From our correspondent in South Africa

Reader Armando Tirado sends us these pictures from Johannesburg, during the Brazil Chile.  Apparently he was surprised at the amount of Venezuelan flags or color themed avataras (although in all justice a Venezuelan avatara is not easy to differentiate from an Ecuadoran or Colombian one).

Painted faces to protect the innocent......

This first picture is from a "see you in the Hague" banner, referring to recent leitmotiv launched by Diego Arria hinting at the final destination of Chavez: the International Court of The Hague.  That 50% of the boats seized with drugs in the Atlantic come from Venezuela is not helping his case (UN report).  Armando informs me that that banner was removed after a while, the other banners remaining in place...  You may draw your very own conspiration theory.

The  next one is taken from a banner hanging from the "deluxe" suites, and a very optimist one at that.

Venezuela in Brazil in 2014?  Yeah, right, sure....

And this last one, from Falconianos probably frozen stiff in Johannesburg.  

We shall be looking forwards more pictures from the final games.

An exciting USA Ghana match!

So I relented and I finally watched most of a game.  This afternoon Ghana was playing the USA.  If it was not the greatest soccer around it was still an exciting match, for all the reasons that were missing in, say, the French team games.  That is, both teams put their hearts out, until the very last second of the game, even though the US was visibly exhausted for the prolongation.  Briefly, even though I rooted for the US it was clear that the Ghana team had better control of the situation and deserved to win.  Sorry for the US fans!

And yet, this will be for me a memorable game because it gave us one of those moments when you feel all that is great about soccer-football, all that makes it worth watching it, at least at the World Cup level.

Aerial Goalies

It was the end of the game, the end of the prolongation and the US was trailing 2 to 1.  In the last minutes even the goalie of the US, Howard, abandoned his gate and joined his team in the attack to the Ghana gate.  After all, losing 2 to 1 or 10 to 1 does not make any difference at that level.


And thus we got this stunning image of the two goalies of each team, fighting an aerial battle for the ball.  Awesome!  A spine chilling moment if any!  That is, if you like soccer and understand it, and what was at stake.  Maybe it is becasue I sort of ignored most of this Cup but this moment will be for me the memory of 2010 in South Africa.

France and Italy ignominiously out of the World Cup

From the first set of matches there was a clear indication that there would be a rude battle for the worst team.  People in the know always trusted France to take the un-coveted award, which it did brilliantly.  But the Italians put a good fight for it and deserve clearly the runner up award of worst team of the World Cup, without even the excuses that teams such as North Korea or New Zealand could offer.

Letter from Diego Arria to Hugo Chavez

I have no time to translate this letter but it deserves to be widely published.  In it Diego Arria accuses Chavez of being a criminal and tells him he is waiting for him in the International Tribunal at The Hague, the fitting end to any international thug that supports the FARC, the ETA, attacks and robs its own fellow citizens and so many more crimes again Human Rights.  You have to appreciate and admire the courage of Diego Arria because for less, much less than that, people in Venezuela are today sent to jail. (PS: a translation can be found here)
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Teniente Coronel Hugo Chávez Frías
Presidente de la República
Fuerte Tiuna. Caracas

Presidente Chávez

Nuevamente y por ordenes suyas tropas de asalto del INTI y de la Guardia Nacional arremetieron contra mujeres y hombres trabajadores de una finquita naranjera de mi propiedad de apenas 40 hectáreas totalmente desarrollada con ocho mil matas de naranjas y pastos de corte a donde los había trasladado después que usted personalmente hiciera asaltar y saquear La Carolina y dejara en la calle a estos trabajadores-que a pesar de no ser cubanos deberían merecer de usted una mínima consideración.

Le Monde criticizes the selling out of Venezuela to Cuba, Chavez gets revenge by taking away a minor farm of Diego Arria

The grand tour of Diego Arria has certainly infuriated chavismo.  Among other things Diego Arria, ex ambassador to the UN and ex president of the Security Council was received by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, and got published in Le Monde, the newspaper of record in France.  In this article French readers will find out how Venezuela has become a neo-colony of Cuba, something that readers of this blog have learned long ago.

Santos gets a mandate

A mandate for what exactly might still be the question, but the 9 million plus votes that Santos got yesterday, better than Uribe in 2006, is a dramatic acceptance of Uribe policies and a desire to keep Colombia in the general road of progress and development that it has experienced in the last 8 years.  Not to mention that the 3 million plus votes of Mockus cannot be qualified at all as an anti Uribe vote.  In fact, the anti Uribe fringes who at the last minute called for abstention cannot claim any success since the abstention grew by barely 4 points, easily attributable to a Sunday where 3 World cup games kept more than a few people at home.

Why France lost

I am confirmed in my studied ignorance of the World Cup, if anything by the dismal role that France had in its first two games. Even German star Beckenbauer said that the performance of France was unbecoming of a world cup, that there was no team to speak of. That implies no team spirit, no coordination, no skills, every player in their own little corner.