Looks Of Horror, Fred And Diving Italians

There it is, folks. The highlight of the World Cup. The reaction of the man in the background — one of Japan’s assistant coaches, I assume — after a striker missed a wide open net is by far the best thing to happen so far in the entertaining tournament. And, naturally, there’s video:

After the jump, a few more World Cup notes if you’re so inclined.

• Did you know that all 64 matches are in HD on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2?

• That’s not the only thing that’s being run into the ground, though. Yesterday, at about 9:10 a.m., during the Croatia-Japan match, ABC ran some highlights of Saturday’s U.S. game. Then the network began telling us that the United States plays at 9:55 a.m. on ESPN2 on Thursday. And it’s in HD, too! (They’d repeat this a billion times, too, of course.) If you’re watching Croatia-Japan at 9:10 a.m. on a Sunday morning in America, you (1) know when the next U.S. game is and (2) you most certainly saw the U.S. match the day before.

• A Brazilian player who goes by the name of Fred — just Fred! — scored yesterday in his team’s 2-0 win over Australia. Since Ronaldihno means “Little Ronaldo” (or something like that), could we one day see Fredihno on the pitch?

• The Daily News has a daily cringe-inducing feature called High & Inside, which is supposed to be short, quick, funny riffs about sports. (I guess.) Today, the anniversary of the death of Len Bias is noted. Comedy indeed!

Right after that Bias item, there’s this:

Stop the whining

We caught our first World Cup game on television yesterday, watching Brazil shut out Australia. Just one observation that has bugged us about soccer for a while: Why is it players in that sport have to writhe in pain nearly every time they hit the ground? They are wonderful athletes, and fun to watch. But, come on.

While this has already been written by every single person who’s even seen a soccer match, I agree — Did you see Italy? — but that’s not really the point. Could you imagine any other sport written about this way in the paper? “We caught our first NASCAR race yesterday, and why do they only turn left? How annoying!”

• Speaking of diving, though: Freakin’ Italian team. Seriously.