(Note: Some of this coverage may be slightly biased. Just maybe.)

Australia played Japan in the World Cup last night (well, it was last night in my timezone). Since the Japanese have "l33t football ninja skilz", it looked like a foregone conclusion.

See, the Japanese team are pretty good generally, but they have one speciality: Throwing themselves on the ground, grabbing their shins, and pretending to be in great pain. This tactic is particularly effective against physical teams, like the Australians, since the referee will tend to assume that they've been fouled. Sometimes this is true; more often it's just that the Japanese are total wimps, or that they're faking it. That's my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it!

Now, at one point the Aussies nearly scored, but the goal was disallowed because the striker had barged into the Japanese goalkeeper just before (and thus committed a foul). Meh, okay, fair enough. But watch how the Japanese team's throwing-themselves-on-the-ground ninja skills paid off: When exactly the same thing happened at the other end of the field, the referee awarded the goal to the Japanese.

1-0 to Japan. I dunno, refs these days.

So the game continued with Australia a goal down, and things weren't looking good for the green and gold army. The rest of the first half was scoreless, and despite settling down a bit in the second half and having most of the possession, the Aussies somehow just couldn't manage to convert their superior play into a goal.

In the closing minutes of the game, the coach made a desperate last-minute substitution; Tim Cahill.

And then Australia scored 3 goals in 8 minutes.

AUSTRALIA: 3. JAPAN: 1.
VERDICT: Sometimes, even ninjas can lose.