For many people the real world cup starts here. There can be no more teams trying to avoid losing by too many goals to guarantee a qualifying slot or teams playing meaningless matches. Now it is win or go home.

Friday – The Last Group Matches

Friday saw the last of the group matches and today the knock out games start. Brazil and Portugal qualified from group G as expected. The match between these two teams was expected to be one of the best matches of the group stages and one that all fans were looking forward to as soon as the draw was made. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bad tempered match with very little entertaining football played by either team. The match that promised so much ended up as a dull goalless draw.

The other match in the group seems to have been a lot more entertaining with Ivory Coast beating North Korea 3-0. Despite that victory Ivory Coast still finished a point behind Portugal and yet another African team left the tournament. It is a real shame that despite teams like France and Italy being knocked out so many of the African teams have failed to progress in the African world cup. Of the African nations only Ghana has progressed to the last 16.

In Friday’s evening games Spain beat Chile with David Villa scoring an incredible goal after the Chilean goalkeeper felt the need to sprint 30 yards from his goal to make a tackle. Despite making the original tackle the ball broke to Villa and he scored. The match finished 2-1 which meant Spain won the group and Chile went through in second place.

Somehow Switzerland failed to beat Honduras in the second match despite Honduras having lost their previous two matches and a win being enough to put Switzerland in contention for second place in the group. The match finished goalless.

Knock Out Matches

After having had three or four games a day since the competition started we now only have two each match day for the next 4 days before we have the first free day. Teams are no longer playing for points. Now it is winner takes all and as we are in the knock out stages any drawn game goes to 30 minutes extra time split into two 15 minutes periods. If the match is still drawn at that stage it goes to penalties. Each team takes 5 penalty kicks and if the match is still even we go to sudden death. In that situation the teams take one penalty each and if they both score or both fail to score the sudden death is repeated until we have a winner. This means we cannot have a match ending 70-68 on penalties but we could have 70-69.

Today's Matches

The first match is between Uruguay who won group A and South Korea who were second in group B. Most people expected France to be involved in this match but because they imploded and finished dead last Uruguay made it through. It will be interesting to see how far these teams go but even in a world cup with as many shocks as this one it is hard to see either of them going a lot further. I guess I have to predict a result so I am hopeful of a decent game so I will say 2-1 to Uruguay.

The second match is USA who won Group C which England were expected to win against Ghana who finished second to Germany in Group D. Ghana are the only African team left in the tournament and despite them only beating Australia to the qualifying slot on goal difference I will predict a victory for them. USA clearly impressed former president Bill Clinton who has extended his stay in South Africa to watch them. Despite his presence I expect Ghana to win 3-2.

There will no doubt be the odd team who decide they can’t compete with their opponent so they will defend for the whole match in the hope of scoring with a breakaway or winning on penalties. But in most cases teams will try to go out and win the game because while it is possible to sit and defend for one game it would be impossible to do it for the four games necessary to win the championship and there are teams now who will look at France and Italy being knocked out and other major countries like England not playing well and will now fancy their chances of causing a shock a lot more than they did at the start of the tournament.

Eventual Tournament Winner

Based on the matches so far I think the eventual winner of the tournament can only be one of four countries. Spain and Brazil were the pre-tournament favourites and have done enough to justify that position. The other two potential winners are Argentina and Germany. If I was going to pick only on what I have seen so far I would probably go for Argentina however history suggests another winner. Only one country in history has won the world cup in a continent other than its own and they have done it twice. Brazil won in Sweden in 1958 and in 2002 won the tournament jointly hosted by Japan and South Korea. So if history is to hold sway the winners have to either be Brazil or Ghana.

I grew up watching Brazil playing football the way we all wish it was played all the time. They invented the concept of the beautiful game. I always find it hard to go against Brazil and even though this is the least Brazilian Brazil team I think I have to stick with them to win the tournament.

As ever if you want to disagree with any of this please let us know in the comments. Or you can just say I am wonderful if you like.

As the 2010 World Cup enters its second day of exciting pitch action, we're busy swatting up on the rules and regulations surrounding that mysterious game, known simply as football.

If you manage to tune out the background drone of the invisible wasp, that is the excitable home fans clueless about how to showcase their own country to the rest of the world, this soccer business can be a lot of fun.

On to the Grass

Today is the turn of the country hoping to host F1's newest Grand Prix, South Korea. They're taking on a country that one-day has designs on accommodating its own Grand Prix, but likely has less backing than Simon Gillett.

Argentina will play Nigeria later today, and while the former have a long history with Formula 1, going right back to the legend that was Juan Manuel Fangio, I can't think of a single connection between F1 and Nigeria.

The final game of the day is an easy one for any racing fan to understand, as England take on the USA. Here's hoping that this time around the team from across the Atlantic manage to make the opening round of the championship.

Today's 66-man lineup looks something like this:

• South Korea vs. Greece - 12:30 (GMT+1)
• Argentina vs. Nigeria - 15:00 (GMT+1)
• England vs. USA - 19:30 (GMT+1)

Regardless of whether you think you're interested in football, please come join us in the comments for a look at the game through the eyes of some clueless motor sport fans. We don't claim to be experts, but we do have more enthusiasm for what we're watching than certain people paid good money by the BBC to be enthusiastic about what we're watching.

Goal!

Back in March, before the season got going and our Fantasy Racers league was in its infancy, we were curious about who was signing up. In fact, we took the user by country stats, knocked up a quick graph and commented on the results.

At the time, the competition was dominated by the USA, followed closely by the UK, with Canada in third place. The components of the United Kingdom and Australia made up the rest of the notable figures. Keeping that in mind, does this look about right?

We promised to return to the statistics at the end of the season, and we do try and keep to our word in a timely fashion. The above graph is the updated version, with everyone who had signed up by the end of the season. Surprisingly, it looks exactly the same as the previous one. USA, UK and Canada are still leading the way in terms of Fantasy players, and once again, we have to give a call out to Bernie.

How can you not want a race in the US? How can you not want to fight for the Canadian Grand Prix? The numbers don't lie.

There are a few more notable countries than there were oh so many months ago, with Mexico getting a real boost. What happened there? Also, as I noted last time, where do the people who put 'none' actually live? Is the F1 coverage any good there or do they have to spend their time scouring Justin TV?

Joking aside, it seems preposterous that we can whip up a simple graph and take stock like this, whilst the powers that be either can't use spreadsheets, or won't pay attention to the results.

It appears to be tradition in America to do things bigger and better than anyone else. Except apparently in the case of Petit le Mans, which by all accounts is a shorter and less important version of the race from which it takes it's name.

Road Atlanta is our destination for the next 10 hours, as not for the first time this year Sidepodcast follows the escapades of but one man.

Yeah, I know it's not Formula One, but frankly when it comes to a certain Montagny exceptions have to be made.

Being clueless about this sort of thing, here are a couple of facts I've managed to blag from Wikipedia.

• The race uses the rules established for the 24 hours of Le Mans.
• The rules have been slightly modified, mainly to allow additional cars to compete.
• The race covers a maximum of 1,000 miles (approximately 394 laps), or a maximum of 10 hours, whichever comes first.
• In its history the leading team has never failed to complete 1000 miles.
• Last year's LMP1 winners were Allan McNish and Rinaldo Capello in their Audi R10 TDI
• Last year after 1,000 miles the race was won by less than a second.
• Franck has qualified in 7th position.

The race starts at 11:15am local time, which should be 4:15pm here in the UK. We'll be watching the action on TVU Networks. If you're around please do let us know. No doubt you're far more clued up than we are, and we could use the insight.

I absolutely have to re-post this video vee8 dug up earlier today.

It's a video from Speed TV featuring F1 commentator Steve Matchett doing a chalk board session, which from what I can tell he does quite often. We don't usually get to see this sort of thing in the UK and we're really missing a trick here.

If this series is news to you, and if you're just a tiny bit interested in the technical side of F1, I heartily recommend taking a look:

It strikes me that as well as being informative and entertaining, it's a pretty damn simple programme to create. The perfect fit for a video podcast you might suggest.

The question is, can we get away with stealing the idea, or do you think someone will notice?

Damnit, back to the chalk board then.

Earlier this week a brand new podcast client arrived on the scene. Created by Microsoft in response to Apple's iTunes software, the Zune Marketplace means that owners of Zune devices now have an easy way to manage their favourite podcasts.

By all accounts this latest generation of software is a major step forward from the aborted first release. This time around users not only get a podcast solution, but the devices now support m4a and m4v file formats (essentially the two formats we use at Sidepodcast).

The first thing to note is that just like the original device, the Zune is limited to retail outlets within North America. I've no idea if there's a plan to expand the sales reach any time soon, so for the moment we are zune-less. Luckily there's no such restrictions on the software, so it was duly downloaded.

According to Microsoft, the initial directory listing would contain just 1,000 podcasts. So I was initially surprised to find both our audio and video shows listed. F1 Minute was missing, but looking at the details it would appear that the list was created some time before the show existed. All is not lost though, it's easy to add missing podcasts, which we did.

The next thing we tried to do was subscribe to something from the directory, and this is where the system fell to pieces. For reasons unspecified, users must have a Zune account to subscribe to anything in the directory and nobody outside of the United States is eligible for one. Which leaves us a bit stuck.

Presumably the theory behind this is, users would have no use for the software without the device, but as a stand alone client it seems like a pretty decent piece of software. Shame.

However, not to be beaten, it is still possible to add your own feeds manually. A simple process but one that is ultimately an unnecessary distraction.

All said, if you live within the US, and fancy an alternate podcasting eco-system, this one's worth checking out.

This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.

The track temperature for the entire US Grand Prix weekend bordered around 50 degrees C, and many of the drivers commented on how hot it was.

Robert Kubica was unfortunately not able to race. He was perfectly fit and healthy after his 180 mph accident the previous weekend, but the medics decided that it wasn’t a good idea to risk a second accident and tempt any serious injuries. This meant a Formula 1 debut for young German driver Sebastian Vettel. At just 19 years old, the driver was called up on the Thursday and pretty much thrown in at the deep end.

The McLaren’s still looked as though they held pace over the Ferrari’s and took the top two spots in qualifying. All the potential and rumoured animosity between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton rested on the first corner.

It was close. Alonso desperately wanted to get past his team mate, and they could so easily have collided, but common sense took precedence over pride. Alonso settled for second place going through the first corner.

Traffic seemed to be a real problem around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, mostly because the circuit is so fast that it is very difficult to find overtaking spots. Having said that, Giancarlo Fisichella in the Renault had suffered a spin on the first lap and found himself having to make up places through the race. He was on top form, overtaking cars all over the place.

Takuma Sato retired from the race, but before he did so, he was investigated by stewards for overtaking under yellow flags. They decided that he had done so and penalised him with a ten place drop in qualifying position for the next race. This is quite a blow for the Super Aguri which will basically put it right at the back – unless he can pull an amazing performance out in France.

The battle between Alonso and Hamilton continued throughout the pit stops, and despite feeling that he was the faster car, Alonso was stuck behind his team mate for the majority of the race. During one pass of the pit wall, Alonso swerved towards his team, and it has been suggested that he was trying to show the bosses his frustration at being held up. Alonso claims that he was just trying to get some clear air. Hamilton held out for the win, and on the podium, second place Alonso made sure that they were arm in arm – a show of solidarity. But it definitely looks like there is more to this than meets the eye.

On the 2nd leg of the North American double-header, F1 heads South to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Christine takes a look at the winding, sprawling track that represents the US Grand Prix. Featuring the only banked track in modern Formula 1, marvel at how the designers managed to make a meal of the layout by creating a "Mickey Mouse" infield section, used only to extend the length of the racing lap.

Music played: Kick in the Can, Again

Music comes from music.podshow.com, with special thanks going to Allianz SE, Brembo, ING Group and Toyota Motorsports GmbH, for the use of their video footage.