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And just like that, Juventus' representation at the 2014 World Cup just got cut in half.
Thanks a lot, Uruguay. Thanks a lot, Luis Suárez. Thanks a lot, everybody.
But one of our few remaining hopes for some Juventus representation deep in the knockout rounds takes the field today against Ecuador in his team's Group E finale. That player is midfielder Paul Pogba, you may have heard of him before. If not, there's probably a couple YouTube highlight videos floating around on the internet these days, so go have a look.
There is, of course, the yelling right back from Switzerland known as Stephan Lichtsteiner, but Pogba and the France squad have easily been one of the best teams at the tournament thus far. And when you consider how unpredictable this World Cup has been, one of the few things we've been able to predict after a game or two is that France is really, really good. And Pogba is expected to be right in the middle of it.
Maybe all is not lost after all. At least with Italy out some of our respective heart rates will be relatively lower for the rest of the World Cup in Brazil. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
Small victories...
We could debate about the sanity of Luis Suárez. Or we could watch Paul Pogba ball out as France look to go a perfect 3 for 3 in Group E. I think I'll take the latter in that one, but feel free to disagree.
WEDNESDAY'S SCHEDULE
Group F: Nigeria vs. Argentina — 1 p.m. local time, 12 p.m. on the East Coast, 9 a.m. on the West Coast
Group F: Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Iran — 1 p.m. local time, 12 p.m. on the East Coast, 9 a.m. on the West Coast
SB Nation preview: Iran need to beat Bosnia and Herzegovina
Group E: Ecuador vs. France — 5 p.m. local time, 4 p.m. on the East Coast, 1 p.m. on the West Coast
Group E: Honduras vs. Switzerland — 4 p.m. local time, 4 p.m. on the East Coast, 1 p.m. on the West Coast
SB Nation preview: Both sides hoping to make knockout stages
