Villa the great.. Spain v Portugal

Just finished Spain v Portugal in Cape Town and am now in total awe of Spanish football. With Villa in their squad Barcelona will be awesome next season as the guy just amazed me with his skill, athleticism and general bloody awesomeness. Luckily I managed to choose the correct corner for his goal celebration which helped as I wasn't having a good night up till then.

Rather wonderfully though Nikon replaced the bayonet on my 400mm, serviced it during the game and lent me a brand spanking new lens all for free, I reckon that would have set me back £300+ if I got it done in the UK.. Thanks lovely Nikon people, you're bloody great you are!

Anyway I'm not going to write much as I don't have a lot else to say as nothing particularly exciting has happened since coming back from Bloemfontein.. Sleep, shop for food, go to stadium, watch footballing masterclass.. errr.. that's about it, so here's a few pics.

The horror, the horror - Germany vs England

I'll start off by saying I haven't actually watched the replay of last nights game as I haven't been able to face it. I'm also hoping that I'll fall through a worm hole into a parallel universe where we thrashed Germany 4-1, although I'm not hopeful on that one.

The day started with a fairly tense 500km drive from Cradock to Bloemfontein, which as we managed to leave late (the breakfast was a bit too good) was taken at several times the South African speed limit. Our little Toyota Corolla - or Dolly as she will be referred to from now on - is totally gutless so some of the lorry overtaking was hairy to say the least. South Africans are, contrary to what we had heard, really considerate drivers and seemed happy enough to get out of the way as Dolly careered towards them on the wrong side of the road at terminal velocity.

Arriving in Bloemfontein an hour after we wanted to get there, we checked into the media centre choose our positions and tried to find a desk to work at. The media center was packed and bizarrely the only seats left were sat directly next to Mark Lawrenson.. yep him off of the telly. Before long we were joined by Gabby Logan and Harry Rednap too which was a little surreal.

The tension inside the stadium was palpable and for once the English fans were outshone by the opposing fans enthusiasm. The Germans were there to party whereas the English fans looked like they were there to take their driving test.

I won't go into too much detail about the match as you all probably know more than me about it. I didn't see Lampards ball cross the line, I didn't see Rooneys offside but I did see 4 classy German goals and that was a bloody painful experience.

Today was the epic drive back from Bloemfontein to Cape Town - 1000km all in - which was surprisingly painless. South of Bloemfontein is the Karoo which is a massive plain of tedious scrubland which was a fairly dull and seemingly endless drive (see photo below taken mid-Karoo as the madness set in) but this changes into the stunning winelands area as you approach Cape Town and holy crap is that picturesque. If we hadn't been rushing to get back it would have been a landscape photographers wet dream.

*A big thanks to Paul "The Maltese Falcon" Zammit Cutajar for being an excellent co-pilot and road trip companion*

Anyway, here's a few pics that hopefully illustrate the night a little. I won't pain anyone with German goal or celebration pics, I'll save them for another time.. or never.

Road trip - Uruguay v South Korea

So we're back in Port Elizabeth and have just finished covering the slightly damp Uruguay v South Korea 2nd round knockout game.

Arriving in PE this morning the weather was wonderful with blue skies and a warm breeze blowing off the Indian Ocean, surely we wouldn't need our wet weather gear... surely! Luckily I've been bitten by UK weather so many times during sporting events that sense prevailed and I stuffed jacket, trousers and lens covers into a bag. Just before half time I was feeling pretty smug as the heavens opened over the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium and that warm breeze I enjoyed earlier started blowing the rain horizontally at us. It reminded me less of Indian Ocean and more of Wales!

The game was a mixed bag with a couple of great goals by Suarez and a really entertaining Korean attacking display. I felt for the Korean fans at the final whistle as they've been excellent in their support throughout the tournament and that helpless feeling of having your team knocked out is nasty. I only hope we aren't feeling that tomorrow night.

So now that this game is over we're off to a small town called Cradock a few hundred KM's north of PE where we'll crash for the night before heading to Bloemfontein in the morning for *THE MOST IMPORTANT GAME OF FOOTBALL EVER* between Germany and England. Hopefully I'll be able to write some rubbish from there before and after the game and give you a little behind the scenes view of a World Cup classic (hopefully).

Here's some pics of tonight's game in the mean time.

So very tired - Netherlands vs Cameroon

So I've just finished the Netherlands v Cameroon game and I am officially dead on my feet. After the excitement of the England game last night I fought to get to sleep only to be rudely awakened at 6.30am this morning to start the 8hr drive back to Cape Town in time to get to the match.

As Holland were already through and Cameroon already out the game was a bit of a dead rubber so I have to admit to being less than enthusiastic about working it. As soon as we walked into the ground though the atmosphere inside was amazing. The Dutch and the Cameroon fans were here to party and the carnival feel to the ground was something else.

The game itself wasn't particularly great but seeing the sea of fans in Orange dancing and blowing their bloody Vuvuzelas made it a pretty memorable night.

So now I'm off home to bed as I have to get up tomorrow morning and drive the 8hrs back to Port Elizabeth for the first of the 2nd round games.

The great escape - England vs Slovenia

Just a very quick blog tonight as have to get on the road for the mammoth drive back to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth for the Netherlands game tomorrow night.

All I can say is job done, with a relatively confident performance from England. Has to be said I was a bit sweaty in the closing minutes but England defended well and certainly deserved the win.

The one downside of England qualifying second is that I now have to set off on Friday to drive from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth for Uruguay v Korea then to Bloemfontain for England v (probably Germany) and then back to Cape Town for the last 2nd round game, a journey of 2400km in 3 days! Nice.

*Thanks to Shaun and Mark for the company, the driving and the Brandy*

Anyway here's a few pics from tonights game.