Lizzy Ratner has a smart funny piece in the new Observer about Jews who like soccer. Only the timing hurts: the best game today is Germany vs. Poland. I have to say it makes my sportsloving scrotum rather shy and reclusive when I hear a stadium full of Germans booming out nationalistic songs as Schweinsteiger passes to Podolski.

Which raises one likely error in the predictions by Ratner's main character, soccermeister David Hirshey: England, Brazil, Argentina and Italy in the Final four. Has he forgotten the lessons of '98, when France, improbably, won in France? The home court advantage here is positively Reifenstalian.