Well I am just going to let this blog sit in cyberspace for a while. I would have written entries for this years Euro 2008, but without England it may be a little sad for my to put my time and effort in.
All the links below should still work, and there are probably some things to look at or be amazed at my amazing World Cup 2006 foresight.
So the Germans are gone, and the more glamorous Azurri have reached the final. The silliest statistic I've heard so far is that the Italians reach the final every 12 years. This is quite similar to the 'lucky for Spurs when the year ends in 1'. Which it often isn't.
The funniest thing about the German exit is that they now have to play in the 3rd place play off. This is the ultimate in 'What, you haven't watched quite enough football over the last 30 days?' unnecessary-ness.
For what it's worth, I think I am now over my temporary Cristiano Ronaldo disliking, and want him to inspire Portugal to World Cup victory. Or maybe just the final. Any reason? I'm not crazy about France even though I would win $20 if they did so. They are still a bit too Arsenal for me.
And from what I can gather, the London based press is trying to drive further wedges into the Man United squad, and hate the fact that C. Ron has been one of the most influential players in the tournament, not one of the beloved Arsenal or future Chelsea boys...
You'd think an Italy - Portugal final would be a theatrical spectacle, and would feature some silky skills and a bit of passion. If Germany had slotted in one goal in the 87th minute and all piled on each other, that would have been a bit much to watch.
At the end of that night at the Castle Pub in Surbiton, the walk home was filled with what ifs complaints that young Beckham had far too much expectation on his tempremental shoulders.
Walking back from the Ship and Anchor in Calgary today, the same stuff was going through my head with Rooney and Ronaldo the new scapegoats. Copy and paste from 8 years ago. It was raining, all the July 1st sun had vanished.
But what can you do? If only scouts had been watching the Surrey Oil League fixtures, and given me a run out in Sapporo or Gelsenkirchen, I doubt I would have got sent off.
The next time we get in this position, the team surely has to have a tougher manager who can get the most out of the undoubtably talented players at his disposal.
Scholes was always out of sorts for England, and the same seems to be happening with Lampard and Gerrard. Maybe their international team mates have been carrying them at club level for some time. The only time to test out winning formations has been in meaningless friendlies, but a combination of Sven's ludicrous substitutions and player/manager antipathy has driven out any public interest in shelling out to go and get behind England against Belarus or whoever comes to town.
Qualification for major tournaments is generally quite straight forward, and it would take a spectacular balls up to miss out. All teams need to do is win against the part timers, and do enough against the bigger teams. It often only really boils down to one or two truly competetive must win games.
My suggestion for improving the team? Group together with a few other nations, and create a international mini-league. Have a fairly loose structure and time scale behind it, but TV rights for such a tournament could cover insurance costs for players so there wouldn't be such an intense club Vs country rivalry.
Why oh why are games on a Friday and Saturday, not Saturday and Sunday?
Over here in North America, it's a lovely sunny day, and there are going to be two fascinating quarter finals done and dusted by early afternoon on a work day. It will be too late to go for a late lunch to watch the 2nd half of the 2nd match. All the scheduling is plain useless.
My DVD recorder can only potentially 'tape' one full game, as there could be extra time and penalties (most probably in the Ukraine game).
How to go out of the World Cup or major tournament
In 2002, England limped out of the global football showcase. This was doubly annoying, as they had gone a goal up against Brazil. Ronaldinho, who upto this point was considered the unfinished article, took a quick free kick and beat English goalkeeper, David Seamen in this embarassing fashion.
This is a quite typical way for England to exit a competition.
There has to be some kind of laughably poor piece of defending/goalkeeping or an evil deflection (Germany 1990). Basically, some kind of external excuse for a goal going in.
Luck is never on the English side. Sol Campbell has twice scored real goals which have then been chalked off (Argentina 1998, Portugal 2004).
There will also then need to be a harsh refereeing decision. This could be a booking which means a player can't play in the next match (Gazza, Germany 1990), or a by the book sending off (Beckham, Argentina 1998).
Cruel misses then come into play, like Gazza stretching and failing to net against Germany in Euro 96. Darren Anderton hit the post. Either of those would have won the semi-final there and then.
And then of course, there are penalties. The careers of Paul Ince, Gareth Southgate, Chris Waddle, David Batty and Darius Vassel have been tinged with naffness of penalty misses. Phil Neville suffered a similar fate by conceding a penalty for Romania to convert and knock (the worst) England (team in recent history) out of Euro 2000. As a result he became the temporarily less despised Neville for a month. David 'Calamity' James also conceded a spot-kick against France just 2 years ago, and converted a creditable draw into an opening loss.
When the chips are down, England have a habit of bottling it, scuffing it, losing their heads or being outclassed. But with football being football, each loss of sanity or skill is only a 'hair's breadth' away from being the key moment of genius which lets us put Gazza up with Maradona, Linekar up with Voeller, Shilton up with Zoff.
England have won just the one penalty shoot out, to the equally bad in tournaments, Spain. Stuart Pearce belted in his redemptive kick and unified a nation into thinking we could go on and win the tournament.
About a week later, it was all over for another couple of years, and there was even renewed hope that we could take the experience and move forward.
The worry here is that with each passing of four years, the world class players have grown richer, slower, and fatter, and winning the World Cup is of less relevance than looking good in the global ad showcase the few weeks before.
After a week in England, my optimism for England victory should have been bouyed, but after another flat game on Sunday, it appears that the best chance for England would be for all the good teams to knock each other out leaving England to play Ukraine in the final. After such a good tournament, this would be the ultimate travesty.
I think the games will shake out something like this :
Germany 1 3 Argentina Italy 0 2 Ukraine
England 3 2 Portugal Brazil 3 2 France
England probably shouldn't beat Portugal, but for some reason (blind lunacy), I think they might avenge their Euro 2004 exit. To then go on and beat Brazil, and then Argentina is way too much to ask from a team that can barely string two passes together against Trinidad & Tobago...
In terms of the teams left, the odds on Argentina winning have now narrowed. If my account hadn't have ben wiped out by ludicrous early tournament bets, I'd stick a pound on Portugal at 14/1.
Sooner or later in the tournament, one of these moments will happen. England benefited from a Russian linesman in 1966, who gave the benefit of the doubt to the English. The KitKat element is probably not true, but the rest of the footage is real.
The most spectacular piece if video vootage ever features Man United ex-goalie, Roy Carroll. Spurs' Pedro Mendes hit an amazing shot from the half=way line, to be dropped, over the line by the never quite good enough Roy.
We've reached that match now where you seriously think, why on earth am I watching Togo Vs Switzerland? You'd maybe heard rumours of the young Swiss team being quite exciting. There could be some potential schadenfraude hoping that France could potentially be going home very early again. Or, you feel you have to complete the set of watching EVERY match in the competition.
The next few days will sort the men out from the part timers - not many people even in Costa Rica or Poland will give a rat's ass as to what happens on Jun 20. Iran - Angola isn't going to be big box office either.
Of key importance now is what happens to England, and how that impacts on my weekend plans. Win against Sweden and they top the group, and will play whoever wins between Germany and Ecuador on Sunday afternoon. If England mess up against Sweden they play on Saturday. If Germany draw, they finish second. My preference would be for a Saturday game against Ecuador, so England need to lose and Germany need NOT to win.
That means I can go watch the match, then go out in the evening.
Looking awesome. Cambiasso just scored after a 24 pass move involving flicks and one twos. Ripped the S&M defence to shreds. Slightly more elegant than a Beckham cross to el Crouchinho...
Or as the commentator here said "That goal doesn't need words"
I referred to the Madchester scene of 1990 in an earlier post. Here are the chief architects (though it could be doubted on certain days whether members could hold a pencil or not).
My link back to football is that I think the form of the English team so far has been quite similar to that seen in 1990.
Draws against Ireland and Holland, and a sneaked win against Egypt.
P W D L Gls Pts ENGLAND 3 1 2 0 2-1 4 REP. OF IRELAND 3 0 3 0 2-2 *3 NETHERLANDS 3 0 3 0 2-2 *3 Egypt 3 0 2 1 1-2 2
England eventually played well in that tournament, but lost that game. It's quite nice to win, but you also want to get a bit excited.
Well, as most of England sneaks off early to watch the game against Trinidad & Tobago today, one union, Amicus gave advice on how to take sickies and has got in trouble.
If union members fail to book time off to watch World Cup matches, they could try to persuade bosses that watching a game together at work could be "a great team building" exercise, the website says.
It goes on to say that "it is quite difficult to prove that someone is not really sick if they have one day off".
"Taking time off work without permission can lead to dismissal for gross misconduct," it adds.
"Also, lying to your employer about your reason for absence might amount to gross misconduct too." Source BBC
In Canada, today's match is on at the super convenient time of 10am. Next World Cup I vow to be in roughly the same time zone...
Seeing as Scotland aren't in this year's competition, in 90 minutes, it could be Poland that have to take the first Eurolines bus back out of Germany. Quite highly fancied at the start, they now have to rely on Costa Rica and Germany to both beat Ecuador, and then beat Costa Rica themselves.
Not looking great now Ecuador have gone 1 goal up. C'mon Costa Rica, show this guy some Solidarity...
Lech Walesa playing ping-pong
and whilst I'm on the 'stars playing ping-pong' theme
Ok, so Brazil can't quite be the Harlem Globetrotters every single game, but the manner of their victry yesterday will have everyone that pulled them out of their fantasy pool slightly less cocky this morning.
Out of my picks, Australia probably represent my best chance of winning. That is quite clearly crazy, but the odds will have now shortened on a prolonged run in the competition for Dick Advocaat's team.
My most accurate prediction so far of the World Cup was that I would mess up the twin challenges of 7 hours time difference mathematics, and a slightly tempremental DVD recorder. My post work treat was one hour of the 0-0 France game, and 2 hours of poker.
PS Before my England trip next week, I am taking orders for these
Remember it like it was yesterday? As the trophy was being played for in Japan and South Korea, the biggest impact was on what time the matches were on telly. This is how the BBC kicked off their coverage.
Not that you ever saw that bit, as you'd be hustling at the bar to carry 6 Kronenburg back to the seat you couldn't really see the screen from in the Penderal's Oak.
I was working for http://www.kudosresearch.com - international fieldwork and research call centre. As pretty much every European nationality was represented all the matches were shown in the conference room. This was particularly great when France played Senegal, and les bleus turned from World Champions into pure mairde.
The quality of the tournament was generally pretty good, but quite odd given the Dutch weren't there. France and Argentina went out in the group stages. Italy and Spain fluffed their lines, and bloody hell, for about ten minutes, England were leading Brazil. Little Mickey Owen scored a beauty again, but nearly all the hoo-hah surrounded Becks. After single handedly getting us to the World Cup, with his Boy's Own last minute winner against Greece at Old Trafford,
Mr Posh was in the form of his life with about 6 weeks to go til the trip to the Far East. But a crunching tackle from Argentinian Aldo Duscher derailed both Man United season and English world cup hopes. The front cover of the Sun featured the word 'Metatersal' for the first time in history.
When it boiled down to it, England weren't fit or talented enough to win that day. If they had scored 3, Brazil would have scored 5, with the cheeky Ronaldinho supplementing Ronaldo.
By the time it got to the final, I was at Glastonbury for the first time. This is someone else's video clip, but gives you an idea of what it's like...
They showed the final on the big screen an unbiasedly played Brazilian jazz whilst Fat Ronaldo stepped over into his 9th and 10th world cup goals. This article form the Sun is from Euro 2004, but I wanted to show off anyway. Cheers Dan.
Here are the real goals of the tournament, especially the one by Uruguayan Diego Forlan who belted in a cracker despite messing up every 2 yard tap in for Man U.
Old powerhouses Holland and Argentina have looked the most impressive so far by successfully negiotating tough openers, with Robben and Saviola being the stand out players. Ivory Coast looked like they had enterprise and talent, and had Drogba chasing down lost causes rather than the customary sulking and diving he does for Chelsea. The final 'Group of Death' team, Serbian & Montenegro, found their players criticising their own coach for their lack of invention against the Dutch. The next set of matches in this group could provide the surprises fans are waiting for. I predict that the team that wears orange in the Ivory Vs Holland game will come out on top.
Germany joined the party in scoring 4 goals, but uncharacteristially conceded 2. Could this be the first German team the public embraces? England and Portugal looked laboured and disjointed so far, and could easily have conceded equalisers if Paraguay or Angola had been blessed with a touch more quality.
Cliched stereotype of the round so far "they'll be no shortage of tequila on the streets of Nuremburg" after Mexico's stylish win.
Source : BBC Sport
That's kind of like saying the T&T fans would celebrate their draw against Sweden by sparking up a fatty...
Bad haircut #1 Manuel Loco - Angola
I will try and source pictures of the Swede with the rat's tail as soon as one is available.
Well, that was a typical England start. Flashes of quality through turgid mediocrity. 1-0, and up next against Trinidad & Tobago, so likely to qualify. Hopefully, Sven won't make the same mistake as in the last World Cup, when finishing 2nd in the group led to a tougher draw earlier on.
That time it was draws against Sweden and Nigeria that sealed our fate. A similar draw against Sweden this time could result in 2nd place and a 2nd round tie against Germany. My advice ? If England and Sweden win both their opening games, England will need to go for the jugular in their match. Not taking a risk early in the tournament can have implications later on.
andy Australia, France, Tunisia, USA demian Czech, Ecuador, Togo erica Brazil, Paraguay, Portugal kevin England, Ukraine larry Spain leo Poland, Serbia & Montenegro, Sweden lisa Ghana, Italy, Japan, Mexico mo Croatia, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland tom Angola, Holland, Ivory Coast, South Korea, Trinidad & Tobago wanda Argentina
Nike hit the nail on the head with their ad featuring the Brazilian team having a kickaround in the airport. The track used, 'Mas que nada', brought latin jazz to the chill out compilation genre which flourished along with frame and candle shops.
England had a funny world cup, managed by Glenn Goddle Hoddle. The play was fluid and full of the flair Hoddle as a player showed. He mercilessly axed Gazza Gascoigne (or cut from the roster as they say here in North America), and put his faith in David 'Becks' Beckham who was on the brink of his true fame.
England blitzed through Colombia, messed up against Romania, and did the business against Tunisia. The time came quite early that they were to face Argentina.
Little Mickey Owen showed youth and pace to make a monkey out of the Argentinian defence, leading to wild celebration in The Castle, Surbiton.
I'll leave that story there as it didn't get any better.
2 years earlier, at Euro 96, Croatia showed they had some pretty nifty skills and were dubbed the Brazilians of Europe. This goal by Super Sharp Suker in 96 is one of my favourite ever, and I try this at home on a regular basis.
Croatia only just lost to eventual winners France in the semi-final, but after memorably beating Germany 3-0 on the way.
My 16 match accumulator stood to 'net' me nearly £90K - over $180K...for a 34p stake
Today's games were
Germany v Costa Rica : Germany @ 2 - 7 (10am MST) Germany win 4-2 Poland v Ecuador : Poland @ 10 - 11 (1pm MST)Ecuador win 2-0
So thats a 1-1 (16) record. I'll keep you posted on how the rest of the bet turned out.
Posted previously -
I am reasonably confident that both these matches will go with form, as the Germans are unlikely to suffer 1st day jitters.
I am also superbly confident that I will miss at least one great match due to incorrectly calculating the time zone difference.
Print your wallchart
This website posterises your images should you wish. Jon from Balham, for example, will have a 20 sheet Robot dancing Peter Crouch as inspiration over the next month.
USA 1994 England didn't qualify for the USA world cup in 1994. I remember being pretty depressed about this at the time. The fly on the wall documentary made about the doomed qualification, and it's hopelessly inept manager, Graham Taylor, is as one Amazon reviewer says 'Pure Alan Partridge'. Taylor managed to squander some of the greatest talents in the Premier League, by employing a long ball system, and had Carlton Palmer as his playmaker, whilst Matt Le Tissier remained unused despite doing this kind of thing on a regular basis.
Anyway, that summer, everybody in England became Irish, as they went about their good spirited and effective way to the 2nd round. They lost to Holland, mostly due to a dreadful goalkeeping mistake.
Maradona went from God to Monster in one supposedly drug fuelled hit, the Romanians still had their mullets, Bulgaria beat Germany in one of the most satisfying games, and it all shook out that Brazil played Italy in the final.
I was in Prague that year, so had my first final with beer, and promptly slept through most of the dull final, which was the first ever decided by penalties.
The divine ponytail, Roberto Baggio, who had carried Italy so far, fell at the last hurdle and skied his shot to samba jubilation.
The best goal in 1994, was this beauty from Saeed Owarian in the match between Saudi Arabia vs Belgium.
1990 also marked the point where ex-Coventry City goalkeeper, and BBC announcer appeared on Wogan, not to discuss the new slot for Sunday Grandstand, but to segue into Green politics. He was then expelled from the Greens, then began to curve further away from the mainstream with strong opinions on anti-Semitism, neofascism, and lizards from Mars.
In 1990, England had a fair to middling team, but was overshadowed in the run up with threats of vandalism and the aftermath of the Hillsbrough tragedy the year before. I wasn't really into my football, and got my fix of bad haircuts from Dutch prog rock.
but there were so many to choose from in 1990... Chris Waddle
Rudi Voller (with Ruud Gullit in background)
Frank Rijkaard (left) a second before spitting at Rudi Völler. The two had been arguing throughout the game and things got out of control when Völler went in on Dutch keeper van Breukelen with his studs raised. Rijkaard received marching orders for brawling and Völler received his second yellow card and was sent off as well.
David Platt turned England's campaign round with a beautiful swivel and shot in the 119th minute of a 2nd round bore draw with Belgium. In fact, Belgium had looked the most likely to score with the coolly named Enzo Schifo dictating the game.
So after four matches England had chalked up only 3 goals, yet were in the quarter finals, playing Cameroon. This match was considered a stroll to the semi-finals, but with only 8 minutes to go, Cameroon were 2-1 up. England were awarded a penalty which Gary Linekar finished off, before despatching an extra time kick in similar fashion. By the skin of their teeth, Bobby Robson's boys were through, and found themselves playing West Germany for a place in the final.
It had been widely acknowledged that England were crap despite having some pretty good players.
Of the final four, Argentina had Maradona, Cannigia, Buruchaga Italy had Vialli, Maldini and Schilacci Germany had Matthaus, Voller and Klinsmann England had Linekar, Beadsley and Shilton
In addition to these three, England had an improving Paul Gazza Gascoigne. He played a pivotal role in that he was young, talented and up for it. In 1990, there was the second summer of love.
'Baggy' was the sound, 'e' was the drug, and England had taken the progressive step of using New Order to record the anthem. Rather than have the old fashioned choir singing in unison, John Barnes did a rap, and the single hit number 1. In a second, football was fashionable again. And the use of Nessun Dorma as the theme music, with new editing tricks of having past glories shown through fine Italian wines, every generation was hooked.
OK, so I'm a research analyst by day. 2 interesting reports have come into my Inbox today. One, courtesy of Goldman Sachs looks into the economics of the World Cup, and is clearly one hell of jolly for some accountanty soccer fans to produce. Report
Also, in some pan-Global research, Synovate looked at how each country considered themselves as favourites for the World Cup, with the exception of the Germans.
Some people also plan to take advantage of the World Cup as an excuse to avoid household chores, with several nationalities vying for top post among shirkers: the Serbs at 43 per cent, the British at 41 per cent, Brazilians at 40 per cent, Czechs at 39 per cent and Argentines at 37 per cent. Japanese and Swedish respondents were the most dutiful, with only 10 and 12 per cent respectively planning to use football as a pretext for avoiding life's mundane realities.
Finally, the World Cup poses a dilemma for some football fans: Whether to go to work and miss matches on TV. For around a quarter of Serb and Korean respondents, it's not much of a conundrum: They would call in sick to work in order to watch matches during working hours.
Go Serbs and Koreans!
I was very loosely involved in some research in 2002 around the World Cup, where in a survey for ITV, respondents were asked to name the most annoying advert of the tournament - it was for a car where a driver simulated the screeching noise of going round corners as he obviously missed it with his new silky smooth and silent Brand X. I'll try and fish this out on google video, though I promise it's one of the most awful 'executions' I've ever seen, and proof that not market research is bollocks.
As you can see here, Canada qualified in 1986. The first indication that they wouldn't do so well is the fact that on Panini, they had 2 players per sticker. This is generally seen as a snub, and had the maple leafers marked as also rans before they began. They didn't end up doing so well, in fact they played 3 games, didn't score a goal and were on the plane north before you could say 'Guadalajara'.
The key game of the tournament (from an unbiased English persepective) fell between England and Argentina, still smarting from their defeat over the Falklands. The whole match is here, as I missed it, but you probably only need to watch between 52 and 57 minutes to figure out who and why this game was won.
Wayne Rooney is awaiting the verdict from doctors after a scan on his broken foot that could determine whether he plays any part in the World Cup. The striker spent 25 minutes inside the clinic, accompanied by FA executive director David Davies and team doctors from Manchester United and England.
The 20-year-old is in a positive mood after telling England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson he expects to play in Germany.
Eriksson said: "I am confident and he is 300% confident he will play."
now, I tried to chart this amazing statistic of confidence, but Excel has difficulty graphing anything over 100%. I will keep an eye on any other instances of unpiechartable hyperbole by players and administration during the World Cup.
England was a different country back in 1982. Maggie Thatcher had thrown her muscle around and got us into 'conflict' with Argentina oversome little islands. Pope John Paul II looked young and preached to crowds in Heaton Park that wouldn't be seen again until the Happy Mondays and Candy Flip headlined the Madchester festival in 1990.
Just up the road I spent my afternoons playing Kingy, Wally and Kerby, and my brothers were glued to the 1982 World Cup.
The first question I had in that long hot Summer, was where on earth is Magyoroszag? Players from this strange place were on the official Panini stickers (which are now worth a LOT on ebay).
The contrast and colour on the DDR Tv under the cuckoo clock were set in that 1982 fashion. Bright and Loud. On screen graphics were limited to a clock at the start, and the goalscorers name. Tardellli, Zico, Socrates, Rossi.
You notice no English names there ? After making light work of the group stage
P W D L Gls Pts ENGLAND 3 3 0 0 6-1 6 FRANCE 3 1 1 1 6-5 3 Czechoslovakia 3 0 2 1 2-4 2 Kuwait 3 0 1 2 2-6 1
England failed to score in the second phase in matches against West Germany and hosts Spain. Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking were both injured and came on way too late to do anything.
The shock of the tournament was the elimination of Brazil who my brothers had told me were the best team in the world.
But the official FIFA site has in it's top 10 world cup moments...
4) Harald Schumacher 1982 - "Assault on Battiston" It's been described as the worst and most brutal tackle ever on a soccer field. Schumacher's assault on Battiston in the 1982 semifinal cost the French substitute three teeth and even put his life in danger briefly. Schumacher escaped without even a caution and the referee awarded a goal kick!
Still in the cold war era, the rest of the world united and willed the Italians on to their deserved victory in the final, with Paulo Rossi leading the scoring, and Marco Tardelli providing the lasting image of the tournament.
From North and Central America, USA, MEXICO and COSTA RICA qualified for 2006 FIFA World Cup finals. Trinidad and Tobago had to beat Bahrain to book their place.
Canada won just the one game out of six in their qualifying group - away to Guatemala. Amazingly, they are ranked 83 in the world, HIGHER than Northern Ireland who beat England in the qualifying campaign...
Canada 0 v Guatemala 2 Costa Rica 1 v Canada 0 Guatemala 0 v Canada 1 Canada 1 v Honduras 1 Honduras 1 v Canada 1 Canada 1 v Costa Rica 3
World Cup 2006 Qualifying CONCACAF Group 2 Second Stage - Table
Teams P W D L GF GA Pts. Costa Rica 6 3 1 2 12 8 10 Guatemala 6 3 1 2 7 9 10 Honduras 6 1 4 1 9 7 7 Canada 6 1 2 3 4 8 5
To further benchmark what is good and bad in the world of goal celebration
Overdone The samba by the corner flag Rocking the baby most famously done by the Brazilian Bebeto in 1994. Copied by pretty much every other player since, like John Terry
Good Using the corner flag as a microphone stand and pretending to be Elvis - Lee Sharpe Doing a forward roll then motioning the firing of an arrow from an imaginary bow - Robbie Keane Anything involving a backflip Old fashioned slide
Match Betting.... 16 match accumulator stands to 'net' me nearly £90K - over $180K...for a 34p stake
Germany v Costa Rica : Germany @ 2 - 7 Poland v Ecuador : Poland @ 10 - 11 England v Paraguay : England @ 8 - 15 Trinidad & Tobago v Sweden : Sweden @ 3 - 10 Argentina v Ivory Coast : Argentina @ 8 - 15 Serbia & Montenegro v Holland : Serbia & Montenegro @ 7 - 2 Mexico v Iran: Draw @ 12 - 5 Angola v Portugal : Portugal @ 4 - 11 Australia v Japan : Japan @ 7 - 4 USA v Czech Republic : Draw @ 21 - 10 Italy v Ghana : Ghana @ 6 - 1 South Korea v Togo : South Korea @ 11 - 10 France v Switzerland : France @ 8 - 13 Brazil v Croatia : Brazil @ 4 - 11 Spain v Ukraine : Draw @ 11 - 5 Tunisia v Saudi Arabia : Tunisia @ 10 - 11
Stake per Line: £0.34 Number of Lines: 1 Stake: £0.34 Tax: 0.0 Potential Returns: £89,746.87
Controversial Goal Celebration #1 Robbie Fowler snorts the touchline : After being taunted by rival Everton fans about his rumoured cocaine habit, after scoring a goal, Fowler proceeded to 'snort' the white touchline.
World Cup Sweep - Calgary I have put the teams into pots dictated by betting odds. Pot 1 is the most expensive pot ($2 per entry), you have teams like Brazil, who are the most likely to win the cup. Then you Pots 2 through to 4, which cost $1.50, down to $0.50. Choose which pot you want your team(s) to be drawn from.
I will take orders for entries, and will draw out the teams next Thursday ( or earlier if all tickets sold ).
The Prize distribution will be : $20 to the tournament winner $10 to the runner upand $10 to be divided into merit prizes based on fickle things like effort, goal celebrations and haircuts... beware though...the team with the worst disciplinary record has to buythe team with the best disciplinary record an ADDITIONAL pint...
