CERRITOS, CA (smt) -- After 16 matches, no team has qualified for the Last 8 yet.  Only two teams (Ireland and Sweden) are eliminated so 14 are vying for 8 spots.  This tournament has been high scoring and entertaining with teams playing beautiful soccer (for the most part-- even England!).  There have only been four games where a team has won by more than one goal and only four teams have failed to score in a single match (i.e., 28 of 32 teams playing have scored a goal in the match, thus no nil-nil ties thus far).

Group A is set up that any of the four teams can not only qualify for the Quarterfinals, but any of the four can WIN the group.  The Czech Republic scored two goals in the first six minutes and rebounded to easily beat Greece, 2-1.  Co-host Poland and Russia played an entertaining match, both on and off (with over 100 arrests during a Russian march to the stadium) the pitch, appropiately ending in a 1-1 draw.

In the Group of Death, Death will have to wait another day as all four teams are still alive, albeit Holland on life support.  Portugal came out strong and scored the first two goals but Denmark stormed back to tie.  But the latest goal of the tourney thus far (87') was scored by Portugal to secure the 3 points.  Germany again won a group match in the last battle of superpowers handling a disarrayed Holland team, 2-1, thanks to the "should he or Klose start" Mario Gomez's two goals, giving him 3.

In Group C, Italy took another early lead and once again allowed its opponent, Croatia, to come back to tie 1-1.  Spain woke up and showed they are still the class of the tournament with a 4-0 rout of Ireland, who are the first team eliminated.  They were led by none other than Fernando Torres who got the start and scored the first of his 2 goals in the 4'.

In Group D, Lightning struck a bunch times and torrential downpour stopped the France-Ukraine match after ten minutes of play.  The 50-minute delay added to the drama and France responded in the second half with two goals in three minutes for a 2-0 win over the co-hosts.  England's Danny Welbeck had one of the goals of the tournament when he took a low cross and twirled backward and back heeled the ball into the net for the game-winner in a wild 3-2 win over Sweden.  The Swedes were trying to become just the second team to trail and win, coming back with 2 goals to take a 2-1 lead but England were playing with a desire not seen in the France game and scored the last two goals.

Walleye has taken a 4-point lead (24) and incredibly has more wins (12) than non-tied matches (11) thus far.  Kona Coast Sliders and The Mighty Mobelfakta are tied for 2nd (20).  V2 Divorce Court! is in dead last with just 8 points. Absolutely Clueless (18) is currently on a 6-game win streak (longest of the tourney) and went 7-1 to go from a tie for 30th to a tie for 4th. Sisyphus13 (12) went 1-7 to go from a tie for 3rd to a tie for 32nd.

While no team has qualified for the next round, two teams are out.  Four had Ireland advancing (3 to the semis) while 14 had Sweden advancing.  V2 Wedding Bells!!! (32nd-T, 12) is the only person to lose both Ireland and Sweden in their bracket.  With 14 teams in the running, the permutations are large in determining which team will win the group or advance to the Last 8.

Work has been crazy (even a 2 a.m. workday) so I haven't gotten off early enough to stop by the post office.  Since on one has complained about not being in the pool, it is very unlikely I got a mailed entry but won't know until tomorrow (hopefully).  I do hope to get some checks though!  I'll save the money breakdown for after the group stage, maybe during the first rest day.

Don't forget to read Albert Perez's column "A to the Z SPORTS!" and Eric Foster's "Foster's Football Brew".  So enjoy them and please +1/Like/Share/Tweet anything and everything on our blog or Facebook page.  You can join in discussions by commenting on any post on the blog or Facebook page. 

    SIDES 'N KICKS:  ENG's Joe Hart saved a ball into teammate Glen Johnson which deflected into the goal for the tourney's first own goal... no team who has lost its first two matches (EURO) have ended up advancing (NED will try to be the first)... since the first match (2 reds, 1 PK), there have been no red cards and no penalty kicks given ... for some reason, UEFA listed the SWE-ENG match as #15 and UKR-FRA as #16 despite the latter game starting first... V2 Wedding Bells!!! followed up a 7-game losing streak with a 4-game winning streak (snapped with ENG's win)... when scoring the first goal, teams are 10-1-5 (0 nil-nil draws)... when leading at the half, teams are 8-0-3 (5 scoreless at the half)... total goals: 46 (4 shutouts, zero 0-0 ties), 2.87 per match... Blogs/Facebook/Twitter are the discussion points these days (if you don't do social media, comment on our Blog!)... being new to Twitter, I think this is the process for updates -- twitter for mini-updates which post to Hwci WorldCup's Facebook page and on twitter at #hwcieuro; the blog for notable updates through this rss feed; then this newsletter for bi-weekly updates...