I agree the first goal is terribly important, as it changes the odds of winning drastically. But as several writers pointed out, so does the second goal, when it's scored by the other team. In fact, in the extremely limited sample size of this tournament, it has an even greater effect on the odds.

But you're never going to see that graphic about teams scoring second. It's just intellectual and actual laziness is all it is. Someone heard about or figured out that teams that score first usually win, and they go with that graphic and go with it and go with it. The thinking stopped right there. That's all.

And also, as was pointed out, it's a pretty meaningless stat because it doesn't say anything about the current game. It's a classic TV graphics stat. That's why I love it so.

As for Sweden, I have no idea what made me type "Sweden" as I sat and watched Germany play Argentina. I'm embarrassed that that made it through, and stayed up as long as it did. It's been fixed now.

There have been two comments about letters in this thread. I'm in a little too much of a hurry to go find them to quote them and mention the writer, but I wanted to respond to them.

In one, a reader notes that columns about soccer seem to generate more letters than columns about baseball, and wonders why that is and whether it means I should write more about soccer.

I don't know what it means. Perhaps it means there's more controversy, more excitement and a greater variety of topics to debate during a once-in-four-years world championship than during regular season. Or that baseball fans have games to watch every day and less time to sit around writing letters. Or something about the tides. I don't know.

I don't think it necessarily means I should be writing more columns about soccer -- but I also don't know that I shouldn't be writing more columns about soccer. I should definitely be writing more columns about both curling and hurling, but there are only so many hours in a day.

Another reader writes that apparently you can get a red star for posting your shopping list, then cheekily posted his and said, "Prove me wrong."

Well, OK, wrong. But I guess the point was that too many letters get red stars. I'm the one who gives 'em out for this column. I would guess everyone who does it does it a little differently. (Various editors pass around the single job of posting AP wire stories and going through letters awarding editor's choice stars for most stories, but I do my own.) We have very, very vague guidelines about how to decide.

I find the signal-to-noise ratio in these threads pretty high, and the red star to no red star ratio tends to be about 3-1. My basic requirement for a red star is that the letter is more or less about the topic at hand, makes some point that hasn't already been made, and isn't egregiously stupid or a personal attack. I don't red-star letters that just say "Great column" or something -- those are rare, which is a good thing, my ego being quite healthy enough, thank you -- and I err on the side of awarding a red star if a letter criticizes me or the column without getting gratuitously personal.

I'd be curious to know if anyone actually uses the "red star" feature, only reads the "editor's choice" letters.