Mr Owl PhD

Great win for us this evening. It was tough in the first half but the quality and movement of Rodriquez, Cuadrado and Quintero made the difference in the end. The second round beckons.

Some quality defending from Vertonghen...

I had a few low budget Iranians on my bench in the Fantasy League. They've now gone and got loads of points for keeping a clean sheet, irritatingly.

It's Shola time.

Not so indestructible: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27859814

Clark Carlisle on ITV notes that Ecuador are so strong in attacking areas that the excellent Jackson Martinez can't even get in their team. Ecuador do indeed have some good attacking players, but I think Jackson Martinez struggles to get in their side because he plays for Colombia.

Me and Barney disagree with you about Sterling: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jun/15/raheem-sterling-hodgson-england-italy Rooney's problem defensively is that I just don't think he's fit enough to cover the ground that he's expected to cover. This is even more true when he's played out wide where players always have to cover a lot of ground. It's exacerbated even further by the fast play of others and the stifling conditions in Brazil. I'm not sure England should be playing Rooney through the middle just to cover up for his inadequacies though. I think he has to be the best player there and, at the moment, I'm not sure he is.

Good to see these insightful predictions for the World Cup from Andy Cole. I'm not sure how it's going to go either, to be fair.

Was very much the sort of 'plucky defeat in a Quarter Final' type of performance from England last night (I know it wasn't a QF but it easily could have been). Still, that's an improvement on the abject showings of the past couple of major tournaments and the difference between last night and two years ago against Italy was night and day. I thought it was a pretty high quality game - probably the best of the tournament so far in terms of the quality of play from both teams. I know a lot of people are on Rooney's case but, whilst he did have some good moments in the game, I'm not really sure he's the best English player in any of the positions he's likely to play in these days.

Excellent performance from us. Rodriguez was masterful and good to see him try to emulate Gordon Strachan in 1986 with his celebration. And I've always hated the Greeks. http://youtu.be/cDg07hd0BhQ?t=42s

Glad your enjoying it - thanks for your support. I'd like to draw your attention to the following, however:

Dancing: https://v.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/1ED2DAE2821089629590399410176_22e41746936.0.3.3859960844915758240.mp4?versionId=NTL3h6aDjo4LNdZqwjRbJceWXvJ7hrFh

Cahill still good in the air I see.

For Andy Townsend fans:

No matter how annoying, unnecessary and poorly-conceived those big changes might be, just keep in mind that instigating them is keeping much of the upper level management in jobs. And it would obviously be terrible to put them out of a job.

I'm worried about that change in term dates too, although maybe more for how crazy it'll be next year than at the moment. The worst time of year for me is often around the time the second semester starts because you get the get the two semesters 'colliding' (marking and reports to finish for the first semester and then everything to set up for the second). The change in dates is only going to make them collide even more I reckon.

That quiz I posted earlier provided a reminder of this, frankly astonishing, celebration:

Quiz: http://www.theguardian.com/football/quiz/2014/jun/11/world-cup-2014-the-ultimate-world-cup-trivia-quiz I got 17/30, which is okay. A lot of obscure but amusing stuff.

Yeah, no rules - Tony Cascarino style. Play for whichever country you fancy!

Now one of the Dead Ones.

I think the McDonalds one seems okay. I guess most of the time you only need a reasonable squad of around 13 strong players and then the rest aren't likely to figure. Anyone can pick a bunch of stars but the skill is also going to be in picking players who might do well but don't cost so much.

I think the Honduras players should all have that tatoo. Good result for England last night - no broken legs.