Round of 16, Australia v Italy, Kaiserslautern

Not much to say. We are a group of very sad, disillusioned little Aussies. All the interesting teams have gone, to a lot of dodgy decisions. Leaving six previous winners, and two other European teams, one of whom have so many cards they will be lucky to be able to field a team if they make it to the semis.

Football is always sold as better than other sports because of the surprise element: the favourite does not always win. And there have been studies done which support that football is ‘more exciting’ than baseball, gridiron etc. But fifa have killed that idea.

But the locals were for australia, which was nice. especially the breakfast manager at our hotel who pulled faces behind the italians' backs.