NUREMBERG, Germany -- Raspers, screamers, piledrivers, howitzers, thunderbolts. Soccer writers are running out of ways to describe all the long-range goals seen so far at the World Cup.
It is difficult to recall a tournament in which more goals were scored from distance than this one, especially with the monthlong football fest being just one week old.
Players say the number of long-range strikes is down to the ball, the Adidas AG "+Teamgeist."
The ball's wobble as Steven Gerrard crashed home England's second goal against Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday seems to support the players' theory.
The ball has fewer panels than the World Cup ball in 2002, which makes it more smooth and rounded, hence the wobble, while this also causes the ball to be more slippier than usual.
You feel sorry for the goalkeepers.
Germany's Philipp Lahm got the ball rolling -- or flying as the case may be -- with a brilliant curling strike to put his team 1-0 up against Costa Rica in the opening match. He said he surprised himself with the strike.
In the same 4-2 victory, countryman Torsten Frings bookended the goalscoring with an effort that flew in from 25 meters.
In the Czech Republic's 3-0 win over the U.S., Arsenal's new signing Tomas Rosicky hit a 30-meter belter, while in the other Group E game that day Italy's Andrea Pirlo hammered home from 35 meters against Ghana.
South Korea's players got in on the act in their 2-1 win over Togo, Lee Chun Soo whipping in a wicked free-kick from 25 meters, before Ahn Jung Hwan hit the winner from far out, although this one did take a slight deflection.
Brazil's Kaka scored one of the best of the bunch in the 1-0 win against Croatia, the AC Milan midfielder using hardly any back-lift before stroking the ball past the 'keeper from outside the area.
Which brings us back to Gerrard.
Again, the Liverpool midfielder didn't need a big wind up before firing past Shaka Hislop -- and this was with his weaker left foot.
So, the ball isn't very goalkeeper-friendly, but one person who isn't convinced that the ball is responsible for all these dazzling goals is Germany coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
"The ball? The ball?
"I don't want to hear about the ball," he said after the first game. "You put it in the net, that's all."
A little easier than usual, though, it seems.
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FIFA is insisting all matches are sold out and most of the evidence points to that being the case, although the Japan-Australia match did have a smattering of empty seats on at least three sides of the stadium.
Certain games are proving just as popular with the media. Not all journalists and photographers can get pitch-side access, whether it is a seat in the press tribune or a spot in the tribune or near the pitch for a photographer.
There was a waiting list of nearly 600 journalists for a press ticket for the Brazil-Croatia match in Berlin.
Brazilian newspaper O Globo has 12 journalists listed as having been given a media pass for the Japan-Brazil game in Dortmund on June 22.
England vs. Paraguay and England vs. Trinidad and Tobago both had waiting lists of 300 or so.
Japan-Australia, though, only had a waiting list of six people.
If a journalist doesn't get a press tribune ticket, they can watch the games from the Stadium Media Centers, huge aircraft hangar-type spaces with thousands of desks and rows and rows of televisions.
One difficult thing to get access to is the mixed zone, the area where after the match you can talk to the players. Unless the game involves the country from which your publication originates, it is a bit of a lottery as to whether you get a mixed zone ticket or not.
It's warfare inside the zone as scrums of journalists 10-deep crowd around star players as they talk. Other journalists work in packs, one acting as the reporter interviewing the player while the other acts as a "bouncer," stopping other journalists from listening in to the conversation.
Slanging matches left, right and center were going on after the England-Trinidad and Tobago match as some journalists clashed over what exactly the term "mixed zone" meant.