Whose World? What Cup? (Day 06)

Tonight's entertainment starred Chile and Honduras. Most people would bill this as a clash between two South American sides, if you had to choose continents. I think of the Republic of Honduras (formerly Spanish Honduras) as a North American country, however. This is because anything north of the Panama Canal (and including Panama itself) should be considered 'North America' — after all, that's where they cut through the narrow umbilical that connects the huge mass of South America to its northern counterpart.

The capital of Honduras (which means 'depths' in Spanish) has that lovely name Tegucigalpa, which sounds Mayan to me, and which I've always thought was pronounced 'de Gucci gal pa'. But who knows what the Spanish have done with that?

Meanwhile, the capital of Chile is Santiago, which is Spanish for 'St James'. It's also the battle-cry of the Reconquista, in full, "Santiago y cierra España!" — "St James and strike for Spain!" Yes, St James, one of the legendary sons of Thunder, is indeed the patron saint of Spain.

Scoreline: 1-0, "Santiago!" Yet another entertainment-with-low-score episode. I hope Spain, playing in 15 minutes' time, is a lot better.

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Haha. The disciples of Zwingli beat the hidalgos 1-0 after a terrible goalmouth scramble. Spain were interesting but not good. All the possession, but not self-possession enough to either stop the Swiss machine on its rare attacks or break their defence, which was traditionally resolute. Oh well. "Santiago!" It will be silly but normal if we don't see Spain in the grand final.

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And on a third Hispanophile note, Uruguay 1-0 so far against South Africa? Two endlessly-running sides separated by one Forlan's distant strike of beauty. Ah, the beautiful game...