It’s all about Cesc today, with bloggers falling over each other to come up with the most sickeningly sycophantic headline – the favourite being ‘The Joy of Cesc’. Oh those witty, witty sub-editors. In proper blogging, 4thegame provide a look at what happened in the match, and whilst they do pay homage to old Fabber - saying he ‘dictated the game’ - they don’t go overboard extolling Cesc’s virtues with fancy wordplay. See? It’s easy to say someone’s good without drooling.

Possibly one excuse for the Russian team not turning up last night was the promise of ‘socialite’ (whatever one of those is, I want to be one!) Pyotr Listerman to provide the team two girls each for every goal they scored as reported by John Williams from Buzzin Football. With minds probably in the gutter, there was no way they were going to make a decent fist of taking Spain apart, and they were split wide open by a thrusting Iberian team. It’s common knowledge that pimpin’ ain’t easy (especially when you look like a sweaty 14-year old boy like Arshavin), so with such a lacklustre display Russia saved old Pyotr a tough task.

Nick from the Russian page of the World Cup Blog site reckons the team can hold their heads up high and be proud of what they achieved. He mentions that the ‘midfield and attacking line did not hold up’ as well the defence did, and he says that without Iganashevich and V. Beresutski Spain could have had a whole lot more joy in front of goal.

…and to round things off, some photos like the one below of last night’s game from Who Ate All The Pies.