their back line will be trouble, and they've had a few miraculous defensive recoveries on what looked like sure goals to get them this far. Then again, despite playing like crap, they have pulled it out every time they needed to.

There is one other thing worth noting about Beckham's free kick goal, which was very nicely done. Beckham took a shot from 30 yards out, over a wall that got pretty high up, and had it dipping down well under the bar, just inside the near post, with a lot of power still on it, just a really impressive kick. Mora got one hand to it, but couldn't slow it down enough to stop it. Really there's nothing anybody can do about that, so don't listen to ESPN's commentators moaning about Mora's bad positioning, since he was doing his job, covering the far post, while the wall is supposed to prevent a shot like that. If Beckham can get it up and down over the wall with something on it, Mora can't do anything to prevent that unless he's left an inviting target in the space he's leaving on the back post.

Almost everybody who took their foot off the gas and tried to coast to the second round in their last game is now finished, including Sweden, Ecuador, Mexico, Spain, and Holland, with Argentina the sole survivor.

England 1-0 Ecuador
'60 Beckham

England plays Portugal in the quarterfinals, winner faces the winner of Brazil v France in the semifinals. And then we can have even more video clips of David Beckham vomiting.