Quality Quantitative

This is something all England fans will want to hear/read/see come true.

Still Time To Get Injured

The Michael Ballack situation is a wake-up call to every player hoping to make it to the Big Show (that's American for the World Cup). It just shows how fragile the World Cup dream is, and how quickly it can be taken away. My advice would be to hold on to every bannister. Don't run on slippery floors and stay away from footballers who've just missed a penalty.

Chances of hosting 2018 tournament

Did it really take 1700 odd pages to outline why England should host the 2018 World Cup? Who's going to wade through all that? I hope there's lots of pictures, not to mention a few bribes!

Ah, yes bribes. A word that's been banded about by the leader of our bid. Something to do with Spain, Russia and referees. All sounds like school playground stuff, and not anything that's going to help us put our case across.

To be honest, Russia must have a strong case to be the hosts, despite the fact that it'll have been 52 years since we did the honours by 2018. Obviously, I'm backing the England bid, not that'll make a blade of grass worth of difference. Back the bid

Best World Cup England XI (Since 1978)

'78 is the first World Cup I can remember and, of course, England didn't quality for it. So here's an Eleven made up of the players that I reckon have performed best on the big stage for England since then.

GK Peter SHILTON
LB Stuart PEARCE
CB Sol CAMPBELL
CB Rio FERDINAND
RB Gary NEVILLE
LM Joe COLE
MC Owen HARGREAVES
MC Paul GASCOIGNE
RM David BECKHAM
ST Gary LINEKER
ST Michael OWEN

Who will win the 2010 World Cup?

According to this ingenious system, it will be Brazil.

That's based on a few tried and tested formulas, apparently.

The fact that they are predicted to beat Serbia in the final is harder to justify.

Who'll Make It To The Quarter-Finals?

The time hath come to lay it down in writing. To put my already dubious predicting skills to the test. Here's how I reckon they'll line up in the Last Eight:

ARGENTINA v ENGLAND

HOLLAND v BRAZIL

NIGERIA v GERMANY

ITALY v IVORY COAST

Scaremongering

There's going to be a fair bit of it knocking about during the next month, I'll wager. Today it was 'Terry's broken his foot'. Yesterday it was 'Heskey's in the squad'. (Ah, he really is.) Tomorrow it might be Carrick's done a loud sneeze. Nerve wracking times. But you can't wrap em up in cotton wool, as someone's mum probably once said...

A month to go...

A month today we'll be underway. Get in!

30-man squad

Goalkeepers: Joe Hart, David James, Robert Green.

Defenders: Leighton Baines, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Michael Dawson, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry, Matthew Upson, Stephen Warnock.

Midfielders: Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Scott Parker, Theo Walcott, Shaun Wright-Phillips.

Forwards: Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney


Hmm. I had Robinson, Neville and Downing in my 23, so unless there's an injury crisis, that's three I've got wrong already....

World Cup ads Pt II

Forget everything I said yesterday. This is top drawer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2PqJyfSPKQ

World Cup ads

Prepare to be inundated. It's still over a month to go, but there are already shedloads of them out there. Spot the ones that haven't got an official World Cup sponsorship license. They'll be bigging-up football but won't be mentioning the World Cup by name, because legally they can't. But they'll be trying to piggyback on the football hype and get you to buy a product that has - at best - a spurious link to football.