Stickers: World Cup Day 9

      The feedback from the Panini cheapskates is that they Google them in order to know what the sticker looks like so they can draw it.  I had no idea  it would be that easy. I'd have thought that Panini would have been more protective of their rights.  This does, of course, give me another option for completing the set; I could just print them.

Via www.collectabubble.com
 

     Amongst the stickers I get today are No 4 which is the top half of the mascot that looks like a cross between a kangaroo and a pony. Presumably one of the thousands of new species that are still being discovered in the Amazon every year.  Sticker number 271 Alvaro Gonsalez of Uruguay completes the first full page, I also get the USA badge to complete a page of only 7 stickers.  And in trying to find a picture of the Gonsalez sticker I find a site where you can buy each sticker for 10 pence each http://www.collectabubble.com/panini-2014-world-cup---individual-stickers-858-c.asp, which would mean being able to buy the whole set with no swaps for under £70, not including postage.
       OK, so on to the predictions:  Italy 2 Costa Rica 0, France 4 Switzerland 1 and Ecuador 1 Honduras 0. 
     So not only did I lose a pound when Costa Rica beat Italy with the only goal of the game, but the result means England are out. And they didn't even play. Well, at least I was proved right when I suggested months ago that this should be the England Official World Cup song.  Gigi Buffon returns in goal for the Azzurri but the other sticker  is of Alberto Gilardino who, on behalf of Panini and like his club, I'd like to congratulate on getting into the Italian squad. Except of course that he didn't.  I think England's real problem has been that they have no players called Rodriguez (Jay was sadly injured) and no naturalised Brazilians.
      And surely the rock solid Swiss defence wouldn't concede four ?  There was a six minute period where my 35-1 on 4-1 looked like it might come in; all I needed was the Swiss to score and that to be the end of the goals. Then France scored their fifth. And the Swiss got two back in the last ten minutes, the last goal being scored by Granit Xhaka, who had previously had the ball in the net but been ruled offside.  Remarkably the four Frenchmen whose stickers I get are none of the five Frenchman who score for Les Bleus.  Patrice Evra and Mathieu Debuchy both go close to scoring, Paul Pogba, lucky not to be sent off in the first game, comes on as a sub. And Samir Nasri was left at home, allegedly because he would be disruptive to team spirit.
     Ecuador v Honduras was decided by the odd goal, but in three rather than just the one.  Ecuador's Joao Rojas fails to get off the bench.