Your World Cup update

We are out of the group phase and into the knockout stage of the World Cup. Going into the knockout phase there were 16 teams left (which is why this stage of the tournament is known as the "Round of 16").

There have already been some games played: yesterday Uruguay knocked out South Korea, and Ghana took down the United States. And this morning Germany beat England, but the game was not without controversy. England was down 2-1 when one of their shots hit the crossbar and fell down in the net before bouncing back out. In replays and pictures you can clearly see that the ball is in, but the ref didn't see it and the goal didn't count.



Germany went on to win the game 4-1.

An interesting historical note: in 1966 England was playing Germany in the World Cup final and scored a goal on a similar play (the ball hit the crossbar, dropped and bounced out). That goal, however, didn't actually go in and should not have counted. England fans have felt that their international efforts in soccer have been cursed ever since, so maybe the silver lining here for them is that the debt has been repaid and the soccer gods appeased.

The other game going on today is between Mexico and Argentina. The game is almost over and Argentina leads 3-1. Controversy here as well: the first Argentinian goal should not have counted because their player was clearly offside.

Argentina celebrates a goal.

These 2 major blunders today (along with some other fairly atrocious calls in this tournament) have a lot of people screaming out for video replay to be used to judge the games. Now you're prepped for the water cooler discussion tomorrow morning!