RGdot

Author: Reza

  • World Cup 2010 Day 14, A Brief Recap

    Slovakia 3 – 2 Italy
    Robert Vittek (25′ 73′) Kamil Kopunek (89′) Antonio Di Natale (81′) Fabio Quagliarella (90′)

    Italy crashed out of the World Cup making it the second time a reigning champion has gone at the group stage after France suffered the same fate in 2002. Slovakia came into the match having disappointed and hadn’t even managed a handful of shots on goals in their first two matches. Italy’s much criticized aging squad didn’t show much enthusiasm and Marcello Lippi’s choice of giving a first start to Gennaro Gattuso seemed uninspired. Andrea Pirlo however was on the bench and fit for his first action. Wasn’t too long before Slovakia scored when Daniele De Rossi made a bad pass which was taken advantage of. The same Robert Vittek scored again from a corner kick later. By then Pirlo had been on for a few minutes and only at this point one could see some sense of urgency in the Italians. A couple of close misses later Antonio Di Natale got one back and still a draw would have been enough but Kamil Kopunek responded with a goal on his first action of the game. Italy goalkeeper Federico Marchetti perhaps could have done better here. Italy pushed forward and got a well taken one back but it was not enough.

    Paraguay 0-0 New Zealand

    Incredibly New Zealand left the World Cup undefeated finishing the group stage with three ties. They finished this match without a shot on goal but Paraguay were not very dangerous often either. Both Edgar Benitez and Cristian Riveros threatened but little else. It was just enough to keep South America’s undefeated run in South Africa intact.


    Denmark 1-3 Japan
    Jon Dahl Tomasson (81′) Keisuke Honda (17′) Yasuhito Endo (30′) Shinji Okazaki (87′)

    Japan could count themselves as one of the surprises of the group stage as they made it two asian teams in the first knockout round. They beat Denmark with two of the best freekicks of the World Cup. Danish goalie Thomas Sorensen and his whole team surprised to find themselves down 0-2 in that way. Keisuke Honda’s star continued to rise as he did well but the possession statistics, especially earlier in the game, showed that Denmark tried but couldn’t finish. Veteran forward Jon Dahl Tomasson perhaps was entitled to be more frustrated than others as he even missed the penalty. Makoto Hasebe had a slight push on the back of Daniel Agger. The resulting penalty didn’t make it in but the rebound made its way back to Tomasson who was at least thankful to equal the mark set by Poul Nielsen for most goals (52) ever for the Danish national team.

    Cameroon 1 – 2 Holland
    Samuel Eto’o (pen 65′) Robin Van Persie (36′) Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (83′)

    The first Dutch goal was a nicely worked one with moves from one end of the pitch to another involving the goal scorer, Rafael van der Vaart and Dirk Kuyt. Their second was from a Arjen Robben shot which had rebounded off the post. In the middle of the two goals a Geremi freekick was handled by van der Vaart and Eto’o, probably the only real threat for Cameroon, converted the resulting penalty. Arjen Robben’s first appearance and his fitness will be a boost to Holland’s chances in the knockout stage.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 13, A Brief Recap

    England 1-0 Slovenia
    Jermain Defoe (23′)

    The English entered the game needing something out of this last group match, Slovenia were somewhat more comfortable but not at all assured of a place. The English started Jermaine Defoe instead of Emile Heskey and did well. Slovenia were pegged back often and it wasn’t long before the Defoe switch paid off as he scored well from a James Milner cross. Samir Handanovic was busier than David James in goal and while sometimes unconvincing did make a few good saves. Rooney was still having a tough World Cup and while a part of the triumph not a big part of it. Slovenia’s chances at progressing were still alive until the last minute’s events at the other group match between Algeria and USA.

    USA 1-0 Algeria
    Landon Donovan (90′)

    The US were victims of questionable refereeing once again as a Clint Dempsey goal was wrongly called back for offside, otherwise the game was not exactly one sided as the Algerian did threaten somewhat too. As the game was seemingly heading to a 0-0 tie, a result that would not be not be enough for the US, a goal came. In the very last moments of the game Landon Donovan put his leg to the ball which had rebounded off the Algerian goalie. The American had made his way into the penalty box and took advantage to shoot the ball in almost unimpeded. US had somehow finished top of group C and avoided one European giant – Germany – in the second round.

    Germany 1-0 Ghana
    Mesut Ozil (60′)

    Both teams had a good shot at qualifying. The game was open befitting the styles of the teams, coaches Joachim Low and Milan Rajevac both playing to their players’ strength at this World Cup. Ozil in partuicular was doing well for the Germans and tested Ghana goalie, Richard Kingson, more than once and finally managed to beat him as well with a nicely taken shot from the edge of the penalty box. The likes of Kwadwo Asamoah tested German goalie Manuel Neuer as well, mostly on weaker efforts. In the end the loss didn’t matter to the Ghanaians as they got an arguably favorable second round match up vs the US while Germany got to face England.

    Australia 2-1 Serbia
    Tim Cahill (69′) Brett Holman (73′) Marko Pantelic (84′)

    Serbia had given themselves a chance by beating Germany in their previous match. Even Australia had a chance if they could beat Serbia comprehensively and have either Ghana and especially Germany lose comprehensively in their match against each other. Mark Schwarzer stood tall in the Aussie goal for the second game in a row and wasn’t beaten until after the Socceroos had managed their own two goals. Both teams exited the competition at full time and Serbia’s promising and impressive qualification campaign meant nothing, and not for the first time.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 12, A Brief Recap

    Mexico 0-1 Uruguay
    Luis Suarez (43′)

    Fears of a convenient draw, one which would guarantee both teams’ qualification to the first knockout round at the expense of South Africa and France seemed unfounded. Not only the starting 11s seemed offensive but the early exchanges showed intent to play the game. Mexico enjoyed better possession but not better chances. Cuauhtemoc Blanco starting for the first time for Mexico was not an important factor in the game but Giovani Dos Santos was more so and so was goalkeeper Oscar Perez who had a better game than his previous two. Late in the half Luis Suarez, somewhat disappointing so far, received a high ball and headed it to into the net for a half time Uruguay lead. Second half followed similar patterns with the a slight upper hand to Uruguay, Mexico searched but couldn’t find anything. Therefore Mexico consigned themselves to another meeting against Argentina, coming up in the second round.

    France 1-2 South Africa
    Florent Malouda (70′) Bongani Khumalo (20′) Katlego Mphela (37′)

    The turmoil in the France camp had reached epic proportions with players refusing to train, Anelka sent back home and an official apparently resigning. The starting lineup hinted at all that with the likes of Florent Malouda and Patrice Evra on the bench. The game predictably didn’t go well for the French. Not only they conceded a relatively early goal but had Gourcuff sent off for a suspected elbow which replays showed wasn’t necessarily deserving of a card. The South Africans took advantage and scored again before the half. Thierry Henry made his first appearance of the 2010 World Cup and Malouda, a half time change, scored to make 1-2. The score however was not enough for South Africa as they became the first host nation ever to be eliminated in the first round.

    Greece 0-2 Argentina
    Martin Demichelis (77′) Martín Palermo (89′)

    Greece had resurrected their chances after winning their second group game versus Nigeria. Argentina made many perhaps surprising changes in giving starts to Nicolas Otamendi, Diego Milito, and Sergio ‘Kun’ Aguero. Greece adopted a very defensive stance and had Georgios Samaras up on front on his own for most of the game. That didn’t mean that Greece had no chances as the Argentinian defense featuring Nicolas Burdisso and Martin Demichelis remained shaky and vulnerable. How ever it was the Argentinians who commanded the attacking story. Messi threatened often but was equaled by Greece goalie Alexandros Tzorvas every time. It took almost of all the game for the Greek defense to break and it seemed almost inevitable that it would. And so Greece exited the World Cup and Argentina got the full nine points available.

    Nigeria 2-2 South Korea
    Kalu Uche (12′) Yakubu Aiyegbeni (pen 69′) Lee Jung-Soo (38′) Park Chu-Young (49′)

    South Korea had two hard worked games behind them with three points as reward. Nigeria had nothing to show for their disappointing efforts but could somehow escape if they won. Since Greece was perhaps unsurprisingly losing to Argentina three points by Nigeria could have been enough. A defensive lapse allowed the Nigerians to take the lead but the possession statistics was rising for the Asians and they took advantage off of a freekick. A second South Korea goal dampened Nigerian hopes but they did come close to getting their own and were offered a penalty to make up for their many misses. A second African team fell at the first hurdle – handicapped by poor finishing – on this first day of the third and last group matches.

  • ClipboardFusion: Free Alternative Clipboard Manager

    ClipboardFusion is a freeware clipboard utility. I think good and easy ways of managing text copied to the Windows clipboard often leads to a better Windows experience and ClipboardFusion does its part.

    Text Scrubbing is the main feature of the program. In the program’s settings (accessed by right clicking its tray icon) one can set all copies to be ‘scrubbed’ or only those which are copied by clicking the native Windows Ctrl+C twice. Some of the things scrubbing can do is to remove or strip any white space from the beginning of the copied text or remove all HTML code from the copied text. The Text Replace feature automatically replaces character(s) with others in any copied text. For example one can replace all instances of double quotes (“) with single quotes (‘). ClipboardFusion gives the user the option to use hotkeys to enable or disable its features, for example to temporarily disable any text replace rules one can assign a combination of keys to toggle it on or off.

    A more advanced feature is Macros, one can write and test one’s own in the included C# or Visual Basic editor and also assign hotkeys to them. A selection of pre-written macros are also available for download from within the program, these include ‘Convert Text to Upper Case’ and ‘Search For Copied Text using Google.com’ just to name two.

    Another feature concerns colors and images. Copying a HTML color hex value (say #FFFFFF for white) will trigger a small popup in the far right of the system tray with a preview of the color and also its RGB value ((255,255,255) for white). The same applies if an image is copied, in this case a small preview of the image will be shown. One can also set ClipboardFusion to ignore certain programs, when this is done text copied within those specified programs is not operated upon by ClipboardFusion.

    The author also offers, for $24/year, the ClipboardFusion online or ‘on the cloud’ version for sharing clipboards and macros across computers and the ability to pin a clipboard item for repeated use. ClipboardFusion runs on all post 2000 versions of Windows and requires .NET Framework v2.0.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 11, A Brief Recap

    Portugal 7-0 North Korea
    Raul Meireles (29′) Simao (53′) Hugo Almeida (56′) Tiago (60′, 89′) Liedson (81′) Cristiano Ronaldo (87′)

    A Carvalho early header hit the post. Not too long after a Tiago pass opened it for Meireles to score. North Korea were on the brink of losing it in many early exchanges though it wasn’t a total loss. On a day when the Korean were less defensive and less organized – perhaps the rain wasn’t helping – the Portuguese were opportunistic and close to every thing was going in for them. As the match moved on it became more and more like an exhibition match and the Koreans only threatened from wide and rarely at that. The midfield was conceded to the Portuguese more as the game went on as well. So the Portuguese made it almost impossible for Ivory Coast to catch them with the odd chance that the Africans can replicate a similar result to this game when they meet the North Koreans in the last group match.

    Switzerland 0-1 Chile
    Mark Gonzalez (75′)

    Chile continued their offensive, going for goal ways. Switzerland their organized ways too. Referees their inconsistent ways as well. Status quo all around then. Therefore it came as no surprise that Chile came close often, were denied often and Behrami was sent off early (in the 31st minute). Successive semi-breakthroughs by Chile were occasionally interrupted by the Swiss moving forward. Finally and unlike the previous Swiss match, versus Spain, the former Liverpool man Mark Gonzalez managed to score well and his goal was predictably very much not against the run of play. Swiss haven’t done anything to deserve wins (or losses) and should be happy with their three point haul from two matches. Chile on the other hand deserve their six points from two matches if for nothing else than going for the attack.

    Spain 2-0 Honduras
    David Villa (17′, 51′)

    The very early minutes of the game produced possession for Spain and a Torres ball hit the crossbar to emphasis that point. Those first few misses also hinted at another frustrating night for them. On the other end of the pitch Iker Casillas, in the Spain goal, didn’t look very confident the few times times the ball was brought to him. Spain buzzed and swerved around the opposing box for long stretches and finally David Villa cut in towards goal and scored into the middle-far end of the net. Spain nerves were therefore calmed early and more chances flowed. The occasional semi-dirty and play acting continued to rear its ugly head as well. Early second half featured another Villa goal not too unlike his first. A Villa penalty miss – ball was shot to the right and inches wide of the net – came later and was followed with Cesc Fabregas and Juan Mata making their first appearances. In the end little more than three points was achieved and the final score though it could have been more was also another warning that Spain must be less wasteful.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 10, A Brief Recap

    Slovakia 0-2 Paraguay
    Enrique Vera (27′) Cristian Riveros (86′)

    This game should be most remembered for the tame effort by Slovakia, the disappointment of losing the three points at the last minute in their first game against New Zealand must have weighed heavily on the players. Vladimir Weiss, Marek Hamsik, and Robert Vittek very rarely featured and nothing was created by the Slovaks until a solitary shot on goal very late. The Paraguayans were not neccessarily a much superior team but didn’t need to be. Coach Marino was at least the more enterprsing as he gave a start to three forwards in Roque Santa Cruz, Lucas Barrios and Nelson Valdez. The goals were nicely taken and the Slovak goalie, Jan Mucha, was tested on a few additional occasions.

    Italy 1-1 New Zealand
    Vincenzo Iaquinta (pen 29′) Shane Smeltz (7′)

    One of those matches that on the day of the draw, back in December 2009, looked one sided produced something not so much one sided. That is not to say Italy didn’t dominate possession. New Zealand’s first goal came when a freekick took a slight deflection, ricocheted off defender Fabio Cannavaro and in the path of Shane Smeltz. The goal should have been offside if that slight deflection had been seen. Italy took control without being spectacular and were offered a penalty when Daniele De Rossi’s jersey was tugged. Marcelo Lippi made two somewhat early substitutions at half time (Camoranesi for Pepe and Di Natale for Gilardino) to get more movement out of the offense but things didn’t improve enough to take the match in the needed direction. Credit must go to New Zealand goalie and defender, Mark Paston and Ryan Nelson respectively, for doing the job when called on.

    Brazil 3-1 Ivory Coast
    Luis Fabiano (25′, 50′) Elano (62′) Didier Drogba (79′)

    The game started with the Ivorians showing hints of promises but Brazil, in particular defensively in Juan and Lucio, didn’t let them threaten. Minutes later some good passing with Robinho and Kaka involved freed Luis Fabiano to shoot hard into the top of the net. Brazil were working hard, frustrating the Africans and using the flanks well. As the second half started more of the same led to some good ball juggling by Fabiano and he scored again. The quality of the ball control was helped in part by the inept and naive Ivory Coast defense. However replays showed that Fabiano had handled the ball and subsequent replays showed that ref had seen that too! Ivory Coast then brought on Gervinho, who had ceded his starting place to Dider Drogba, and he changed the face of their attack with his speed and skill. This freed Drogba and he seemed to be able to do better. Before that could happen however, Brazil got another when an accurate low cross allowed Elano to tap in the ball. Later on Drogba scored an easy header that left Brazil goalie Julio Cesar stranded. The game ended poorly when Kaka was first shown a yellow for complaining. He then received a second yellow for what looked like an elbow into the face Kader Keita but replays showed that Keita had exaggerated. A Kaka-less – but owners of six full points – Brazil face Portugal in the coming week unless the sure to come yellow card appeal succeeds.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 9, A Brief Recap

    Holland 1-0 Japan
    Wesley Sneijder (53′)

    The first half was fortress Japan as the Asians defended well and didn’t let the Europeans do much at all. The second half necessitated a more open match because Sneijder scored early. He shot hard from the edge of the box, his shot was not properly handled by Japan goalie, Eiji Kawashima, as the ball made its way behind him. Japan tried to break down Holland and came reasonably close on a few occasions. Holland themselves had a few more clear cut chances of their own, especially by substitute Ibrahim Afellay. In the end Holland gained the three points without too much trouble.

    Ghana 1-1 Australia
    Asamoah Gyan (pen 25′) Brett Holman (11′)

    The Game started brightly for Australia and they soon scored from a freekick. Kingson the Ghana goalie let the ball shot at goal rebound in front of him and Holman rushed and slotted it high into the back of the net. Soon after that Ghana actually grew in confidence and took control. Good play by Ayew, a cross later and a shot towards goal struck Kewell’s hand. Although he tried to plead innocence he had gifted Ghana a penalty and also got himself sent off. Asamoah sent Mark Schwarzer the wrong way and converted the penalty. Ghana continued to be the more dangerous team as the half ended all square at 1-1. The second half saw hints of more confidence or perhaps desperation by the socceroos as they made offensive subs to bolster their chances. Despite being one man up Ghana didn’t take much advantage but had their own share of solid possession.

    Denmark 2-1 Cameroon
    Nicklas Bendtner (33′) Dennis Rommedahl (61′) Samuel Eto’o (10′)

    The game started with Eto’o taking up a much needed more offensive and direct position, it immediately paid off as he managed to score after a rather bad giveaway/bad pass from Christian Poulsen. A lot of opportunities followed, many due to questionable defendoing courtesy of both teams. Before the half Bendtner poked one in when Rommedahl, after receiving a 50+ yard ball from Kjaer, stormed down the wing and crossed into the area. Cameroon could claim to have the edge at half time and Eto’o hit the post late on too, courtesy of another one of the aforementioned questionable lapses. The second half saw an increasingly desperate contest that lacked defensive focus. This led to the second Denmark goal as Rommedahl curled one in to score inside the far post. More misses followed as the African challenge suffered another set back.

  • M3U Dropper: M3U Playlist Creator And Launcher

    M3U Dropper is an open source offering from the maker of dirhtml. M3U Dropper not only creates the text based music playlist format (M3U) but does not restrict itself to media files. By Dragging and dropping any file (or folder) one can create and keep a launch or playlist file and use M3U Dropper as a portable launcher.
    Eric, the author, develops actively. For example one of the latest changes or tweaks to the program is that while the program used to start with the first item at the top of the (play) list it now does so with the previously visible (last time the program was exited) top item. The order of items can be changed via the Item menu, selections can be checked, unchecked and sorted in various ways. Since the playlist format is essentially a text file it is possible to make text operations on any whole list or on individual entries. For example it is also possible to manipulate, edit or change sections of any folder path using M3U Dropper’s replace features (see the Misc menu). This is convenient when carrying a list from one computer to another and needing to accomodate for any differences in file paths.
    M3U Dropper also generates a config file, with the *.m3udrop file extension, with such settings as ‘always_on_top=FALSE’. M3U Dropper is a simple useful program that can serve a useful purpose or two.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 8, A Brief Recap

    Germany 0-1 Serbia
    Milan Jovanovic (38′)

    The game started with a torrent of yellow cards. Germans and equally the Serbians and there neutrals were entitled to question the consistency if not the legitimacy of some of the cards shown. This soon led to a second yellow for Klose inside 40 minutes and before any player could compose himself Serbia went ahead. Krasic’s crossed ball was headed back towards goal and an unmarked Milan Jovanovic scored. The Serbians gained confidence and threatened more. Germany followed this by throwing in offensive players, in Mario Gomez for example. All the work seemed to be undone when yet another Serbian player, Vidic, handled the ball in the penalty box. The subsequent penalty was taken by Podolski but Stojkovic saved it well. A slew of close chances followed by both teams but in the end Mallenco, the Spanish referee, probably had more influence on the game than any official should have.


    Slovenia 2-2 USA
    Valter Birsa (13′) Zlatan Ljubijankic (42′) Landon Donovan (48′) Michael Bradley (82′)

    The early clashes were slightly to Slovenia’s favor and it wasn’t long before the Slovenian midfielder shot from around 30 yards and left US goalie Tim Howard completely flat footed. What followed was somewhat of a stalemate that had Handanovic making a few acrobatic saves. US seemed to sense more was needed and started to exploit some questionable Slovenian defending. Slovenians however surprised again, as Zlatan Ljubijankic just avoided being offside and scored. The second half had barely started when Landon Donovan took advantage of a defensive lapse, courtesy of Bostjan Cesar, and shot hard into the roof of the net from a tight angle. This was beautifully taken as he was only a handful of yards away from the goal post. USA piled on the pressure but Slovenia had a few of their own. One of the US chances finally paid dividends as Bradley shot well into the back of the net. The US had a third goal questionably called back soon after and so the game ended with one point for each team.

    England 0-0 Algeria

    The game had both teams changing their goalkeepers for respective blunders. The game started with Algeria with better possession but nothing really came of it. England took brief control towards the end of the half and they themselves only troubled the relatively inexperienced Algeria goalie only once or twice. Any fluency and passing was missing form the English team with Rooney in particular contributing very little. The second half followed much the same pattern with England giving away possession rather too easily at times. The few times England threatened things just didn’t happen for them. Some credit goes to Rais M’Bolhi, the aforementioned goalie, Nadir Belhadj, Rafik Halliche and the entire Algerian team for keeping their cool. On the English side this was a disappointing performance not unlike the much maligned Steve McLaren coaching era. And so back to the drawing board for current coach Fabio Capello.

  • World Cup 2010 Day 7, A Brief Recap

    Argentina 4-1 South Korea
    Park Chu-Young (og 16′) Gonzalo Higuain (33′ 76′ 80′) Lee Chung-Yong (45′)

    An unfortunate own goal off a freekick and off the foot of Park Chu-Young, who didn’t really know much about it, was an early omen for the Koreans. Argentina controlled and managed the ball better and showed some of the best attacking plays of the World Cup, through their usual star names. The aforementioned led to the second goal but just as half time was approaching Demichiles made a blunder and allowed the Korean to carry the ball in for a 2-1 half time score. The Korean goalie, Jung Sung-Ryong, deserved some credit for keeping the score low but that is not to say that Korea didn’t have their own chances as the Argentine defense looked iffy at times. Of particular note was the 57th minute glorious chance totally wasted by Yeom Ki-Hu. Amid some nervy moments for both teams the newly arriving Aguero worked well for Messi to deliver a simple tap in for Higuain and soon after another well worked play led to the hattrick for Higuain.

    Greece 2-1 Nigeria
    Salpingidis (44′) Torosidis (71′) Uche (16′)

    Both teams needed a good result to get back into contention after opening game defeats. The game started with a glimpse or two of promise and it was Nigeria who scored first when Greek goalie, Alexandros Tzorvas, simply missed the ball off of a freekick. Then late in the first half Sani Kaita showed his studs in a kicking motion, got himself ejected and handed an advantage to Greece. Instantly the Nigeria goalie, Vincent Enyeama, came back into focus as Greece brought on Samaras and piled on the pressure. The move paid off as the Greeks managed to score off of a deflection just before half time. The game continued to have a totally different look after the sending off, Greece was more alive than ever and missed a glorious chance with Enyeama making one of the saves of the World Cup. Nigeria missed one of their own right after but could not cope with being one man down and conceded another not long after. At the end Nigeria proved their own worst enemies and Greece took full advantage.

    France 0-2 Mexico
    Javier Hernandez (64′) Cuauhtemoc Blanco (pen 79′)

    France dropped Gourcuff and handed a start to Malouda while keeping both Diaby and Toulalan in the starting lineup. From the creative standpoint this solved little as the game was not impressive. Mexico seemed the better team but not by much, as they had to search and search for a decisive play. As both teams had started the World Cup with a draw a result was needed but the match trodded on reversing some of the exciting results starting to emerge. Substitute Hernandez made a nice run, however and evaded offside to dribble past Lloris and shoot into an empty net. Not long after that Blanco, the elder statemsman of the Mexican team and himself a substitute, converted a penalty that was delivered to Mexico via a clumsy Abidal tackle. And so France’s chances faded, as with their midfield creativity and freekick takers.