Thou shalt not worship false idols, particularly Billy

And nor should thou desecrate the primitive tribe's false idols, as they tend to undergo sense of humour failure and go about the place smiting fuckers at random. And suddenly remembering how to play rugby league properly.


















Blue paint (two colours): $30
Brushes: $10
Inciting an entire Australian state to bleat, sulk, whinge and carry on like four year olds: priceless

OK boys. You know who you are. You know what you did. Sure, it was funny. Fucking hilarious, in fact. But you knew they wouldn't see the funny side, didn't you? As expected, they reacted like you'd screwed their sister and then told them she wasn't as good as their mum. That's their territory, and don't you forget it. Not only did you give the Maroons the ideal motivation to dole out an absolute touch-up to our boys, but you forced this correspondent and many of a similar mind to do something which we will regret for many years to come: sit through the replay of that absolutely turgid France-Switzerland goalless draw, the footballing equivalent of mixing Prozac with meths. Fuck you and the donkey your mum rides, or vice versa. Keep your heads down.


ROUND ONE. FIGHT!
Award season continues at the World Cup, with the first series of first round games just completed. Our latest nominees are:

The Luciano Moggi Memorial Brown Paper Bag for Dodgiest Refereeing Decision
Early and obvious favourite in this category was the ref from the Australia-Japan game, old mate from the Egyptian Air Force (cue most of the nation screaming 'Where's the fuckin' Israeli ack-ack units when they're needed'), but he did apologise to captain Viduka after the game - in fact he started apologising to Schwarzer DURING the game, as soon as five minutes after his massive balls-up over the Japan goal - so we'll let him off.
The leading contender to date is the ref from the Spain-Ukraine game/thrashing/exhibition of a man kicking a dog. Admittedly the Spanish would have won without any help, but the penalty which gave them their third goal and an eleven-on-ten advantage was based around contact so light between defender and striker, the Spanish kiddie actually forgot to dive.

The Terrell Owens Golden Sharpie for Best Goal Celebration
Nominations: Ivan Kaviedes of Ecuador with his Spidey mask - big props for using props, T.O. would have been proud - and the entire Togolese national team in their game against South Korea, probably just astonished to have scored at all. Not that it did them a hell of a lot of good. By the way, I retract any positive statements I may have made in previous Weaks regarding Nike's cultural renaissance on account of their fashion designers having their fluorescent markers confiscated after KoreaJapan. Apparently, they've still got one colour left in the pencil case.
















The Green Knight 'It's only a flesh wound' Missing Limb for Most Amusing Injury
This being Germany, we award this trophy in the true spirit of schaudenfreude - the act of drawing humour at the expense of someone else's misfortune (and how unlike the Germans to have a specific word for such a thing.) And what could be funnier than Dwight Yorke getting hit in the cruets by a piledriver shot from Steven Gerrard? (Hilarious unless you're a single woman in eastern Sydney, of course)

Well, how about a Seppo being elbowed in the head?














Sorry, I missed that... you were saying something again about 'having to save all our asses from Fritz back in Dubya Dubya 2'?

Or better still, combining both ideas in one?



















Aw c'mon Sir, I was going for the ball

Word of advice to anyone with cable TV - do not, on any account, watch ESPN for the next three to five days, unless you seriously want your intelligence insulted. For a country which straight-facedly claims to be world series champions at sports which only it actually plays, you can just imagine how the likes of LESBN will now claim they're the world champions of 'soccer' as well. We offer the same suggestion as for the 'undercover' Blues in banana-bender land: keep your heads down.

The Stefan Kuntz Golden Nametag for the Player with the Most Unfortunate Name
Alongside pre-tournament favourites Quim (Portugal), Fred (Brazil) and full-postal-address provider Vennegoor of Hesselink (Netherlands), our judges have noted the fine work of Pizarro (Costa Rica), Oddo (Italy), Pantsil and Pimpong (Ghana), and Schweinsteiger (Germany). We may well have enough for a Kuntz Memorial First XI by the end of the tournament - quite possibly coached by Pekerman (Argentina).

The Y2K Award for the Most Overhyped Non-Event
So far it's a dead head between Sheva and the entire Brazilian first team, neither of whom have actually turned up to play yet.

The DHL Postage and Handling Award for Doing Everything Except Scoring - Hitting The Woodwork Incessently, Getting Denied By Goalkeeping Acrobatics, Goals Disallowed By Dubious Off-Side Calls, That Sort Of Thing
Sweden against T&T, closely followed by most of the Germany-Poland game, in which they hit the bar more times than George Best. Klose, but no cigar.


I'M TOO LAZY TO FINISH THIS OFF WITH SOME WITTY CONCLUSION SO I'LL RIP SOME OTHER BASTARD OFF
The Weak In Sport, well-known for our encyclopaedic knowledge and incisive analysis of modern VFL football (whaddya mean it's not called VFL anymore? When the hell did that happen?) would like to present the following, which should amuse anyone not in the league heartland of The Weak's demographic (unless you've already seen it by email, which is pretty likely).

The Aussie Rules Fan's Guide To International Football

Adelaide: Italy. Fanatical supporter base but borderline certifiable.

Brisbane: Columbia. Good at home, hopeless away. Also quite wealthy, but where does all that money come from?

Carlton: USA. Haven't quite worked out the difference between sport and business. Supporting Carlton is a bit like supporting a multinational. C'mon Coca Cola, Go get'em, Microsoft.

Collingwood: Iraq. They live in a tenth century dictatorship and talk about the glories from the Byzantine era. Don't tell them they're shithouse as you'll probably be knifed.

Essendon: Brazil. Arrogant, conceited and its always great to see them lose.

Fremantle: Western Samoa. Any loss by nine goals or less is declared an unofficial victory.

Geelong. The Central African qualifiers (Cameroon, Nigeria etc). Flashy, unpredictable. They quite often make the semis but never win.

Hawthorn: The Netherlands. Always competitive but have absolutely no fashion sense. (Does this brown shirt go well with my orange jeans?)

Kangaroos: The Palestinians. They have no homeland and probably never will.

Melbourne: Uruguay. Always talking about the glorious past but for the last forty years they've been less than ordinary.

Port Adelaide: South Africa. After years in exile telling everyone how good they are, they finally enter the competition and prove to be extremely average.

Richmond: England. Large supporter base of optimistic pessimists. They will always turn up and hope they're gonna win but know they wont.

St Kilda: Spain. Another large and fanatical supporter base, with virtually nothing to cheer about. Likely to self-destruct at any moment.

Sydney: Australia. The majority of their supporters have no idea about the game and only watch them when they're winning.

West Coast: Germany. Methodical, ruthless and boring to watch.

Western Bulldogs: Scotland. Happy to qualify but that's all they'll ever do.