Meanwhile, in early morning drama, my corporate overlord Mr. (Darth) Vader refused to believe that I had an important meeting with prospective new clients (Bob Spain and Sue Switzerland) and tied me up most of the morning.

Something about productivity during the WC blah blah blah and he was relying on me to yadda yadda yadda ... Luke, I AM your blah blah blah.

Actual dialogue:

And I have a feeling Spain will also squeek out a win.

To me, looking at that second slide-tackle, my first instinct would have been to try to dive head-first on the ball like it was a loose ball in the NFL, and looking at the replays I think that might have made the difference and stopped the goal.

This preening without follow-through soon became tiresome. Even I was going, "C'mon stop d!cking around guys!" (and I'm rooting for them!)

All that possession time, a very carded opponent, and way more shots on goal; Spain should have remembered this prescient moment from Xabi Alonso at the 2008 Euros:

Interviewer: Spain have also embraced a ball-playing style dubbed tiki-taka.

Alonso: I don't like the names tiki-taka [a nonsensical term that means pass and move] or jugones [playmakers]. However much of a jugon you are, however well you can do tiki-taka and keep the ball, you can still be beaten. You have to be able to combine possession and neat passing with competitiveness and penetration. It's no good being horizontal, you have to be vertical. In any case, we'd already embraced a ball-playing style; it's not something that happened during the qualifying campaign.