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06/21/2010 - Polokwane, South Africa (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Greece was impressive in the final 57 minutes of its victory over Nigeria, scoring twice to overturn a deficit in its first-ever FIFA World Cup victory.
Dimitris Salpigidis notched Greece's first-ever World Cup goal, then Vasileios Torosidis added the match-winner, but both came after Nigeria's Sani Kaita was foolishly sent off.
Greece put itself in position to escape Group B, but entering its last game of the stage on Tuesday against Argentina at Peter Mokaba Stadium, will need some more luck to survive.
Argentina has been one of the most impressive teams in the tournament and sits atop the group after wins over Nigeria, 1-0, and South Korea, 4-1. Argentina only needs a draw to secure a spot in the knockout stage.
Even with three points from the surprising win over Nigeria, Greece could exit the World Cup without the right result against Argentina. South Korea also has three points from its 2-0 win over Greece, and Nigeria remains alive as well.
"Argentina are world-class, they're clearly better than us," Greece coach Otto Rehhagel said. "We still have a chance, but it'll be very hard.
"We're the underdogs against Argentina, that's for sure, but we'll give it our best shot."
Greece could even fail to advance with an upset win, depending on the result between South Korea and Nigeria on Thursday.
Argentina hasn't officially clinched a knockout-round berth, but would have to lose by a large margin to Greece and have South Korea win big over Nigeria for its World Cup to end after the group stage.
Coach Diego Maradona was under pressure in qualifying, as Argentina failed to secure a spot in the World Cup until the final matchday in South America, but after two games, appears to have his side in line to challenge for their first title since he led the team to its last crown as a player in 1986.
Gabriel Heinze scored six minutes into the opening win over Nigeria, and after an early own goal against South Korea, Gonzalo Higuain bagged the first - and only - hat trick of the tournament so far with a lot of help from Lio Messi.
"We're happy because we played a great game in every way: we played good football, we created chances and we were clinical in front of goal," Higuain said after the South Korea match. "We were deserved winners and we need to continue in this vein.
"We're convinced that we're capable of having a great World Cup."
<< Line of Scrimmage: How high is the sky for Redskins?
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Two years ago, an NFL team coming off a
4-12 season made banner headlines by dealing for a highly-decorated veteran
quarterback who was expected to return that franchise to glory.
The same team beefed up t
<< Winless Nigeria aiming to stay alive vs. S. Korea
Durban, South Africa (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - There aren't many teams that can
afford to lose the first two games at a World Cup and still have a chance at
advancing to the next round.
But that is exactly the situation for Nigeria when
<< Argentina patiently waiting its turn
Toronto, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Behind a devastatingly skilled attack and
coached by a personality to match, it is a bit of a mystery as to how Argentina
has faded into the peripherals of South Africa.
Despite having won both its matches
<< This Week in Golf - June 24th through June 27th
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River Highlands, Cromwell, Connecticut - The first post U.S. Open tournament
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the week afte
Milwaukee Bucks 2010 Draft Preview >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Bucks hit a home run with the 10th overall pick in
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Jennings teamed with the improving Andrew Bogut and veteran John Salmons to
get Milwaukee over the hum
Minnesota Timberwolves 2010 Draft Preview >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - You name it and the Minnesota Timberwolves likely need it.
Kurt Rambis' Wolves are among the very worst in the NBA at both ends of the
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developmental point
New Jersey Nets 2010 Draft Preview >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - After a disastrous 12-win season the New Jersey Nets have
undergone a makeover, starting with billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov and
new head coach Avery Johnson.
Prokhorov is hell-bent on turning around this thing quickl
Missouri State's Martin gets extension >>
Springfield, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Missouri State has extended the contract
of men's head basketball coach Cuonzo Martin.
The deal was approved by the University Board of Governors on Friday.
Martin will earn a base salary of $140,000
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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