It is still early days at the 2010 World Cup but the tournament is already taking shape.

From South Africa’s draw with Mexico in the curtain-raiser through to Switzerland’s shock win over Spain on Wednesday, we have now had a chance see all 32 teams play at least once.

For some, like Germany, qualification already looks a formality, but others are less certain of their fate. With the help of Jurgen Klinsmann and Mark Lawrenson, BBC Sport takes a look at what we have learned about each of the eight groups so far.

Read their analysis and see what you think.

It was yesterday’s Alastair Campbell moment. When Wayne Rooney was asked about the prominent cross he has been wearing during training here he replied: “It’s my religion.” This seemed to open up an interesting new flank in the Rooney story until the Football Association’s head of media relations, Mark Whittle, offered an aside reminiscent of Campbell telling Tony Blair: “We don’t do God.” Whittle replied for Rooney: “We don’t do religion.” Rooney, currently an officer of state of Blairite proportions, had already offered enough information to offer an intriguing insight into his Catholicism, though. Of the cross he said: “I’ve been wearing them for years now and you don’t usually watch training [to see them.] I obviously can’t wear them in games.”

The timing suggests that his recourse to Catholicism may have had its roots in his search for redemption after the events of Gelsenkirchen in 2006, though it seems that Rooney’s wife, Coleen, has had more influence than a red card against Portugal. She comes from a devout Catholic family and her father, Tony, is a particularly devoted, practising Catholic. Religion has formed a part in Rooney’s own life, though, from the letters “RC” to be found on his birth certificate to an education at Our Lady and St Swithin’s Roman Catholic Primary, a ten-minute walk from his childhood Liverpool home, and his particular success at religious education there. “Wayne’s recall of stories about the life of Jesus is quite detailed. His contributions to discussions show him to be a caring child who responds to the needs of others,” read a formative school report.

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Wonderful stuff–watch it all.

Two second-half goals gave Mexico their first ever victory over France to leave El Tri well-placed to make the last 16 and the 2006 runners-up on the verge of elimination.

Mexico were the brighter of the two throughout but were unable to take any of their chances until just after the hour, when substitute Javier Hernandez broke the offside trap and rounded keeper Hugo Lloris before slotting home.

Another Mexican substitute, the 37-year-old Cuauhtemoc Blanco, sealed the victory from the penalty spot after a third replacement, Pablo Barrera, had been felled in the box.

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UK retail sales rose strongly in May, with analysts citing the World Cup as the main reason for the pick-up.

Sales volumes rose by a bigger-than-expected 0.6% from April, helped by a 1.7% jump in household goods sales and a 1% increase in food sales, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

Analysts said sales of televisions and food ahead of the World Cup had boosted the figures.

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Spain isn’t supposed to lose to Switzerland.

Spain has never lost to Switzerland.

Perhaps Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas believed that would last forever just a little too much.

In a 1-0 loss, it was his peculiarly complacent misjudgment that heaped the pressure of a billion expectations on a team that, for many, was the pre-tournament favorite.

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Ghanaians thronged the streets of the capital and launched what promises to be an all-night celebration to mark the first win by an African team at the World Cup in South Africa.

Large crowds gathered around major streets in Accra to celebrate the 1-0 victory against Serbia. Cars draped in the national flag swarmed the streets, and some drivers honked their horns as others sang.

Radio stations also said celebrations were taking place nationally.

Congratulations to them–read it all.

After 44 years of hurt, England fans should by now be familiar with the feeling of crushing disappointment with which they awoke this morning.

Following months of hype and anticipation, fans’ hopes were dashed yet again last night after goalkeeper Robert Green wrecked his team’s bid for a winning start.

Green – whose schoolboy error handed U.S.A. an equaliser in the 1-1 draw – was today facing the national backlash endured by so many of his England’s predecessors.

The goalkeeper’s humiliating clanger drew groans of disbelief from millions watching the game on screens across the country.

Read the whole thing.

Poor Robert Green.

Some lovely pictures here.

Britain will grind to a collective halt this evening as 15 million television viewers retire to their sofas for the opening game of England’s World Cup campaign against the United States, amid signs of a football-driven spending spree ”“ and surprisingly heartfelt Anglo-American sporting rancour.

Kick-off at the Royal Bafokeng stadium in Rustenberg between the two sides will presage predicted additional retail sales of nearly £1bn if Fabio Capello’s team manage to progress into the knock-out stage of the tournament, providing the economy with a badly-needed boost which could rise to £2.01bn of extra spending if England reach the final.

It is accompanied by an outbreak of unabashed patriotism, both for and against England, as an estimated three million St George Cross flags, most of them manufactured in China, are draped from windows and clipped to cars.

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The most anticipated American sports event in many years, perhaps decades, is about to take place. Since last December, many Americans have been looking forward to Saturday’s World Cup match with England in South Africa. Finally, it is happening.

Not only that, but the United States has the potential to toss a banana peel under the churning feet of the nation that invented the sport ”” and don’t you forget it.

The Yanks have at least a chance to gain what soccer fans call a result ”” a draw or a victory, a point or maybe even 3, in the traditionally slippery first match of group play.

The nicest part of Yanks-English has been the anticipation, ever since the two nations, linked by history and language and mutual needs, were paired for the first match, when strange things happen.

By my highly unscientific formula of time multiplied by electronic stimulation, this dream World Cup match, this delicious coincidence, has been looming over soccer buffs like some tantalizing full moon that somehow stayed in place for six months.

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When Bob Bradley was the Princeton soccer coach, he took a team of college players to Italy, where he met Fabio Capello, the manager of the Italian and European champion A.C. Milan.

“When you make wine,” Capello advised Bradley, “the grapes are not always the same.”

For Bradley, the meaning was not instantly clear.

“The first few times he said that to me, I thought he was actually talking about making wine,” Bradley recalled. “I have thought about it, and I realized he was trying to tell me something about football.”

More than 15 years later, Bradley and Capello will try to blend different quality grapes into a winning 2010 vintage.

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There’s just one problem: Financial muscle doesn’t much impress international soccer officials, who say their bid decisions are driven more by a concern for parity than profit.

“You may be confusing the world of football with the IMF or the World Bank,” says Michel Platini, a top executive of FIFA, the international governing body of international soccer.

“When it comes to decision-making in international football,” he says, “the U.S., like Germany or China, has as much power as San Marino, Vanuatu or Belize.” (Ouch!)

One of the misconceptions Americans tend to make about the World Cup is that its economics are similar to those that guide the Olympics. But there’s a big difference: the Olympics like to take in lots of money because they use the funds to support impoverished sports like swimming, which can’t support themselves. The World Cup, however, is a showcase for professional athletes who earn decent to fantastic salaries in private leagues around the world. This sport doesn’t count on the tournament for its livelihood.

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Check it out.

Italy, the reigning world champion by dint of its victory in the 2006 World Cup, takes soccer deadly seriously. The nation abounds with legendary clubs owned by extravagantly rich magnates who have spent the last 50 years luring the world’s finest players with offers they cannot refuse. So where is today’s highest-paid player in Italy from? Not from Brazil or Argentina, the planet’s most prolific footballing factories; nor from France, Germany or Spain. Neither, for that matter, is he Italian. The player with the highest salary in Italy is a Cameroonian called Samuel Eto’o, the spearhead of an African contingent that has taken Europe’s soccer citadel by storm.

Unlike many in the money-mad soccer world, or in banking, Eto’o has earned every penny. Three times African player of the year, Eto’o goes into the first World Cup on African soil as captain, and uncrowned king, of Cameroon, armed with a statistic that he alone owns: Eto’o is the first player ever to have won the treble of National League, National Cup and European Champions League ”” soccer’s royal flush ”” with two different teams. And he has done it (the odds have to be mightily long on this happening again anytime soon) in successive seasons, the first with Barcelona and the second, in May, with Inter Milan.

Now Eto’o will get a chance to perform on the biggest stage the world has ever seen. Soccer is the great secular religion. Some 30% of the world’s people declare themselves Christian; 20%, Muslim. But people’s devotion to soccer transcends all creeds, races, tongues. The World Cup in South Africa will generate more intense planetary babble ”” will be dissected, tweeted, Facebooked, Googled, SMSed and scrutinized by billions on 400 TV channels in 208 countries ”” than any other event in human history. The 2006 World Cup in Germany had a total cumulative TV audience of more than 26 billion, according to official FIFA figures. The big-smiling, boyish Eto’o, whose country brought African soccer to the world’s attention when it reached the quarterfinals of the 1990 Cup, will loom large in the conversation. How he got there ”” how he managed his ascent to the pantheon of humanity’s most popular divinities alongside other African players such as Didier Drogba of Ivory Coast and Michael Essien of Ghana ”” is an unbeatable tale of rags to riches. It’s little wonder that during the hour we spoke recently, Eto’o used the word dream 14 times. As in, “My whole life is a dream, a dream come true, a dream I’ll only wake up from the day I stop playing football.”

I am super excited about this–read it all; KSH.

Wooden’s favorite Scripture passage was 1 Corinthians 13, and it guided his relationships with his wife, family and players. That chapter ends with these famous words: “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

When working with secular audiences, Wooden used a nondenominational approach to life’s great lessons — which led to his famous “Pyramid of Success” image, built on common virtues such as “skill,” “enthusiasm,” “industriousness,” “patience” and “faith.” Former players also learned to recite his folksy sayings, such as “Be quick, but don’t hurry” and “It is what we learn after we know it all that really counts.”

But Wooden shared other sayings, when the time was right, including this one: “Basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere.”

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Simply an amazing man–KSH.

What was sweet and surprising was that all the principals in the story comported themselves as fully formed adults, with patience, grace and dignity. And in doing so, [Armando] Galarraga and [Jim] Joyce showed kids How to Do It.

A lot of adults don’t teach kids this now, because the adults themselves don’t know how to do it. There’s a mentoring gap, an instruction gap in our country. We don’t put forward a template because we don’t know the template. So everyone imitates TV, where victors dance in the end zone, where winners shoot their arms in the air and distort their face and yell “Whoooaahhh,” and where victims of an injustice scream, cry, say bitter things, and beat the ground with their fists. Everyone has come to believe this is authentic. It is authentically babyish. Everyone thinks it’s honest. It’s honestly undignified, self-indulgent, weak and embarrassing.

Galarraga and Joyce couldn’t have known it when they went to work Wednesday, but they were going to show children in an unforgettable way that a victim of injustice can react with compassion, and a person who makes a mistake can admit and declare it. Joyce especially was a relief, not spinning or digging in his heels. I wish he hadn’t sworn. Nobody’s perfect.

Thursday afternoon the Tigers met the Indians again in Comerica Park. Armando Galarraga got a standing ovation. In a small masterpiece of public relations, Detroit’s own General Motors gave him a brand new red Corvette. Galarraga brought out the lineup card and gave it to the umpire””Jim Joyce, who had been offered the day off but chose to work.

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The relative calm at the ballpark contrasted with the international debate that took place overnight and through the afternoon, as baseball fans nationwide took to Twitter, Facebook, the Web and talk radio to argue about Joyce’s call.

El Universal, a newspaper in Galarraga’s native Venezuela reported on the controversy in an article with the headline, “Jim Joyce Robó a Armando Galarraga”

On television shows like “The View,” hosts discussed Galarraga’s calm acceptance of Joyce’s call, while Joyce’s apology to Galarraga received equal attention. On a radio program in Detroit, scores of fans called in to discuss whether baseball needed an emergency “Galarraga rule,” allowing expanded instant replay on close calls. Major league officials said Thursday that they were reviewing Joyce’s decision.

“As governor, I’m issuing a proclamation declaring Galarraga pitched a perfect game,” Michigan’s outgoing governor, Jennifer M. Granholm, tweeted after the game ”” and followed up Thursday.

Read it all and the video of the call is here.

Update: Frank Deford has some thoughts on this there.

A new book by Tom Clavin and Danny Peary, Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero, along with re-runs of Billy Crystal’s HBO’s film 61*, could help the effort to bring Maris his due. But I’m not optimistic about baseball cleaning up its act, and I’ll believe a Wall Street cleanup when I see the final score. Meanwhile, it’s business as usual at the Hall of Fame and at Yankee Stadium.

Credit default swaps and performance-enhancing drugs seem to be in the same league ”” destructive and unethical instruments that need to be heavily regulated, not just repackaged.

Let’s at least shape up the pastime, because the nation will be a tougher task. Let’s put Maris in the Hall of Fame and get a true accounting of who took steroids and how it impacted the game. Then we can move on. The alternative is to give up and root for the Yankees, the corporate champions.

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Chris, your listeners will recall that 25 years ago, 56 supporters lost their lives and hundreds were injured as fire engulfed the stand at Bradford City’s ground.

When tragedy struck, humanity surfaced. Human beings helped each other regardless of the colour of their shirts. On that day humans acted like heroes and links remain in place today.

Last December, Millwall and Charlton Athletic played a charity match to highlight the alarming issue of street violence.

This match was dedicated to the memories of two young boys, Jimmy Mizen and Robert Knox, murdered in 2008 for standing up to violent thugs. Jimmy had links to Millwall and Robert had links with Charlton and for this match the team shirts’ logos were replaced with the words ‘street violence ruins lives’.

You see football can be a powerful tool to drive change. Funds raised by the match went to help young people get out of crime and into positive activities.

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Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town proposes prayer for the 2010 FIFA World Cup

”˜Let us all pray that God will bless the World Cup!’ said Archbishop Thabo Makgoba on Monday as he launched a special prayer for the tournament.

”˜It is a short and simple prayer which is easy to learn, and I hope many people, of many backgrounds, will join me in praying it daily in the coming weeks’ added the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town. ”˜We are asking for the well-being of everyone who is in any way associated with the FIFA 2010 World Cup: players, spectators, South Africans as host nation, and everyone who travels here. Apart from the Olympics, this is the most widely supported sports event in the world ”“ countless millions, even billions, love “the beautiful game” and we want to share this love with one another, for the good of the world.’

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Charlottesville Police charged fourth-year College student George Huguely with first-degree murder yesterday in connection with the death of fourth-year College student Yeardley Love, who passed away early Monday morning.

Both Huguely and Love, members of the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams, respectively, were set to graduate May 23.

Charlottesville police officers were called to apartment 9 in the Camden Courtyard complex on 14th Street at 2:15 a.m. Monday to respond to a case of possible alcohol poisoning. Love was found unresponsive and appeared to have undergone serious physical trauma. Officials attempted to revive her, but those efforts were unsuccessful. Love was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police officials, who have yet to determine the cause of death, declined to discuss the nature of Love’s injuries but are treating the case as a homicide investigation.

I would be grateful if you could spare a prayer for the campus community of U.Va. today. Read it all–KSH.

[University of Illinois basketball coach Bruce] Weber says college coaches are getting involved with possible recruits at an ever-earlier age. “So if it means going to seventh- and eighth-grade games, we are starting to do that,” he says.

But it wasn’t always this way. “I’ve been involved in Division I basketball for 31 years now, and when I first started, we were worried about seniors in high school and that was it,” he says.

“Now there’s the early signing period. It went to juniors, then sophomores — we’ve even had a commitment from a freshman in the last four years, so everything’s accelerated.”

No school wants to lose out on recruits. “I’m not sure it’s good, but it is there,” Weber says. “If you don’t do it, it’s going to hurt you.”

Listen to it all from NPR.

For the first time, in a meaningful way, the wink-wink, nudge-nudge acceptance of the professional athlete and his murky late-night encounters with women has been replaced by a demand for maturity and accountability. In a shift, it appears that if the boys club is not completely closed, its existence is far less reputable than it once was.

Roethlisberger’s employers, the Steelers, reacted to the incident in Georgia with displeasure even though no criminal charges were filed. Roethlisberger was in the clear legally, but with an organization-wide grimness that underscored the anger of owner Dan Rooney and Art Rooney II. The Steelers acknowledged that the star quarterback had embarrassed the organization. The Rooneys said his behavior would not be tolerated; escaping an arrest did not mean Roethlisberger would escape punishment.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell handed that down Wednesday. Roethlisberger will be suspended without pay for the first six games and will be required to undergo a comprehensive behavioral evaluation by medical professionals, something that announced publicly should embarrass him to no end.

In the past, players could rely both on their reputations, earned or not, and the reflex of their employers and the public to think the worst of the women involved. It is an advantage players have counted on for years that seems to be diminishing.

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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger today for a maximum of six games without pay to start the 2010 season, a suspension that could be reduced to four games if he successfully completes counseling or treatment mandated by the NFL.

Roethlisberger will not be able to participate in any team activity until he completes a professional behavioral evaluation.

The suspension means Roethlisberger will miss at least four games to open the season against Atlanta, Tennessee, Tampa Bay and Baltimore. The Steelers have the bye week in the season’s fifth week and then play Cleveland and Miami, additional games Roethlisberger would miss if he gets the full suspension Goodell issued today.

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What Ben Roethlisberger’s disgrace has made clear is that the term Steeler Nation doesn’t explain the half of it. It describes only the extent of fan affection for Pittsburgh’s favorite team. It doesn’t convey how personal the relationship is, how much the Steelers embody the region’s values.

Steeler Nation should really be called Steeler Family, a clan of shared pain repulsed by the gross behavior of the Steelers quarterback, the region’s erstwhile favorite adopted son.

Pittsburghers take the sting of betrayal personally. The investigative documents released Thursday in Milledgeville, Ga., make it clear that the values of Mr. Roethlisberger’s employers — and the everyday Pittsburghers who cheered him on — have been seriously mocked.

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Phil Mickelson has been through almost all of golf’s ups and downs, triumphs as well as epic collapses. He has taken some blows from real life as well, with his wife and mother both battling breast cancer, a twist in his life that colored everything that happened at the Masters this year.

So perhaps the final round at Augusta National no longer holds quite the fear factor it once did. Certainly his two previous titles here helped, as did an adoring gallery, which already reflexively rooted for the amiable star and now is fully aware of his family’s heart-tugging plight as well. But it might explain how the golfer known for his on-course gambles that so often backfire managed his round on Sunday without a single bogey.

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…Krzyzewski likes to think of himself as more than just a coach to his players. He takes pride in the high graduation rate of his players and keeps in contact with them even after they graduate.

And while Krzyzewski’s own personal faith plays a role in how he coaches, he is very careful not to impose his beliefs on his players.

“Not every kid I coach is Catholic. They use a different street to get there than the Catholic streets sometimes. But there is a core set of values and principles that you try to teach although you don’t teach it as religion like honesty and acceptance of responsibility, just being a good person. Faith is about living the good life and helping one another, which is teamwork,” he says.

Many of his former players, such as Grant Hill of the Orlando Magic, hold their former coach in very high regard. When interviewed about Krzyzewski by Time magazine, Hill said Coach K was a lot like a parent to the players. “There’s six inches between patting on the back and patting on the butt. And as a parent, he did both and did it well, “Hill said.

And Krzyzewski has experience at being a parent. He and Mickie have three daughters: Debbie Savarino, Lindy Frasher and Jamie Spatola. They also have four grandchildren:Joey, Michael, Carlyn and Emilia Savarino. In June 2004, Coach K and Mickie celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows in Duke’s chapel.

This story from 2006 is well worth the time–read it all.