World Cup 2010 Blog: “Argentina Squad Can Have Sex – But Not With Havana Cigars” plus 9 more |  |
- Argentina Squad Can Have Sex – But Not With Havana Cigars
- Am I Collective’s World Cup Art
- Euro 2016 To Be Awarded Today (To France)
- World Cup Friendlies Recap: There’s No Place Like Home. (When Home Is Soccer City.)
- Daily Dose: May 27th, 2010 – Cesc Fabregas Loves Arsenal. Just Not Enough to Stay.
- Soundoff: Your World Cup Group A Predictions…
- World Cup Coaches, By Nationality and Numbers
- Play Along with Our World Cup Fantasy Game
- Another One Bites The Dust: No World Cup For Michael Essien.
- You’re Not Fit to Referee (Literally)
| Argentina Squad Can Have Sex – But Not With Havana Cigars Posted: 28 May 2010 04:10 AM PDT
With so much on the line at the World Cup, a meeting of some sort was held (we presume – these type of decisions can’t be made on a whim) to determine whether or not the Argentina squad could rustle up the sheets during the world’s greatest tournament. You love this sport, don’t you?
Does Donato know something about Martians that we don’t? Is he holding out on society? Are they some sort of asexual race? Or are they perfectly capable of abstinence whilst hurtling through space for millions of light years at a time? What’s up, doc? Since this is a family site, we won’t get into the mechanics of sex and the Havana cigar, but Bill Clinton, the freshly anointed honorary chairman of US bids for 2018 & 2022, can’t be happy about this development. Meanwhile, Dr. Vallani requested we close with these words:
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| Am I Collective’s World Cup Art Posted: 28 May 2010 01:40 AM PDT ESPN’s going to get a lot of credit for their World Cup murals, but they hired out Wieden + Kennedy – the crew responsible for Nike’s Write The Future ad – who in turn hired out the Cape Town, South Africa illustrators known as the Am I Collective. The concept was to be based upon 80’s Ghanaian movie posters, an art genre probably unknown to most, and they took three months to complete murals for all 32 teams. All have some sort of meaning or relevance to the national team; however, America might switch from the Sports Illustrated curse to the ESPN mural curse – Michael Essien and Michael Ballack are both featured. Sound the alarm… The full 32 can be viewed here.
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| Euro 2016 To Be Awarded Today (To France) Posted: 27 May 2010 11:10 PM PDT
The other two candidates are Italy and Turkey. The latter has been something of an edgy bid, needing a great deal of infrastructure work, while Italy has offered up the least amount of money to upgrade stadia, reportedly trumpeting Rome’s modern new stadium, the Colosseum.
The problem is partially that 60%, because private investment has known to fail once or twice in recent football memory. Turkey has offered up €1b of government money, which comes with a bit more guarantee. And then there’s the allure of the atmosphere which would be, in a word, unrivaled. Yet it only makes sense that it’ll go to France: they’re the safe bid and even though Polkraine 2012 still has two years left to run, the road has been bumpy – quite literally in certain instances. Even without the government providing the bulk of the cash, it’s still more cash (more is better – remember that), so you’re likely to book your trip to Paris and Bordeaux in 2016, where you can get wasted with a red-nosed geezer named Alex suspiciously eyeing up all the children.
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| World Cup Friendlies Recap: There’s No Place Like Home. (When Home Is Soccer City.) Posted: 27 May 2010 09:40 PM PDT
But best of all: it was in front of 75,000. No worries for South Africa’s attendance during this World Cup then. (Added bonus of Carlos Alberto Parreira in a pinney in that link.) Elsewhere, Honduras played Belarus in front of family & friends while Christian Poulsen gave the world more reason not to like him. Quickies after the jump. South Africa 2 – Colombia 1 Controversial refereeing calls? World Cup hosts? Never! After saving Teko Modise’s first penalty, it was determined Colombia’s keeper had moved off the line too soon, a call which is made…well I don’t know when that’s called. Rarely, if ever. Thus South Africa were given another penalty, which was converted by Teko (great name). A few minutes later a Colombian was launched into orbit, and the score became 1-1. In the second half, South Africa were awarded another penalty which has raised flags (apologies), but is tough to determine from our angle (it looks suspiciously like he’s a big, fancy pants wearin’ whiffer). It’s Soccer City, a friendly, so you can maybe be a bit forgiving. But I’d still like to change my Group A prediction to include South Africa in the knockouts. Call it a hunch. One can only assume there are only a handful of people on the planet who like Christian Poulsen. If you can piss off Kaka, there’s something awfully wrong goin’ on. Whether Jon Dahl Tomasson’s on that list, we don’t know. But Poulsen stole his goal yesterday in a friendly. An entirely meaningless friendly, so you’d think it’s not a big deal, until you consider this goal would’ve equaled Tist Nielsen’s all-time Danish record of 52. His teammates didn’t care, but maybe Jon did. Of course maybe Christian was saving JDT from a lifetime of goal montages where his record-equalizer was a sloppily executed overhead. So don’t say Poulsen’s not a good guy at heart. At least until he punches you in the stomach – then it’s okay. In other news, Simon Kjaer was stretchered off, which you’d expect to be bad news for Denmark, but no details as of yet. Much like Soccer City, this one had a packed house: 400. Why they needed to approximate when they could’ve counted heads, no one knows. It also looks as though it may have been played at a neighborhood park in Austria, which is simply awesome. Could you imagine walking the dog and running into an international friendly? I’m enthralled by the possibilities of this becoming a proper tournament. Hold a Neighborhood Park World Cup in which two international teams are flown to a random park around the globe for legitimate group game with no notice whatsoever. Just shove them off to the airport with an envelope full of tickets they’re not allowed to open until security, then play Brazil v Germany at the end of a cul de sac in Luxembourg with twelve people in attendance, eleven of whom are entirely oblivious, and one Bichon Frise relieving himself on Jogi Loew’s loafer. Somewhere, someone must be devising this as we speak. They have to be. (Oh, and the game was a draw.)
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| Daily Dose: May 27th, 2010 – Cesc Fabregas Loves Arsenal. Just Not Enough to Stay. Posted: 27 May 2010 07:10 PM PDT
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| Soundoff: Your World Cup Group A Predictions… Posted: 27 May 2010 04:10 PM PDT
Can you pick which of those teams is going to finish bottom? Normally you might say South Africa, but their hosting the event seems to make that unlikely. Some tough tough choices to make here. First thing I did before writing this post was to ask Chris for his opinion. Because he’s always got one. Here’s how Chris sees Group A finishing: 1. France I can see the logic there. France is technically and traditionally the strongest team, Uruguay are certainly solid enough to pick up enough points and South Africa will put up a brave fight but fail to qualify for the second round. Then I remembered that so far no host country has failed to make it past the first round of a World Cup. Which would make South Africa finishing third somewhat historic. I want to say I have a gut feeling South Africa will make it out of Group A. But given the quality of opposition, I just don’t see it happening. And though I don’t see France being particularly strong in this World Cup (Raymond Domenech etc), being unseeded but then being drawn into South Africa’s group was a gigantic slice of luck, and I don’t see them wasting a gift like that. So, after much pondering, my prediction for Group A is… 1. France I feel seriously bad predicting that South Africa will finish bottom. In my defence, I don’t think they’ll get slaughtered. They’ll pick up a point or two and I imagine Group A as a whole will be pretty tight. But France will have that little bit extra and the young guns of Mexico will have just enough to pip Uruguay to second place. How do you see Group A finishing? Share your predictions in the comments. - We’ll be doing a Soundoff predictions post for each group over the next couple of weeks, but you can also predict the whole tournament in our World Cup Bracket competition.
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| World Cup Coaches, By Nationality and Numbers Posted: 27 May 2010 02:10 PM PDT
Before you look at the list of coaches and the numbers, do yourself a favour and have a guess at how those numbers pan out. What do you think the average age of the World Cup coaches will be? How many coaches are in their forties? What percentage of World Cup teams have a foreign coach? Which country has the most coaches at World Cup 2010? Ignore the image of three German passports above, take a best guess at those numbers and then read on for the answers…
So let’s break this down. First by how many years these coaches have seen. Seven World Cup coaches are in their forties. Fourteen World Cup coaches are in their fifties. Ten World Cup coaches are in their 60s. Just one World Cup coach is in his seventies. Otto Rehhagel is that old man of the group at 71 years old. Even though he only looks about 50. Vladimír Weiss is the baby at 45 years old. The total ages of all coaches combined is 1,788 years. Which is a lot of experience. Average age is 55.875 years old. Second, nationality. A total of 20 teams have native coaches. Those 20 teams are: A total of 12 teams have gone foreign, hiring non-native coaches. Those 12 teams are: So that means 62.5% of teams have native coaches, while 37.5% don’t. Native coaches are in the majority, but that 37.5% seems like a whole lot of foreigners. Here are the nationalities with more than one coach at the World Cup: 3 – Argentina, Germany It’s incredible to me that Argentinean coaches are well respected enough to be in demand by other nations, and yet Diego Maradona is in charge of the albiceleste. But perhaps the strangest fact is that there are three coaches at the World Cup who come countries whose team didn’t qualify. They are Sven-Göran Eriksson and Lars Lagerbäck of Sweden, and Reinaldo Rueda of Colombia. And here’s what you’ll want to say if you’re outraged by a foreigner managing your national team. Derka derb.
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| Play Along with Our World Cup Fantasy Game Posted: 27 May 2010 12:45 PM PDT
The World Cup is fun, and if you can’t enjoy at least some aspect of it, you really aren’t trying. Fans from 32 nations (and several more that haven’t qualified) come together in one place for a month-long party of football and plenty more. Around the world, millions more are currently engaged in the art of pre-World Cup prediction, combining experience, form, team loyalties, and gut feelings to make their guesses of how things are going to end up. That’s part of the fun too. Here at World Cup Blog, we try to enable the fun whenever possible, especially when it comes to our namesake tournament. That’s why we started our World Cup Bracket Contest, which lets you make your predictions against hundreds of other WCB readers for free and win prizes. We always wanted to have this free contest available, but we also know that many people like to put some cash down on their predictions. We also know that some fans are more interested in individual players than teams. With that in mind, we’ve joined with 11Kicks to create a World Cup Fantasy Game. There are three levels of play, each with a different pay-in amount and different amounts of prizes. You can buy into a league for $30, $100, or $200. Unlike many straight World Cup betting sites, Americans are eligible. Full disclosure – I’ve entered my team on the $30 level. My team is called “Inverness Reserves”, so if you join and you’re in my league, say howdy. Each league is made up of ten random players, and there are cash prizes for first, second and third place, which means that even if you’re as bad at these things as I am, there is a decent chance at winning something. As a side note, filling this out reminds me how unusually good the Brazilian defense is for this tournament. It’s a little scary. So if you want to put down a little bit of cash and think you can pick a better team than the likes of Dunga and Maradona, join up at http://fantasy.worldcupblog.org. And also join us in our free bracket predictor contest.
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| Another One Bites The Dust: No World Cup For Michael Essien. Posted: 27 May 2010 11:10 AM PDT
But they only have one Michael Essien, and he won’t be going to the World Cup. Falling in line with Chelsea midfielders in Group D, the Ghana FA has announced Michael won’t recuperate from his injuries in time to take part in the World Cup, which is truly just an awful shame, given his standing as one of Africa’s best players in Africa’s first World Cup.
Late July is still a solid six weeks from Ghana’s first game which means the chances he would’ve made it were never as good as you’d have believed. As for Ghana, this is obviously a huge blow but it’s not as though they’ll be unprepared, as they’ve been doing without Essien since the Cup of Nations in January. Of course that’s only been one friendly, in which Anthony Annan and Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu took place in midfield with more than just Essien’s injury limiting options. They also have Sulley Muntari and Stephen Appiah back, with Kwadwo Asamoah still in the mix. But none are, unfortunately, Michael Essien.
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| You’re Not Fit to Referee (Literally) Posted: 27 May 2010 09:30 AM PDT
The two sets of referees no longer going to South Africa are: Referee: Mohamed Benouza (Algeria) + assistant referees: Nasser Abdel Nadi (Egypt)/Maamar Chabane (Algeria) Harsh. But wait, it gets worse. It wasn’t that all six men failed the fitness test. The two referees – Mohomed Benouza and Carlos Amarilla – were apparently fine. It was their assistants that sank the ship by being out of shape. FIFA had grouped referees into teams of three with a common language, but also made clear that all three must pass the fitness test, or none of the three got to go to South Africa. Awkward. So despite them being perfectly fit for the job, Benouza and Amarilla’s names will be removed from the list of World Cup referees, with Uruguay’s Martin E. Vazquez Broqueta called up as a replacement. If I’m Benouza or Amarilla here, I’m angry. I’m also putting my two linesmen on some sort of salad, water and long distance running regimen for the next four years, in the hope of making it to World Cup 2014.
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The entire Argentina squad and all its surroundings has descended into pure, unadultered lunacy. All of it. Much, of course, is down to their head honcho, the soon-not-to-be-naked Diego Maradona, who is as influential off the pitch as he was on, just in all the wrong ways. Or right ways, depending on your vantage point.
We haven’t quite entered “worst secret” territory, but when the lotto ball for Euro 2016 is plucked from that bin by a scantily clad Michel Plantini, the world expects him to show a French one, and for good reason: they’re throwing money at it. 
The glory friendlies, at least in name, took the day off, so we were left with the hosts (that’s South Africa), Denmark and Honduras. Luckily South Africa put on a show in front of the Soccer City fans, full with plenty of ear drum-shattering vuvuzelas, men in epic makarabas (to the left) and women dancing with giant…err…
The World Cup is just over two weeks away. So it’s time to start making a few predictions. Who we think will qualify, and how the group will finish #1 to #4. Maybe it’s just because this is the first one, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that 
Below you’ll find a complete list of the 32 coaches at World Cup 2010. You’ll also find their nationality, and their age going into the tournament. Beneath that you’ll find some amateur hour number crunching I did with pen, paper and the calculator on my cell phone to work out a few statistics.
( Who’s got two thumbs and will be the most picked fantasy player? This guy. )
One thing is certain: Ghana has a deep abundance of talented, capable 
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