1: This World Cup is unlikely to be recalled fondly at Old Trafford. Rio Ferdinand and Nani were injured on the eve of the tournament, Owen Hargreaves and Wes Brown had already been ruled out by injury, the countries of Darren Fletcher, Antonio Valencia and Dimitar Berbatov did not qualify, Wayne Rooney has been poor, Michael Carrick one of three outfield players in the England squad yet to get on the pitch, Nemanja Vidic argued with the referee after Serbia were eliminated by defeat to Australia and Patrice Evra, as France captain, helped to oversee perhaps the most calamitous campaigns in World Cup history. Oh, and three plays let go by Manchester United have scored – Diego Forlan, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gabriel Heinze. At least Park Ji Sung has played well for South Korea.
3: The group phase finishes today, to the relief of some ITV commentators. With Germany leading Ghana 1-0 five minutes from time and, in the simultaneous match, Serbia trailing Australia 2-1, viewers of the latter game were told “Serbia need to win to go through” when they only required a draw. Yesterday, with Slovakia leading Italy, those watching the goalless Paraguay v New Zealand match heard that a New Zealand goal “would not be enough”, except that a goal would have taken them through to the next round. If the goal difference system is fooling commentators, how did they cope with the far more complicated goal average format, which applied in England until the mid-1970s?
3: The departure of Serbia and the 6ft 8in Nikola Zigic means England have the tallest and shortest players left at the World Cup: Peter Crouch, 6ft 7in, and Aaron Lennon, 5ft 5in.
4: Ghana must have the defence with the highest IQ, given their centre-back pairing is Mensah and Mensah.