A name to conjure with.

And we have some results:
Brazil 1 Belgium 0
Italy 3 Honduras 0
Australia 1 Serbia 1
USA 1 Japan 0

The BBc seem to have completely ignored the Aus v Ser & USA v Jap games, when did they happen?

Edit: ah, found them, it's website isn't very informative.

They seem to have ended about noon your time.

The others have now finished:

Argentina 2 Ivory Coast 1
China 1 New Zealand 1
Cameroon 1 South Korea 1
Netherlands 0 Nigeria 0

Belgium went down to nine men, by all accounts*.

* an account.

Yeah, the reports I've read are not very kind to Brazil.

Argentina also seem to have fallen into the Barca-like of standing around to watch what Messi might be able to do.

Dong Fanzhou scored for China. I'd almost forgotten he existed you know.

Jimmy Bignutz wrote:

QUOTE:
Belgium went down to nine men, by all accounts*.

* an account.

There appeared to be two bookings in the first 90 seconds in that game and my colleague who watched the highlights said both sendings-off were down to dives by Brazilians.

I hadn't realised that the k/o times and simultaneous games are going to make (the early part at least) of this tournament a bugger to follow.

I presume Belgium were wearing a cheapish-looking Adidas version of their usual Nike kit without their federation's badge due to adidas exclusively supplying their whole Olympic team?

Football in the Olympics doesn't look anywhere near Olympicky enough. All players should wear numbers on the front like the atheletes do. I'd be far happier then.

Mentioned this in the Olympics thread in Sport: an American-born player scored a goal today. He wasn't playing for the US, though--Guiseppe Rossi, scoring for Italy. The US goal came from Stuart Holden, who was born in Scotland.

Serbia dominated for much of the game against Australia, the "olyroos" seemingly relying on long balls from midfield to Archie Thompson, or long throw-ins into the box for their main attacking options. Australia somehow took the lead in the 69th minute through Ruben Zadkovich in a rare all-out attack.

Rajkovic headed home a corner in the 79th minute to equalise for Serbia. The Serbs had won 14 corners to Australia's 1 in the course of the match; and they had 14 shots at goal to Australia's 5 or 6. Both sides hit the woodwork once, and I think the yellow card count was 3 to Australia and 1 to Serbia.

With Argentina beating Ivory Coast 2-1, this particular "group of death" looks like it might by close!

Has anyone heard an explanation of why all of the groups are playing matches on the same day? It's unfortunate that there aren't any matches until Sunday, and doesn't seem to be in any way mandated by stadium or rest considerations.

The Oly-Whites (yes, really) were just 2 minutes away from the greatest result in the history of New Zealand football. Getting a draw with China was still one of the greatest results in the history of NZ football. This tells you all you need to know about the history of NZ football.

The game was stuck out on DigiSatNet Channel 26 or whatever it is. The main terrestrial channel had the rights, but didn't bother with the game. This also tells you (etc ...).

Incidentally, NZ's women (the Football Ferns - no, the names don't get any better) qualified for Beijing by playing one game, against Papua New Guinea I think. Thanks to the Asian-Australians.

Fantastic result for the Kiwis.... almost as good as THE greatest result in NZ football history when they defeated China 2-1 to qualify for the World Cup finals in 1982!

SBS are covering their game against Brazil on Sunday; I think I might watch it, as I've got a feeling that channel 7 might stuff up their coverage of Australia vs Argentina by constantly cutting to swimming, diving, tiddleywinks or whatever else is on that Australians are supposed to be more interested in....

Brazil are playing with New Zealand with Ronaldinho doing his trademark tricks before standing still for 5 minutes catching his breath.

He has the skills but is still badly unfit.

FSC on the kit question raised earlier.

"Brazil's players complained on Saturday after being told they would play the rest of the Olympic games without their traditional badge on their shirts.

The badge, which consists of five stars representing the five World Cups won by Brazil above the letters CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation), has been removed because it contravenes Olympic policy, officials said.

Some critics said their official shirts with the five stars representing their five World Cup wins and the logo of their sponsors Nike went against the amateur spirit of the games. Teams are not permitted to wear national football federation badges."

Up 2-1 on the Dutch in injury time, Stuart Holden commits the stupidest of stupid fouls, and from the ensuing freekick Gerald Sibon goes UNDER the damn wall for the draw. Now we get to play Nigeria with no Freddy and no Michael Bradley. Argh.

Messi didn't quite get things his own way against Australia...

Graham Arnold must be the most unpopular coach in the history of Australian football. He has taken to China an olympic squad of varying abilities, weakened by some shock omissions, and has got them playing an even less inspiring brand of football than most people thought possible. They look like an olympic version of Perth Glory.

But despite all this, and despite looking totally outplayed for most of the game, the "olyroos" might have sneaked a point out of this match. Argentina didn't break the deadlock until the 76th minute, when Lavezzi scored... and they seemed happy with that for the rest of the game.

With Ivory Coast beating Serbia 4-2, Australia has to beat them by more than two goals in the final match, and hope that Serbia don't beat Argentina, to stand a chance of progressing to the quarters.