“Football and typography may seem like an unlikely pairing, but they’ve been getting along quite well since a while. In 2006 Dalton Maag claimed the team with the best typography won the World Cup. The type and logo design agency with offices in London, Brazil, and Cairo designed Puma Pace, used for the football shirts of world champions Italy. This year the shirts of the Puma teams again caught the attention of type spotters.” (The FontFeed)

“So, it’s Sunday lunchtime and time for the stout yeomen of Slovakia and Paraguay to enter into battle in The Group (so far) Of Parity. Slovakia need a win more desperately than Paraguay today, having been held by New Zealand in their opening match. They will, of course, finish their group matches against Italy. Paraguay, by contrast, will take on New Zealand in their final match and may well consider that a draw today will be enough to leave them in pole position to qualify for a place in the last sixteen. Curiously, though, Paraguay have chosen to play three forwards this afternoon. Are they going to go for it anyway? It would certainly seem that way. It may be that they already have one eye on the next round of the competition. Winning today could well prove to be the difference between playing the Netherlands and playing Japan or Denmark in the next round. A draw would do them today, but a win would be even better.” (twohundredpercent)

Slovakia 0-2 Paraguay – Video Highlights, Recap, and Match Stats – World Cup – 20 June 2010
“Paraguay looked to move top of the Group F standings as they faced Slovakia who could also do the same with a victory. Either team would be in great position to move onto the next round with a victory. A draw for Slovakia would put them in a tough spot with their final match against Italy.” (The 90th Minute)

“This moment from Point Omega kept coming to me yesterday during the Brazil versus North Korea match. Not only for the suspense that was ‘trying to build,’ but for the curious fact that I was sitting in a white-cubed art gallery, my eyes fixed mainly on the projected match but occasionally straying over to another screen, this one showing Douglas Gordon’s Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, the film, made with Phillipe Pareno, that famously tracked Zidane — and Zidane only — with 17 cameras over the course of a match.” (TNR)

“Dozens of security workers walked off the job hours before the Brazil-North Korea soccer match Tuesday night here, the latest in a series of labor strikes that have challenged organizers of the World Cup in South Africa. With the latest strike at Ellis Park stadium, soccer’s governing body FIFA has now been forced to ask the police to take over security at four World Cup stadiums around the country. The other three stadiums are located in the cities of Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth. Cape Town, Durban and Ellis Park — as well as Soccer City in Johannesburg — had contracted security services to Stallion Security Consortium, the local World Cup organizing committee said.” (WSJ)

“We are now five days into the 2010 World Cup finals and already several key themes are being discussed ad infinitum. The weight of the balls being used and the influence of the vuvuzelas have already been discussed in the media to the point of saturation in the media (none of which is to say that we won’t return to these particular themes over the next couple of days or so), as have the paucity of goals seen so far. What seems to be becoming one recurring theme so far during the 2010 World Cup is a degree of under-achievement on the part of the qualifiers from the UEFA confederation.” (twohundredpercent)

“It was the goal heard around the world on Saturday when England’s net-minder Robert Green let a tame shot by U.S.A.’s Clint Dempsey slip through his hands, sending the game to a 1-1 draw. A day later, Algeria’s keeper Fawzi Chaouchi mishandled a long-range strike from Slovenia’s Robert Koren, costing Algeria the 0-1 match.” (Vanity Fair)