Okay world cup thoughts:

It's been quite a good world cup so far: both of my favourite teams in the tournament, Argentina and Spain, have lived up to expectations, and even surpassed it, if i may say so. Argentina was imperious against Serbia and Montenegro, and had enough to beat Ivory Coast. The playmaker Riquelme's pass to Saviola was a brilliant work of art, while Cambassio's goal against S&M was the epitome of great team build-up play. I particuarly liked Tevez's goal as well (it was a relatively Maradona-like strike, wasn't it). I wouldn't be surprised to see them in the final- their combination of superb attacking flair, great teamwork, and defensive solidity hasn't yet be matched in the competition.

Spain have thus-far managed to break out of their perennial-underachiever tag, but whether they can sustain that in the later parts of the competition remains to be seen. In Torres you have a player who can play the tank-striker role (heading crosses in, etc) or run at defenders and elude them with pace, etc.-- his atheletism is superb and so is the finishing. the supporting cast has been great as well. Fabregas, ever since he came on against tunisia, made two goals, the second assist being a brilliant slide-rule pass of the highest quality . ( okay i'm biased) but seriously who knows what we can expect with david villa, raul, torres, fabregas, etc, xavi alonso, ?

SHAWN'S WORLD-CUP XI

GK: Gianlugi Buffon
DC: Philip Lahm
DC: Carlos Puyol
DC: Fabio Cannavaro
ML: Bastian Schwansliger
MC: Marcos Senna
MC: Juan Roman Riquelme
MR: David Beckham
AMC: Kaka
FC: Fernando Torres
FC: Javier Saviola