Saturday’s first two games have been some great playing:  Iran playing some great soccer and scaring the shit out of Argentina until Messi saved the day, and Ghana holding Germany to a draw. Because of the Ghana-Germany result, if the U.S. wins Sunday afternoon’s game against Portugal (and its hottie star Ronaldo) then the U.S. is guaranteed to get to the Round of 16.  I’m putting my money on the U.S. after seeing Clint Dempsey break his nose in the Ghana game and come back in and play the rest of the game once they stopped the bleeding. He’s playing tomorrow with a broken nose.

In France it was known as the Renault R5 – a benign hatchback designed to compete with the Volkswagen Golf/Rabbit. In the U.S. it was sold as Le Car. I test drove one in the early 80s and observed that it had worse-than-normal front-wheel-drive tendencies – understeer, which means the front end plows ahead despite your insistence on going around a corner. The Golf of that period was so much better, so that’s what I bought.

But Renault, determined not to relive the Maginot Line in rallying, retooled the car, putting the engine in the middle and making it rear-wheel-drive. But then the car had the Porsche 911 problem – severe snap oversteer because the weight of the engine/drivetrain was nearly hanging out the back. This meant the rear end would come ’round the driver’s side window and put you firmly into a ditch. Or over a cliff. At least you got to see a bit of your fancy sports car before plunging to your death. Similarly, the R5 Rallye:

Drove a mid-90s Porsche 911 once – it nearly handed me my ass. Much more so this car.

It’s been a great week so far of soccer/football. Today’s game to watch is Spain v. Chile at noon SWDHQ time. Today’s hottie is the Swedish-born Chilean player Miiko Albornoz.  His father is Chilean, his mother Finnish, he’s still working on learning Spanish.  He plays professionally for Malmo FF in Sweden.

Three matches are on for today, Mexico v. Brazil at noon (Stinque World Domination Headquarters Time) will be the one to watch.  Vincent Kompany, today’s hottie, will lead Belgium against Algeria in the first match of the day.  Algeria has never scored a goal in a World Cup game, so Belgium is heavily favored to win today’s game and the group.

The match up of most interest to the football fans is this morning’s game of Germany v. Portugal, the one of most interest here in ‘Merikah is US v. Ghana at 3 pm.  Ghana has beaten the U.S. the last two times the teams met, but today’s hottie Graham Zusi will try to keep that from happening a third time.

And here’s the Monday mitzvah for Dodger and Bloggie — an action shot of Alex Morgan from the U.S. women’s national team.

One last long distance dedication:

Another big day of games on tap, including France v. Honduras.  Hugo Lloris, the goalkeeper for Les Bleus, will be key to a victory for France.