It's better to be lucky than good

And if you can be both, the rest of the world might be in for a bit of a shock. A stunning first performance out of the blocks from the Spaniards. They undoubtedly had the rub of the green - their first 3 goals came from a fortunate series of deflections from a corner, a freekick which deflected off the wall and a penalty which clearly wasn't - but they also looked very impressive. Excellent and imaginative use of the ball and a drive and commitment which was especially evidenced by their fourth goal - a belter from Torres which featured some really nice build up play from Puyol and Fabregas. They look to have a good deal of strength in depth to, and, as far as one can tell with these things, they also looked to have some considerable team spirit.

Ukraine were unlucky - the goals went against them, they had a man sent off for no reason and everytime they thought they'd beaten the offside trap the linesman took a different view and I think they still stand a pretty good chance of progressing, although I'll be very interested to see how Tunisia fare against them.

It was a veritable feast of mulletdom though a couple for Spain and three or four for the Ukraine - surely 06 will be remembered as one of the great mullet collections ever assembled outside the 80s. Torres even seems to be growing his back - perhaps he remembers how disastrously his form dipped when he shaved it back at Euro 2004...

So, we've seen all the favourites now, and Spain, Italy and Argentina are winning on points so far, but there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip and there's a long way to go yet...I'm off to make a cuppa before settling in for the tie of the round: Saudi Arabia vs Tunisia...