Surprises Abound

So this weekend I was poised to move into the lead! I was sure that no one else had thought to select Brazil over the Dutch, or Argentina over Germany, or Ghana over Uruguay, or Spain over Paraguay. How wrong was I!

I didn't even watch much of the action. I caught the score early in the Brazil/Netherlands game and Brazil was up 1-0. I figured that was it. Brazil has never lost a World Cup match when leading after half. It wasn't until the next day that I found out that the Dutch had come all the way back to win the game.

I did see the second half of the Ghana/Uruguay match and the extra time and the shootout. A shootout that never should have happened. For those of you who saw it you will agree. For those of you who didn't this is what happened.

To give us a little perspective on why it was so wrong for buddy to miss that penalty let us turn to mathematics. A soccer goal is approximately 8 feet tall by 27 feet wide. Lets say on average a soccer ball is 8.65 in diameter but to make the math a little easier lets say 1 foot. Lets go a little further and say that a soccer ball is approximately 1 square foot while the goal is 216 square feet. so you would think that it would be ease to put a little ball in a big net....but wait what about the goalie? Fair enough. Let's add them into the equation. At 6 feet tall, 2 feet wide he'll take up 12 square feet. All in you still have 204 square feet to hit.

Either way, the guy missed and it set up for an exciting shoot out where the Uruguayan goalie made two fantastic saves to lead them to the victory.

So we only have 4 games to go. Tuesday 12:00 sees the first semi final with Uruguay v. Netherlands, Wednesday has the second semi with Germany facing Spain. The losers of those matches will play on Saturday while the winners close out the tournament on Sunday.

Get your picks in by lunch to ensure they count.