France and Belgium advance

France and Belgium advanced today, eliminating the only two South American teams left in the tournament: Uruguay and Brazil. In the France-Uruguay match, a nice gesture by Griezmann was that he did not celebrate his goal against Uruguay because, according to himself, he feels "half-Uruguayan". The Belgians did not have similar gestures with Brazil.

Griezmann arriving at the game today in full Uruguayan attire

In our competition, LucasA is 1st, Papa Patrick is 2nd, and pcasal3 and Will and Carlos (TCW) are tied in the 3rd place. The complete standings are here.

Sweden and England

In the first of today's games Sweden played against Switzerland. None of these teams ought to be in the World Cup at this stage, so it was efficient to have a game to eliminate at least one of them. Today it was Switzerland's turn. The game was played in St. Petersburg and, therefore, it was one of those games on which Achilles customarily makes predictions. Today he was mistaken again and Cabeça de Macaco was briefly amused by this turn of events... but only until he found out that in the second game England defeated Colombia in the penalties. Terrible news for our beloved monkey mascot, who had predicted that Colombia would win the World Cup!

A notable event in the Colombia-England game was the penalty awarded to Kane after what looked more like an offensive foul commited by himself. In any case, Kane is now the top scorer in the World Cup with 6 goals.

In today's standings, LucasA is 1st, Papa Patrick 2nd, and Will and Carlos (TCW) 3rd. A Man Like Trump is just one point behind, on the 4th place. The complete standings are here.

Brazil and Belgium

After yesterday's two boring games, today we reverted to more exciting games. In the Brazil-Mexico game, Neymar's decision to remove the food from his head seems to have made him a better player and he participated in both of his team's goals.

Neymar is the person with the lowest threshold for pain in the world.

In the other game, Belgium managed to turn around the match and ended up winning 3-2 against a very inspired Japanese team.

The top-3 in our standings are the same as yesterday: LucasA, Papa Patrick, and Helena Perrone. Also, take a look at the complete standings.

Penalties

In the first of today's two tedious games, Spain tried to bore the Russian team into defeat by endlessly passing the ball back and forth without ever getting near the goal. The Russians valiantly resisted by doing absolutely nothing until the penalty shootout finally put a stop the whole thing. The next game, Croatia-Denmark was more or less the same, although the many catches of penalty shots by the goalkeepers provided some excitement.

In today's standings, LucasA is 1st, Papa Patrick is 2nd, and Helena Perrone is 3rd. For the rest, check the complete standings.

The 2nd round begins

The two games today were highly interesting right until the end. Argentina and France both played their best games in the tournament so far (this was actually not that difficult to achieve) and France ended up advancing to the next round. In the other game, Uruguay beat Portugal with an excellent performance by Cavani, who scored two goals before leaving the field because of an injury. France and Uruguay will face each other in the quarterfinals next Friday. Because their teams were eliminated, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have by now played their last match in the tournament and lost their chance to be the top goal scorers.

Since Cristiano wasn't scoring any goals today he tried his luck at making faces at the referee to make him laugh

In our competition, LucasA is currently 1st, Papa Patrick 2nd, and Helena Perrone 3rd. The updated complete standings are conveniently compiled for your viewing here.

Last day of the first stage

There were no major surprises in the games that were played today. But there were changes at the top of our classification table. Papa Patrick, who had been leading the standings since June 17th, dropped to the 4th position. LucasA is now 1st, Micaela and Will and Carlos (TCW) 2nd. What about the rest of you? Check for yourself by looking at the complete standings here.

There are no matches scheduled for tomorrow. To get over this absence, you may want to fill your day by reading some of the old newsletters:

2006 BOLÃO NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

• Newsletter #1
• Newsletter #2
• Newsletter #3
• Newsletter #4
• Newsletter #5
• Newsletter #6
• Newsletter #7
• Newsletter #8
• Newsletter #9
• Newsletter #10
• Newsletter #11
• Newsletter #12
• Newsletter #13
• Newsletter #14
• Newsletter Bonus Edition
• Newsletter Season Finale

2010 BOLÃO NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

• Newsletter #1
• Newsletter #2
• Newsletter #3

Major surprise

Wow! Germany lost. Who would have expected that?
The answer is Caipi Connie, the only participant who correctly predicted that Germany would lose today. Playing at the same time, Mexico lost 3-0 against Sweden. Mexican players did everything in their power to try to get out of the World Cup and return to Mexico, including scoring an own goal, but it didn't work because the Germans did not do their part.

In the two other games, Brazil won comfortably against Serbia, and Costa Rica and Switzerland tied.

Edson Álvarez scores an own goal. He wants to be back in Mexico by July 1st to be able to vote for Yuawi López in the presidential election.

In our competition, Papa Patrick is 1st, Micaela 2nd, and Federico Sch is 3rd. The complete standings are here.

Achilles strikes out

Groups C and D came to an end today. In group C, Peru put continent-hopping Australia in their place and beat them by 2-0. France and Denmark tied 0-0, making it the first game without goals in the World Cup. In group D, Croatia won against Iceland and Argentina against Nigeria. The win by Argentina was correctly predicted by 107 participants, including Cabeça de Macaco, but not by Achilles the deaf cat, who had so far had 100% accuracy in his World Cup predictions but chose Nigeria this time.

No match for Achilles

As in the last several days, Papa Patrick and Micaela are in the first two positions. Iliana and Will and Carlos (TCW) are tied in the third place. The complete standings are here.

Groups A and B

The last games of Groups A and B were played today. Uruguay beat Russia 3-0 and ended up 1st in Group A. In group B, the end result was uncertain right until the very end. In the game with Morocco, Spain went from being at risk to be eliminated to 1st in the group in a short matter of time. Portugal was 2nd. Cristiano Ronaldo failed to score a penalty shot that could have helped Portugal to be 1st in the group and that would have also put him at the top of the table of top goal scorers.

Cristiano extends his arms and signals that he wants a hug from someone

Papa Patrick, Micaela, and Daniela Moura retain the top three positions. The complete standings are available here.

Last day of second games

Today was the last day of the second-game round. Poland, the favorite in Group H, was eliminated after losing to Colombia. The other notable event was the 6-1 win of England over Panama. Panama, one of the weakest teams in the World Cup, had already lost 3-0 to Belgium but today marked an important event because Panama scored its first goal in a World Cup. Congratulations!

Panama's first goal (ever) in a World Cup

Papa Patrick is 1st, Micaela 2nd, and Helena Perrone 3rd. The complete standings are here.

Three exciting games

The three games today were all very interesting. There were lots of goals in the Belgium - Tunisia (5-2) game and excitement until the end in Mexico - Korea (2-1) and Germany - Sweden (2-1). Germany just barely managed to score a goal in the last minute to keep itself in the World Cup.

"A good kick in the face is the best letter of recommendation" (Swedish proverb)

In the Bolão, Papa Patrick and Micaela are 1st and 2nd (I guess you have heard this before many times by now) and Daniela Moura is now 3rd. Click here for the complete standings.

VAR and penalties

Wins by Brazil, Nigeria, and Switzerland today. The VAR made an appearance in the Brazil - Costa Rica game and denied Neymar a penalty (which should have been awarded according to the time-honored tradition of the dubious penalty rule). The VAR did award a penalty to Iceland in the game against Nigeria... but in Group D they don't like to accept penalty kicks and they usually shoot them out on purpose.

Neymar cannot withstand the strong wind in the penalty area and falls to the ground.

What happened in today's standings? In the top-4 we find exactly the same people as yesterday (Papa Patrick 1st, Micaela 2nd, pcasal3 3rd, Daniela Moura 4th). Where is the rest? Right here.