Apparently Zidane's car wouldn't start today.

(Cheers Football365.com)

So Sardine Sedan, who will never play another game of professional football, and who has been given a three match ban. Mark Mattress (literal translation), who at last check is still a professional footballer, and who was has been given a two match ban. For sledging. Motherfu... um... bottom. God save FIFA should their precious little ears catch the unedited audio feed from the stump mikes during an Ashes test. If Skwarne was a footballer he'd be in front of the judiciary more often than Adrian Morley. Speaking of which - did you really kneed to do that mate?


FILE UNDER 'ITALIAN VICTORIES IN GERMANY, CONTINUED'

The hallowed Materazzi number 23 Italia shirt, in XXL size, was busted out by one V. Rossi who managed to disenfranchise his entire Gallic contingent of supporters (as well as the Seppo cancer-stick merchants who fund his employment) by donning the Azzurri colours over his Camel Yamaha leathers on climbing atop the podium at the Cherman MotoGP. Considering he'd just single-handedly stuffed anyone on one of them hideously quick factory Honda RC211Vs, you can add Honda Racing Corporation to the list of individuals and/or registered companies more than slightly dicked off at Il Dottore's conduct. Fuck 'em. Yet again the yellow peril carried the thing on his back, made the factory Honda boys all look like arseholes, and good luck to him.


I HATE AMERICANS

Fuckin' Tigger Woods won the golf, for anyone who gives a rats (good to see the Poms don't mind holding the world's premier golf tournament on something that looks like a SCG fifth-day wicket). But far, far worse than that, some ginger-bearded Seppo munter called Floyd won le Tour de France. Fuck's sake. Ginger-bearded Seppo munters called Floyd should NOT be allowed to win le Tour. This, the first Tour de France sans Lance, was supposed to be the year that the Euros reclaimed their race from the Seppos, and the Aussies had a Fuggen Big Go at the O.C. (that's the overall classification, not that Dawsons Creek remake with all the hollow-headed anorexics addicted to shopping - soon to guest-star the wives and girlfriends of the England first XI). Well, the latter happened OK - former mountain biker Cadel Evans finished top five (i.e. fifth) and world time time trial champion Michael Rogers got a top ten finish (i.e. tenth) to go with Gold Coast cock Robbie McEwen's third win in the green jersey competition. But the Septics refused to tank (see what I did there?) and at the end of three weeks of squashing your boys against a seat with the shock absorbant qualities of a Tena incontinence pad, your winner was Lloyd Flandis - a fugly, busted-arse Amish choad warrior.

OK, that's not quite fair - not quite factually correct, at least. Floyd Landis isn't Amish - he's Mennenite (meaning he religiously uses Speed Stick). But he IS fugly, he does has a ginger beard, and he does have a busted arse. Actually, it's rotting rather than busted. He suffers from osteonecrosis of the hip, meaning he's quite literally dying in the arse. His next stop after the Champs Elysees: hip replacement surgery.

Meanwhile, his precedessor as Seppo-stinking-up-the-place (and indeed his former teammate at Team Self-Discovery Channel nee US Going-Postal-Service), Lance Armstrong, was hosting the ESPY Awards. At the same time US prosecutors were trying for a third time to string up baseball home-run star Barry Bonds on tax evasion and perjury charges, having so far utterly failed to have him indicted for steroid use in his pursuit of Babe Ruth's 714 and Hank Aaron's 755 career HR records (which in baseball, a game even more obsessed with numbers than its distant cousin cricket, are holy scripture.) What the hell do these things have to do with each other? Well, there's about as much evidence that Bonds took steroids as there is that Lance with the loose-fitting pants (takes up half the space that most of us would) won his seven circuits de Frogland on large amounts of go-fast. That's right - for both Bonds and Armstrong, there's the same amount of hard, factual evidence they were drug cheats (i.e. none), and the same amount of circumstantial, he-said-she-said heresay (i.e. arseloads).

So why does Lance get to swan about the place hosting awards nights and banging washed-up chanteuses, while Barry waits to see if he'll be sharing the soap in shower block H? Easy. One's been a media darling (at least in the States), the other a total pain in the arse who's made no bid to conceal his distrust of the omnipresent US sports-media- wank-machine. Oh yeah, and one other thing. I might be wrong on this, but I suspect one of them might not be white.


PLAGIARISM IS TOPS

We finish, again, with more of someone else's work. This from the leftie Brit paper The Guardian, via The Weak's friend and yours, Neatti (aka the Cro who flew west).

Rooney Vol I: a heartbreaking work of staggering genius

Marina Hyde
Thursday July 20, 2006
The Guardian

It may be wildly presumptuous, with only phase one of his five-volume autobiography currently available for public consumption, but one suspects Wayne Rooney's literary genius may remain critically misunderstood during his own lifetime. Like others before him - William Blake, Karl Marx, Rod Hull - he will have to suffer the taunts or indifference of those too blinkered to comprehend his message, too literal to appreciate the exquisite feat he has achieved.

On the sneerers' own heads be it. For what Rooney has perpetrated in My Story So Far, with the lightest of steers from his ghostwriter Hunter Davies, is nothing less than an elaborate satire on the entire genre of football autobiographies. The self-justifying tedium, the vast emptiness, the sheer teeth-grinding banality of this particular art form is the striker's target, and as usual - if we may permit ourselves a lapse into the wordplay beloved of lesser authors - he doesn't miss.

Consider his description, in the Mail on Sunday's serialisation of the book, of the occasion on which he first donned his country's shirt, which might be regarded as the keystone in the story arc of this first volume.

"My own England debut, yeah, that was good. I'll always remember it. And my Everton debut, that was good too. . ."
His phrasing may be economical, yes, but paradoxically it is so rich one almost fancies oneself at the touchline on those auspicious days, or perhaps in the tunnel as this gauche young pitbull prepared to take his first faltering steps on the journey to wherever it is he's going.

Not that his clipped, affectless style does not give way occasionally to verbose flights of fancy. Indeed, where the England debut can clearly be communicated in sparse measure, there are times when the reader may feel they need rather more information in order to be adequately transported into the experience, and the description of the games room at the England team's World Cup hotel is one of those. Rooney does not disappoint.

"It was enormous," he confides, "with plenty of things to do, such as table tennis, snooker, and lots of video games and stuff. It was a bit like an amusement arcade. I liked the simulated golf game best." In contrast, the emotional passages require only the most delicate glossing. "On our day off, I went into town to meet Coleen. We had a walk about, and she gave me a present. It was a Rolex watch. On the back of it, she'd got it engraved: 'To Wayne, Good Luck in the World Cup, Love Coleen.' So that was nice." And then, just when you think you have understood his narrative technique, he wrongfoots you like some Puckish sprite. "Our house has six bedrooms and a big kitchen which is very modern and greyish," he teases. "I'm not good at describing décor."

Time and again you wonder whether at £17.99, My Story So Far is not criminally underpriced. Ought such subversive work really be so accessible?

Perhaps the most interesting passages - and God, it's a crowded field - relate to that fateful moment at which the Rooney boot embedded itself in the Carvalho genitals, which our reliable narrator attributes to the basic laws of physics. "I couldn't believe that the ref, who was so near, hadn't realised that," he then remarks. "Perhaps he was too near."

Too near. . . the one perspective yet to be suggested in the coverage of the incident, and one that puts one in mind of the moment in Top Gun when Tom Cruise's commanding officer observes: "You're a hell of an instinctive pilot, Maverick. Maybe too good." It is, clearly, one of those lines that on the surface would appear to a cynic to be so contrived as to be meaningless, but in fact hints at a greater truth just beyond all our grasps.

Of course, the one person agonising over Rooney's literary tour de force will be Ashley Cole - the Salieri to his Mozart, if you will. The past few days have seen increasingly desperate publicity trails for Ashley's own forthcoming opus, in which he promises to tell all about the Arsenal suits who "fed him to the sharks" over the Chelsea tapping-up affair. Whether or not Ashley is living the life of fish food - and by the looks of his wedding celebrations in this week's OK! magazine I'd say he's keeping his head just above water - is a judgment we will have to reserve for now. His book has as yet not hit the shelves, which is something of a blessing.

I'm not sure any of us would have the strength left to deal with it this week.

______________

The Doctor is OUT.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU may have ALREADY LOST the WORLD CUP!!!!

Ah, sledging. If boxing is the sweet science of sports, sledging is its verbal counterpart - the jab, the counterpunch, the left hook and the wild, desperate haymaker. Italian centreback Marco Materazzi's devastatingly effective 'mental disintegration' of French captain Zinedine Zidane in Monday morning's World Cup Final has shone the world's spotlight on the art of sledging, one which Australasians know and love, and in which we ANZACs are undisputed world champions.

If only anyone could decide on what the hell it was that Materazzi actually said to Zidane.

A statement from the grandstanding Paris-based racism group SOS Racism had earlier insisted that Materazzi called Zidane a 'dirty terrorist', but these lads have kept pretty quiet since. The English tabloids have offered up the usual poorly-researched rubbish, some hiring lip-readers to try and decode Materazzi's verbal barbs. The Daily Mirror's frontpage carried the claim that 'The furious French captain attacked Marco Materazzi after the defender allegedly sneered "All Muslims are terrorist bastards." Murdoch stablemate the Sun's tame lip-reader reckoned that Materazzi called Zidane a "son of a terrorist whore" - then in the same breath quoted 'a source close to the Italian squad' (i.e. one of the hacks in the Sun office) claiming that after twisting Zidane's nipple, Materazzi asked him: "What, don't you like it?" The French captain replied: "A bit too hard to turn me on." To which Materazzi called back: "Well, I did it that way because I know that's how your mother likes it."

The broadsheets also called in their friendly neighbourhood lip-readers, with variable results. The Independent: 'It is alleged that Zidane responded by sarcastically telling Materazzi that he could have his shirt as a souvenir at the end of the match. The Italian is alleged to have responded by saying that Zidane could keep it for his sister and then made an extremely derogatory comment about her.' This is backed up by lip-readers from the Brazilian TV channel Globo, who claim Materazzi called her a prostitute, although you can guess how much gets lost in translation when a conversation between an Italian and a French-Algerian is being translated into English via Portuguese. The Guardian's lip-reader asserts that Materazzi said "I wish an ugly death to you and all your family," making Marco himself sound more like a stereotypical Islamic terrorist than anyone else involved, and then told Zidane to "go fuck yourself".

The Italian papers have run with the claim that Zidane had a go at Materazzi's mother, with the former Everton defender responding in turn that the Frenchman enjoyed carnal relations with his sister. Given that the plot of every second French film on SBS seems to involve brothers and sisters doing things they shouldn't (unless they're from Ipswich), this may not seem on the face of it to be an unreasonable assumption on Materazzi's part. However, Materazzi's agent has also reportedly offered his own unique account of the verbal exchange, claiming that Zidane offered to swap shirts later with the Italian replied: "'I'd rather take the shirt off your wife."

For his part, Materazzi has previously denied any accusation of calling Zidane a terrorist, telling Italian news agency Ansa he didn't even know what the word meant. Now, finally, both have fronted up to the media to give their story. In an interview with iconic Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport, Materazzi declared, "I said nothing to him about race, religion or politics. I did not talk about his mother either. I lost my mother when I was 15 and it still upsets me to talk about it. Of course I didn't know that his mother was in hospital. I send her my best wishes." He added that "Zidane was always my hero. I admire him greatly." Meanwhile, interviewed live on French TV, Zidane protested, "He (Materazzi) pulled on my shirt several times and I told him that we could swap shirts at the end of the game if he wanted to. He then pronounced very tough words, words that hurt me deeply, words about my mother and my sister. At first, I tried not to listen to him but he kept repeating them. I knew it was my last game and I knew there were only 10 minutes to play but things happened very swiftly." He then added sniffily, "I am a man before anything else."

No you're not. You're not a man, you're a fucking sook. If you were a man, you'd have manned up, not listened to the nasty man, got the ball up the Italian end and booted the winner. Then went Naaah-naaah na naaah naaah, went out on the town with the Golden Turd in tow, and got drunk for a week straight.

The truth, it seems, is somewhere in between. So what DID happen? At last, The Weak In Sport can exclusively reveal how the explosive exchange was played out.

Zidane: "You are exhausted. Not as fit as I! Soon I will triumph! Muhahahaha!"
Materazzi: "Well, if you'd keep your mother and your sister out of my fucking hotel room the night before the match, I'd have a chance to keep up with you, you slaphead fuck."
Zidane: [Offensive header from 35 yards; hits target. Doesn't hit THE target, but does hit A target.]

Either that or Materazzi got in his ear and started reciting the lyrics to Triple J favourites Butterfingers' track Yo Mama's On The Top Of My Things To Do List.


GREAT MOMENTS IN SLEDGING

Judging by the reaction to Materazzi's pithy epithets, sledging might be relatively new to European football, but its spiritual home is undoubtedly in the gentleman's game of cricket. Steve Waugh's notorious observation following Herschelle Gibbs' fumble at Headingley in the '99 World Cup - "How does it feel to drop the World Cup?" - is probably the highest profile (and most printable) example. Waugh was a master of sledging (or 'mental disintegration' as he called it), expert both in terms of timing and impact. You think back to the position Australia were in immediately beforehand (five down for bugger-all, and Waugh himself seconds away from ballooning one to midwicket) - then Gibbs grasses the catch in a dismal attempt to showboat, Waugh points out his various inadequacies, Australia betters South Africa in consecutive matches (OK so one was a tie but it got them through) and shellacks the Paks in the World Cup final. And, just as significantly, Gibbs has not played well against Australia ever since. No matter how well he's travelling against the rest of the world, whenever he plays Australia he is an abject failure. You can put a lot of that down to the efforts of Steven WAUGH (woah-woah-woah what-is-he-good-for).

Waugh's sledge scored big points on two of the three key criteria for quality sledging. It was effective, and it was memorable. But, most critically of all, it wasn't FUNNY. Here then, in the opinion of The Weak, are the five funniest cricketing sledges of all time:

5. Viva Viv.
Playing county cricket for Somerset, legendary West Indian captain Viv Richards was struggling against a handy opposition seamer, who'd beat his bat several times in one over. "Hey Viv, it's red and it's round," the bowler pointed out.
Sir Viv came down the wicket to the next ball and belted it out of the park.
"You know what it looks like - go fetch it," he observed.

4. Arjy Bargy.
Portly former Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga always got under the skin of Australian players (ditto Australian fans, umpires, groundsmen, taxi drivers, people who ran into him in the street, etc.) In one mid-90s one-day game, batting down the order with his team in a bit of bother, the Sri Lankan skipper asked the umpires for a runner. To which Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy offered his interpretation of the rules surrounding substitute runners for injured batsmen:
"You don't get a runner for being an overweight, unfit, fat cunt."

3. McGrath 0 Rest Of The World 1.
Metronomic Australian quick Grenn McGlath was (and remains) a keen disciple of the teachings of Brother Steve of Bankstown when it comes to the art of sledging. He always enjoyed having a bit of a chat with the guy up the other end, sometimes with explosive results - many will recall the epic blowup between McGrath and West Indian vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan in the 4th test in Antigua in 2003. What was actually said between the pair was as follows:
McGrath: "What's Brian [Lara] like in bed?"
Sarwan: "Why don't you ask your wife?"

2. It's all about the timing.
Some sledges take years to mature. Returning from England's 1984 tour of Pakistan, Ian Botham offered the following assessment of their hosts: "Pakistan is the sort of place every man should send his mother-in-law to, for a month, all expenses paid."
Eight years later, in the final of the 1992 World Cup at the MCG, Botham was dismissed for a duck. Walking back to the pavilion he trudged past Pakistani opener Aamir Sohail, who suggested: "Why don't you send your mother-in-law now? She couldn't do any worse."

1. McGrath 0 Rest Of The World 2.
It's not often that batsmen get the better of Glenn McGrath, but it's certainly more likely to happen on the basis of a verbal stoush than one involving bat and ball. This is one of The Weak's favourite stories and most of our audience will know it well, but it's worth repeating.
In the mid-90s Australia was touring Zimbabwe (well, someone had to) and McGrath was putting all his efforts - physical and verbal - into trying to dislodge Zimbabwean number 11 Eddo Brandes, a somewhat chunky gentleman who spent his days farming pigs. (Being (a) Zimbabwean and (b) white, one hopes he still has a farm these days on which to farm aforesaid pigs.) McGrath had run through his full repertoire, both in terms of bowling and bellowing, and was clearly getting hugely frustrated with the rotund Brandes' arsey survival efforts - thick nicks through the slip cordon, wild swipes across the line, that sort of thing.
Finally, out of ideas and out of patience after another piece of dubious escapology on his nemesis' part, McGrath stood mid-pitch, hands on hips in his characteristic 'teapot' pose, and snarled: "Why are you so fucking fat?"
Brandes considered this for a moment, and replied amiably: "Because every time I fuck your wife, she gives me a biscuit."


The Doctor is OUT.
(On his way to a house call at your mama's place, as it happens.)

ZZ blows his Top

Let's face it. Zidane's a nutter.

http://www.kicken.com/zidane/

Quite literally.


INEVITABLE POST-TOURNAMENT AWARDS THINGY WHERE EVERYTHING IS WITTILY DESCRIBED AS THE 'GOLDEN SOMETHING-OR-OTHER'

Zizou lost his 'nana but won the Golden Ball. Klose couldn't score against any team of worth, but was apparently worth the Golden Boot ('Golden Shoe' my arse - who the fuck do FIFA think he is, Cinderella?) Lukas Podolski, scorer of bugger-all goals (a bit of a problem when you're allegedly employed as a striker) was awarded Best Young Player. And finally, the award for the Most Entertaining Team was won by the pouting, flouncing, 'simulating' drama queens of Portugal.

Anyone else think FIFA's official awards were a Russell-Crowe's-band-sized fucking pile of shit?

To that end we present the final and definitive edition of the World Cup Dodgies - the Weak In Sport's World Cup Awards.

The 'Bollocks To Pele' Award for Least Useless Player Of The Tournament
Fabio Cannavaro. He was everywhere and did everything, he was ripped off in the official vote (because all the journos were too fuckin' lazy to wait until AFTER the final to put their votes in - they had until midnight after all) and he turned up to play in EVERY game, not phoning-in a performance through the group stages like Zizou did. He was fuckin' ace.

The 'What's That Kid Doing On The Field' Award for Best Young Player
Podolski went OK but you really want your strikers to strike, not just dink it forward for the lanky bugger in front of you to punt it home. Staying within the German team - the best young side in the tournament by a distance - cases could be made for Phillip Lahm or Bastian Schweinsteiger. But, ugly as a hatful of arseholes as he may be, it's got to be Frank Ribery. Before this tournament, he was an uncapped no-name; after it, he won't be out of the French team for ten years. It was his equaliser against the Spanish which dragged the French players out of their reverie (Zizou very much included) and made them believe they could actually amount to something at this World Cup. And he made everyone else on his team look good - both on the field and in the nightclubs.

The 'I Can See My House From Here' Tasco Telescope Trophy (cheers AJ) for Nailing It From An Adjoining Suburb
Shared between Joe Cole vs Sweden, Tomas Rosicky vs the Sepps, Bastian Schweinhund Dumkopf Weiner Schnitzel vs the Guesers (twice), and any of the other dozen randoms who hit shots from the carpark which managed to evaded both the goalkeepers, and the laws of Physics, en route to the back of the auld onion bag (thanks v. much T. Smyth w/a Y.) Our thanks must go to Adidas (sorry, 'adidas') for producing a tournament match ball with all the predictable Euclidian physical properties of Flubber.

The Steve Waugh Daggy Green Cap for Services to Mental Disintegration
There can be only one. Marco Materazzi, for coming up with the most devastatingly effective sledge in world football history (whatever it was, it led the opposition captain to get himself sent off in the final minutes of the World Cup final) - we salute you as an honorary Australian.

The 'Karma My Arse' Golden Buddha for Laughing in the Face of Universal Justice
Fabio Grosso. Diver one week, matchwinner the next (twice, in the World Cup semi AND the final.) The gods smileth on that motherfucker, and good luck to him. He's off to Inter next season, which will be about the only big club left in Serie A if Juve, Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio are all given the arse... the gods' smilething (?) upon Grosso continues.

The Luciano Moggi Memorial Brown Paper Bag for Dodgiest Refereeing Decision
The Dodgiest Refereeing Decision of World Cup 2006 was made by whoever appointed the referees for the Italy-Australia second round game, the France-Portugal semi and the Italy-France final, all of which featured penalty-winning dives that Stevie Wonder could have seen (even if Ray Charles was running the line for him).

The Terrell Owens Golden Sharpie for Best Goal Celebration
As per last time we'll give it to Ecuador's 'Spidey' Kaviedes for his mad props. Italy win best team award for the bewildering contemporary art installation that constituted their post-final celebration - which included, among other bizarre sights, a man in a ponytail getting a haircut in a deckchair, and a bearded midget doing belly-flops across the turf in his underpants. That's ART, people.

The Green Knight 'It's only a flesh wound' Missing Limb for Most Amusing Injury
Ricardo Carvalho in the QF against the Engrish. Doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, or what's your social station in life - it's always funny to see a dude get hit in the balls. Or in Carvalho's case, stomped on by a fugly little chubster like Wayne Rooney.

The Stefan Kuntz Golden Nametag for the Player with the Most Unfortunate Name
Has to be Quim. Everyone loves Quim. We didn't see enough Quim in this World Cup but hopefully we'll see a lot more Quim at club level in the coming season.

The Y2K Award for the Biggest Non-Event
Take your pick from:

• Brazil
• Spain
• The Czech Republic
• Ronaldinho
• The English WAGs (which stands for 'slappers and trophy-slags' - apparently they can't spell either, as well as being sketchy gutter trolls)
• Brazil again
• Argentina
• FIFA's crackdown on diving
• Brazil yet again

The DHL Postage and Handling Award for Doing Everything Other Than Scoring (aka the George Best Bottomless Dram for Repeatedly Hitting the Bar)
The second half of Portugal-France, where the Guesers spent every available second (that wasn't occupied with falling over and looking askance) bouncing balls off the woodwork.
Special commendation: Italy's Luca Toni - he hit thirty goals in about as many games over the past Serie A season, but in Germany, other than his superfluous strikes against Ukraine when the game was already in the bag, he couldn't score in a brothel during Happy Hour.

The Captain Arse Award for most astonishingly bullshit goal of the tournament
Joke Hole (aforementioned vs Sweden) and Maxi Rodriguez (vs Mexico) can split this one between them.

The Golden Typo for Best Quote of World Cup 2006 (Players)
Materazzi, for his quote about 'Animal' Gattuso breaking stuff randomly, as well as his 'who, me?' quotes after the Zidane sendoff: "It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means." Yes, that's our man. He's big, he's stupid, and he can sledge it up a treat. I think Cricket Australia can call off the search for the next Glenn McGrath. Special commendation for David Beckham for being, well, David Beckham: "It was really difficult for us playing in that midday sun with that three o'clock kick-off."

The Golden Typo for Best Quote of World Cup 2006 (Coaches)
"That is what losers do, they whinge and they cry." Brazil's Carlos Alberto Parreira following Ghana's complaints that their second-round referee was biased. Just a few days and ninety minutes of football later...

The Golden Typo for Best Quote of World Cup 2006 (Media)
"The WAGs are shopping-addicted anorexics with hollow lobotomised heads" - Brazilian newspaper Gazeta Esportiva (we'll hazard a guess that means Sporting Gazette). Tell us what you really think, lads.

The Golden Curling Wand for Stupidest Hair (aka the Abel Xavier Memorial Award)
As the tournament went on, Mauro Camoranesi's poncy ponytail just shat me more and more - his pledge to have it chopped off was as good a reason to barrack for an Italian win in the final as any. For Christ's sake son, you're a footballer, not a dressage horse.

The Mundine-Green Memorial Carpark Gravel Rash for Best On-Field Stink
OK, so it was more handbags than a heavyweight title fight, but you've got to give props to the immediate aftermath of Germany-Argentina. Boxing is tops.

The 'I am the Count, ah-ah-ah' award for Momentarily Forgetting What One Plus One Plus Another One Equals
Former international referee Graham Poll. If you know why, you'll know why he's a former international referee.

The Lead Louganis Award for Biggest Diver (previously known as the Ariel Ortega Perpetual Trophy)
Shared between Fabienne Grosso (for quality) and Cristi Ronaldo (for quantity). Special mention to the 'stealth divers' of the French squad, Henry and Malouda, for their deadly timing and accuracy; they emerged out of nowhere, fell over, won a critical penalty, and disappeared again.















An oldie but a goodie. Feel free to insert Portuguese, or Argentine, or French footballers in place of Italian - the choice is yours.


The Rusty Axe Award for Best Challenge, Legal or Otherwise
Rooney on Carvalho. And it was most definitely 'Otherwise'.

The Roseanne and Tom Arnold Golden Microphone Stand Cracked Over Someone's Head for Best Singing of the National Anthem
Lilian Thuram - told you it'd be some massive French defender - with his performance of the Brisbane Lions club song.

The Ian Thorpe Perpetual Trophy for Man-Love Moment of the World Cup
Has to be Gattuso running around in his underpants being pursued enthusiastically by a man in a shiny gold shirt (Buffon). No image provided because I don't dare search for one.

The 'Duhhhh' Award for Most Inevitable Moments of Germany 2006
Take your pick from:

• Germany winning a penalty shootout
• England losing one
• Sepp Blatter talking a lot of bollocks before, during and after the tournament
  
• Spain falling over pathetically in the knockout stage
• The Argies starting a fight after losing
• A defender being Italy's best player of the tournament

The Rex Mossop Goldenly Golden Tautology for Most Cringeworthy Piece of Commentary
We in NZ were 'blessed' with the World Feed, which paired half-recognisable commentators (your Gary Blooms, your John Helms etc) with long-forgotten ex-England players with a line in dispiritingly constipated cliches. Rodney Marsh (no, not Iron Gloves), who was John Helm's 'colour' man for the Italy-Germany semi, offered this dramatically-delivered insight midway through the first half:
"We've said all along this could be a chess match, John. Well it is a chess match... on a knife edge."
Thanks for that. Unsurprisingly, Marsh wasn't heard from for the rest of the tournament.

The Mayor of Hiroshima 'What The Fuck Was That' Trophy for Biggest Surprise
Dr Yobbo, for winning the office tipping comp after being mired in midfield for most of the comp and giving away buckets of points to the leaders until the semis and final. For this he received a moderately large sum of money in a brown envelope, and has promised to book anyone playing against Juventus next week.

Special commendation: LESBN's Tommy Smyth with a Why. Astonishingly, given his unblemished history of talking total rubbish for years and years, during this World Cup he managed to come up with incisive, intelligent insights on a daily basis, with comments which had actually been vaguely thought-through and match analysis which wasn't complete and utter bollocks. He even picked Italy to win it from Day 1, and he was right.

This is surely a sign of impending apocalypse. Watch the skies, people.


The Doctor is OUT.

Lister smokes crack

A day of astounding surprises, folks...

• Juan Montoya's giving up his multi-million dollar Formula 1 salary to go race in circles against redneck yeehaas in NASCAR ('You one of them Mexican niggers, boy?');
• The dude who played Lister in Red Dwarf is a crack fiend; and
• It has been discovered that there IS a fish 'n' chip shop in Dunedin which doesn't specialise solely in fucking turgid rubbish along the lines of 'lard soaked in more lard'.

Oh yeah, and Italy won the World Cup.

CAMPIONE, CAMPIONE, OLE OLE OLE-O
(Italian for 'Cop that you bastards')
The final of Germany 2006, the 18th World Championship of football. Olympiastadion, Berlin. The stage was set. The teams - Italy vs France. The maestros - Zidane vs Totti. The custodians - Buffon vs Barthez. The scrappers - Gattuso vs Vieira. The coaches - Paul Newman vs Woody Allen (though some have suggested Domenech looks more like Eugene Levy). France, winners of their last three international finals; Italy, who've made every third World Cup final since 1970 on a streak that ran loss, win, loss... next?

THREE COLOURS BROWN
Already, as soon as the exchange of handshakes and anthems, there were questions about the French tilt. Why the away strip? Whose idea was the bogus French flag on the front anyway? How does Zizou get that sweaty before the game's even started? What's that shit on the side of Ribery's face? And why do the French play the Brisbane Lions club song before kickoff anyway? ("We'll kick the winning score... You'll hear our mighty roar...")

Minutes after kickoff the French TGV was derailed again, this time by lead and only striker Thierry Henry, who picked that precise moment to roll out his uncanny impression of Ronaldo ten minutes before kickoff at the final of France 98. Usually it had the boys rolling about pissing themselves, but noone seemed to find it that funny this evening, so Thierry scraped himself off the carpet and went about his business.

INSTANT KARMA'S GONNA GET YOU, ETC
And then, not more than seven minutes into the match, Italy's dodgy penalty karma from the Socceroos round-of-16 game finally caught up with them and bit them solidly in the arse. It would be a bit of a stretch to call it instant karma, arriving as it did some 217 minutes of football after the original event, but it was a case of dodgy penalty karma if there ever was one. Malouda, the French number 7 jinked and slithered between two defenders, sliced his way into the box, and dived headlong across the turf. The only thing he forgot to do was put his Superman cape on beforehand. Nevertheless, Alas-poor-Yorick-I-knew-him-Horatio Elizondo reckoned it was too legit to quit and pointed to the spot. The presence on the near touchline of Spanish dive connoisseur Cantalejo (aka Stevie Wonder's seeing-eye-clown from the aforementioned Italy-Straya knockout game) suggested the sniff of a square-up. At best, it was almost a penalty. Zidane seemed to acknowledge this by almost fucking up the spot kick completely.

If it was a square-up, Italy deserved it. However, Marco Materazzi, who'd 'conceded' the penalty, didn't. His slice of payback pie came twelve minutes later, rising to meet a curling Andrea Pirlo corner and heading the equaliser from short range. Most impressively he managed to do this by ascending above Paddy Vieira, which usually requires a stepladder if not crampons and oxygen gear.

THEN SOME OTHER STUFF HAPPENED
The stoush settled down after that to the sort of arm wrestle everyone expected - Italy playing long balls to try and get around the French domination of midfield, the sole area on the park where the Frogs had an advantage over the Wogs. The second half saw Paul Newman bring on the largely useless Vincenzo Iaquinta largely for his height in the box, having seen the havoc Materazzi and Toni were capable of wreaking - indeed Toni had a legitimate goal ruled out for a teammate being offside (but fairly borderline as to whether he was 'active' or 'passive' under FIFA's new interpretation). Paddy Vieira tweaked a hammy and the French had to bring on some random bloke out of the crowd called Aloof Diarrhoea or something (known for his length of the field runs.) The rest of regulation time was a postage-and-handling spectacular as the killer B's in goal, and the woodwork flanking them, conspired to prevent any further goalscoring.

33% MORE AT NO EXTRA COST!!!
Funnily neither side saw it like that. More of the same in extra time... with one small exception. Calmly wandering back towards the centre of the park after nearly taking the lead for France with a blistering shot, Zizou took minor exception to something that Marco Materazzi said, or did, or a combination of the two, and... nutted him one. There's been speculation that Materazzi called him a terrorist, or gobbed on him, or said his sister enjoyed relations with sailors, but to be blunt - who gives a fuck. It's irrelevant. You're the highest-paid professional footballer on Earth, captain of your national team, in the biggest game in the world, your last ever game of football, fifteen minutes from penalties, and some lanky streak of merda calls you a rude name. What do you do? Do you (a) ignore him; (b) tell him he has beautiful eyes; (c) tell him his sister roots like a rogue elephant, largely because she's the size of one; or (d) nut him one and get yourself sent to the showers for a bit of a sob? If you answered (d), you are a fucking idiot and you probably have just lost your nation the World Cup. You may as well change your name to Herschelle Gibbs. At least you won't be a Scrabble clue anymore.

God alone knew what went through Zidane's head (other than Materazzi's rib cartilage, near enough) but his brain explosion left the French a man down for the rest of extra time... and more crucially, a senior penalty taker down for the shootout. Make that two, with Paddy V clutching an icepack to his arse and going Oww oww oww a lot.

SIX INCHES: TURNS OUT IT IS ENOUGH AFTER ALL
David Trezeguet wasn't having a good world cup. His coach Woody Allen had spent the entire tournament fixated on the idea of playing 4-5-1 with his rival Thierry Henry as lead striker, and Trezeguet wasn't getting a run, other than a token couple of minutes at the end of each game. Even with Henry exhausted and cramping up having run his arse off for the entire final, trying and failing to get the better of Cannavaro and the Italian back four, Trezeguet still wasn't getting a boarding pass into the match from Domenech. Finally, with Henry basically in need of paramedic assistance, Trezeguet got his chance. Meaning he had about five minutes as lead striker of a ten-man side with no midfield leader. And then the professional benchwarmer with probably the lowest confidence of anyone out on the field, was asked to take a penalty in the shootout. His shot sent Buffon the wrong way, hit the underside of the bar, bounced straight down and landed no more than six inches on Italy's side of the goal line. France lost the World Cup by six inches. Six years ago Trezeguet won the European Championships for France against Italy, almost singlehandedly. Today he lost the World Cup, almost singlehandedly - with only the helpful input of Zizou and his brain explosion to save his blushes. Serves him right, the little shit.

Last shot. Richard Fidler stepped up. If ever someone was carrying the weight of dodgy penalty karma, it was him. But the footballing gods smiled on him, as they had the whole tournament. He nailed it.

Italy, clinical to the end, had nailed all five of their penalty shots and had claimed the Golden Turd. Man of the match: Take your pick from Pirlo, Cannavaro or Gattuso. That twelve-year sequence from 1970 through 2006: loss, win, loss... win.

Cue the Socceroos Nation: We coulda been a contender...

The Doctor is out.

I believe I had that as well.

Germany 3 Portaloo 1, as predicted. Fuck I'm talented. But before we get to the inevitable endless reams of gloating, let's return to two points we made in passing last Weak - those being (1) Cristiano Ronaldo is a 'facking winker' and (2) The English are good at handling defeat because they get so much practice. Just to be difficult, we'll start with the second point.

(2) The English are good at handling defeat because they get so much practice
OK, this is just an excuse to point out that while the Three Lions (no, it's not a pub, even though your local pub team could probably beat them on penalties) were at the World Cup playing woeful football, getting out-shone by the antics of their shopaholic missuses, the infamous WAGs (who were at least vaguely watchable, unlike their incompetent partners) and going out arse-backwards at the first sniff of decent opposition, England's much-vaunted, Ashes-winning cricket side have put in possibly THE least impressive half-summer of what appeared to be cricket against the fearsome might of Sri Lanka (you know, where the Dilmah people live) over the past month and a half - throwing away a massively dominant position in the test series to meekly escape with a one-all draw, then getting walloped five-nil in the subsequent one-day series. We say 'half-summer' as (a) England's summers are only half-arsed at best and (b) having been touched up by the Lankans the Poms still have to front up against the Pakistanis, who beat them easily at home a few months ago, when they still had all their allegedly 'better' players on board. If Australia can't annihilate these arseclowns this summer by Many to Nil, Ricardo Punting can fuck off back to Mowbray (wherever the Christ that is).















The only vaguely watchable thing about England at Germany 2006
(please note: we did say 'only vaguely')


(1) Cristiano Ronaldo is a 'facking winker'
The Poms are correct on this one however. Not only has the annoying little shit befouled every game he's played (including this morning's kiss-yer-sister extravaganza) with a series of tutorials on pouting, diving, whinging, sulking, completely superfluous wankery on and over the ball and successful attempts to have opposition players cautioned or sent off, but he's also demonstrated an astounding capacity for self-delusion. Witness his comments following the semi-final defeat at the hands of ZZ (is) Tops and his band of merry, if horribly-dressed, men:

"I was pleased about being booed. I am a dangerous player. And maybe the French fans were upset to see a dangerous player. I am not worried at all. France were no better than we were. They got a penalty but not much else. We played well and did our best but the referee didn't help us. Everyone who saw the match could see that the referee wasn't fair. He should have shown yellow cards and I should have had a penalty [yes, he's referring to that outrageously ludicrous dive he put on in the second half] but he did not because Portugal is a small country."

The most intelligent analysis of Cristianaldo's comments has come from an unlikely source, ESPNSoccertwat Press Pass comedy Irishman Tommy Smyth With A Why - unlikely because 'intelligent analysis' and 'Tommy Smyth' usually go together about as well as 'North Korea' and 'nuclear non-proliferation treaty'. "You might not agree with Cristiano Ronaldo's comments," Tommy said, "but he got one thing spot on, absolutely right. He said Portugal is a small country. He's absolutely right, it is a small country."





















No prizes for guessing what follows; little Cristi's already got her pout going on

Which brings us to this morning's bronze medal brownout, which began with a half of football so dolefully defensive, casual observers could have been forgiven for thinking something important actually hung on the result of the game, rather than being a kick-around to see which of the two semi-final losers was the bigger loser (if not the Biggest Loser™). Speaking of which the only way proceedings could have been less entertaining would have been to bring in that scary-looking skank and Bob the Dickhead from the Fat Loser TV show. Despite this being a nothing game of no real importance to anyone, Big Phil Scolari just couldn't let go of his defensive obsessions - he went with Pauleta as lone striker and packed his formation with defensive midfielders. It was tight, it was negative, it was cloistered and choked in the centre third, and it was lousy to watch. God help Straya if we DO end up with Big Phil as our coach. One Sky Sports NZ football analyst summated Portugal's one-up-front, eight-men-behind-the-ball approach to the game very aptly: "It's bollocks."

Then, as the teams trotted out for the second half, we saw Big Phil and Medium Sized Jurgen skipping down the tunnel arm-in-arm, all back-slapping and hand-shaking in animated discussion. Everyone in the universe hoped at that point they were saying to each other: Look. It's the third place playoff. Who gives a rat's. Jesus Christ, if even dour old Italy is ballsy enough to throw on four strikers in extra time of a tense World Cup semi, we can push a few bodies up front in the bronze medal game... Big Phil went immediately to his bench, and pulled off (hey!) Costinha, defensive midfielder, in favour of sending on Petit, who is... another defensive midfielder. Not quite what we had in mind, Big Phil.

Ze Chermans finally cracked the motherfucker open when the gloriously named Bastian Schweinsteiger hit a wunderschott which dipped, swerved and pretty much munted keeper Ricardo on its way to the back of the net. That brought proceedings to life, and Petit proved his goalscoring worth shortly after by rifling one into the net to score. For Germany. A two goal lead and all was looking rosy, particularly for this little black duck who had the Krauts winning by two goals. Cue der Schweinhund on 78 minutes, with a Xerox of his first strike - Germany 3-0. Well done, Bastian - now piss off you fucking dickhead, you're costing me money. Thankfully Figo popped up wide on the right with minutes to spare and looped in a cross for Nuno Gomes to nod home and all was right with the world, and more importantly, with The Weak's tipping sheet.


Which means 63 down, one to go - all that can possibly be left is...

World Cup Final 2006: WOGS VS FROGS













Scene from upcoming Discovery Channel special, 'When Photoshop attacks'


Cattle
(likely starters in bold)

BUFFON ZACCARDO GROSSO DE ROSSI CANNAVARO BARZAGLI DEL PIERO GATTUSO TONI TOTTI GILARDINO PERUZZI NESTA AMELIA IAQUINTA CAMORANESI BARONE INZAGHI ZAMBROTTA PERROTTA PIRLO ODDO MATERAZZI

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

LANDREAU BOUMSONG ABIDAL VIEIRA GALLAS MAKELELE MALOUDA DHORASOO GOVOU ZIDANE WILTORD HENRY SILVESTRE SAHA THURAM BARTHEZ GIVET DIARRA SAGNOL TREZEGUET CHIMBONDA RIBERY COUPET

History
The Wogs and the Frogs have met some 32 times since their first encounter in 1910. Italy have had the upper hand for most of this time - between 1921 and 1978 France couldn't get a game off them - but since then France have been dealing out the smackdowns, undefeated against Italy ever since their group stage meeting at Argentina 78. This can be clearly attributed to the Italian Federation's decision not to select genius playmaker 'Il Dottore' Yobbo for the national team despite his eligibility via the grandparent rule, and his antipathy towards the French.

For Italy, the most recent, and most painful, losses were in the Euro 2000 final when, heading for victory and coasting at 1-0 courtesy bogan striker Marco Delvecchio, they conceded a late, late, LATE Sylvain Wiltord equaliser (try four minutes into injury time) then shipped a golden goal to Trezuguet in extra time; in the quarter-final of France 98, when Luigi di Biagio hit the post in the penalty shootout (just like his near-namesake in '94) after the sides had finished goalless; and in the second round at Mexico 86, where Michel Platini's reigning European champions dumped the reigning world champions out on their arse.

Last ten stoushes:
02/07/2000, Rotterdam: France 2-1 Italy a.e.t. (Euro 2000, final)
03/07/1998, Paris: France 0-0 Italy, 4-3 on penalties (France 98, QF)
11/06/1997, Paris: France 2-2 Italy (friendly)
16/02/1994, Naples: France 1-0 Italy (friendly)
17/06/1986, Mexico: France 2-0 Italy (Mexico 86, round of 16)
23/02/1982, Paris: France 2-0 Italy (friendly)
02/06/1978, Mar del Plata: Italy 2-1 France (Argentina 78, first round)
08/02/1978, Naples: Italy 2-2 France (friendly)
19/03/1966, Paris: France 0-0 Italy (friendly)
05/05/1962, Florence: Italy 2-1 France (friendly)

Mumblings
Tonight's ref is an Argentine by the name of Hector Elizondo (or was that the guy from ER?) - you may remember him from such games as the England-Portugal quarterfinal where he sent Rooney off for stomping on old mate Carvalho's love spuds and/or shoving little Cristi (one or the other.) Like most referees, he's a PE teacher by day, which explains to some degree why he's a complete tool. He lists his interests as playing golf, writing poetry and masturbating. Unfortunately this hasn't gone down too well at this tournament - golf isn't that popular in Germany.

Alessandro Nesta, Italy's best defender (yes they have one better than Cannavaro in the shed, he's just in getting repaired at the moment) won't play as he's still crocked, which will mean another call-up for Inter's Marco Materazzi to partner Fab Can in the center of defence. Materazzi came up with the Quote of the Weak in the lead-up to the final, discussing their likely response to the threat of Zidane: "We have people who can mark Zizou all over the pitch and we've also got Gattuso, who's in incredible form. He doesn't need encouragement - if he were any more up for it he'd destroy everything." Anyone who has ever seen Rino Gattuso play would be in total understanding of Materazzi's sentiments.

For France, Zizou is getting all the press, but he'll be helpless and probably hopeless unless Henry can give him a target and Frank Ribery can give him someone to run off him. You can thank (or blame) Ribery for most of Zidane's reclaimed form in the latter stages of this tournament. Not only does Ribery's work with and without the ball complement Zidane's, but he's in possession of the only head on Earth which could make Zidane's comparatively appealing to look at. Not counting Barthez, of course.












I'm sure this guy was in Dawn of the Dead


Outcome
FRANCE
Why they'll win
France have won three out of the last three international finals they've made (Euro 84, France 98, Euro 2000). Italy have lost two from three (won Spain 82; lost USA 94 and Euro 2000).

Why they won't
Their shirts are fuckin' horrid. And I don't care how good he is, Frank Ribery is an ugly, ugly man. That has to count for something dammit.

ITALY
Why they'll win
Clinical finishing, attacking nous, impregnable defence, and the best coach in the tournament. Furthermore they always win the World Cup when there's a domestic match-fixing stink in the offing.

Why they won't
Oh they will, don't you worry about that. Italy one-nil.


Il Dottore is OUT.

I believe I had that.

In your face, Mystic Meg!

(Apologies to anyone now getting mental pictures they're trying to get rid of)

Yes, your family Doctor cleaned up in the semifinal round of the office tipping, courtesy large amounts of genius and not an insignificant amount of arse. The semis at a glance:

Germany 0 Italy 2 (AET) - fulltime 0-0
First half was very much Italy's, second half was Germanic enough to be stamped with BMW part numbers. Ze Chermans never really looked like scoring, apart from one or two shots which drew good saves out of the Buffoon. Ballack was mostly anonymous, largely due to tenacious D on behalf of the Italian midfield and back four (shout outs to Cannavaro who was, as ever, Chicken Man - He's everywhere, he's everywhere!) and the lack of A Few Of My Favourite Frings to back up the work of the Dog's Ballacks. Italy was transformed by the addition of fresh legs in extra time, with Milan's Gilardino creating good shit from the moment he got on the park (his first decent sortie had him beating Mad Jens if not the post), ditto del Piero when Lippi finally deigned to give him a run. And for once he didn't rule that del Piero and Totti are mutually exclusive, either. Cue two goals in two minutes, both curling shots from the perimeter of the area - the first to Gross Fabio, the little diving cunt from the Straya game who bears an unfortunate resemblance to Richard Fidler, head of ABC Comedy and many moons ago the guy in the Doug Anthony All Stars who played guitar and got shit hung on him by the others; the second del Piero's after an 'assist' (thanks ESPN) from Gilardino. Italy won because they played better football and, as in previous matches, buried the clear-cut chances they created - the fact that it took them 118 minutes to wear down the German machine sufficiently to create big enough gaps to engineer clear-cut chances tells you a bit about how well Germany played and a lot about how well Germany are organised at the back.

Portugal 0 France 1
A clash of footballing cultures perhaps, or maybe just a tale of contrasting approaches to the game: one team turned up to play football, the other were apparently out to score 10s on the floor apparatus. All Cristiano Ronaldo and co needed were their streamers and their leotards and they'd have been shoe-ins for the gold in the rhythmic gymnastics. Unfortunately for them the judges were scoring on the basis of disturbances to the back of the auld onion bag and Portugal managed to accrue fuck all. France went one better courtesy Thierry Henry, who showed the Guesers how it was done with a flop in the box that was eons more convincing than anything anyone in a red shirt could come up with. By comparison, the efforts of Cristianaldo, Postiga and those other arseclowns looked like... well, blatant, laughable, cynical, shit-quality dives.











The English take defeat well don't they? Must be all the practice.

Zizou also put on a masterclass. In his case it was demonstrating how to go out like a champ, after having played like a chump for the past five or six years. He's now being feted as lead contender for the Golden Ball, FIFA's dubiously named award (after Hitler, presumably) for the best player of the tournament. The Weak says: chill, people. Not so long ago, France were thankful he wasn't eligible to play the third group stage match against Togo, and there was a lot of doubt whether he was worth picking for the Spain round-of-16 game. Two or three good games does not make you player o' tha tournament. Cannavaro for the golden ball, Klose for the golden boot, and Italy for the golden turd - the Jules Rimet Trophy to its friends.


Apparently other stuff is happening as well
Portugal's colours were carried to victory in midweek, when the Queensland Origin team managed to win two games in a year for the first time since France were world and European champions. Which brings us to our latest Theory Of The Weak as to how NSW conspired to lose Origin: it's a scheduling conflict. NSW always fails to win Origin when it's a World Cup year, as the entire state's rather marginal interest in proceedings is inevitably diverted towards a real, internationally relevant, sporting Event (my caps) rather than a Kangaroos selection trial in three instalments.
2006: World Cup, Germany. NSW wins the first game comfortably, then as the World Cup gets interesting, the side gets pantsed in the second game and ousted narrowly in the third. Qld wins series 2-1.
2002: World Cup, Korea/Japan. NSW wins the first game comfortably (32-4 or thereabouts as I recall), then as the World Cup gets interesting, the side gets pantsed in the second game and draws in the third. Sides draw 1-1, Qld retains title.
1998: World Cup, France. Can't remember the details but I know we lost. I think Qld got the first game in a showcase of low-scoring tedium, we pinched game 2 and lost game 3.
1994, 1990 and 1986: World Cups, USA, Italy and Mexico. NSW won Origin each time, which buggers up my hypothesis completely so bollocks to that.

Which leaves our other Theory Of The Weak:
The fix is in, people.
Think about it. Four years without a Queensland Origin win. Media pundits forecasting the end of the concept altogether. Dickheads like Gus Gould proposing that Kiwis should be included so that all the best players are on show (to which the Kiwis responded (a) uh, cheers for that idiot but I really don't think so, and/or (b) the way our young lads are travelling, in ten years Origin will be about as relevant as Betamax and the international rivalry will have long since replaced it.) A stadium to fill in Melbourne for game 3, with a World Cup to compete with on top of AFL and the prospect of NSW having already sealed the series.

It's Origin II. You're the NRL. Your cash cow, your platinum brand, is two NSW wins away from oblivion. What do you do?

Well, you do two things. Firstly:

You get Steve Clark to referee Origin II.

And then the master-stroke:

You get NSW to pick Mark Gasnier at five-eighth for Origin III.

Come on, people. You seriously thought this was legit? A dopey fuckwit with no kicking game whatsoever, whose only first-grade start at five-eighth ended Knights 44 St George 6, gets picked at pivot for his state in the biggest game of the year?

When it comes to match-fixing, it's not just Juventus who know where the bodies are buried.


The Doctor is OUT.


PS Our pick for the kiss-yer-sister game (aka the bronze medal playoff) overnight between the striving Deutsches and the diving douches? Dr Yobbo's betting slip says locals by two - old mate Jurgen deserves nothing less as a reward for getting Germany to play like superstars instead of sour pricks.

Spider bites

Let's face it. It's hardly worth getting pissed off over the Italy game. We were lucky to make it as far as that after the game against the Cros, where a dozen strong and proud young sons of Croatia battled like lions to defeat the best Australia could throw at them. Given that one of those strong and proud sons of Croatia was actually playing in goal for the Socceroos, it was a massive achievement getting away with an amazing 2-2 victory (as the Channel Seven news ticker at Federation Square allegedly reported it).





















Christ that's a bit rough - when even the God-squad are taking cheap shots, it's time to reconsider your career choices


We now cross back to Euro 2006, still in progress
To the final four, now that the Argies and the 'Zilians have flown El Plumeto Airolinas back to South America, the English plane has landed at Heathrow (funnily enough even though the engines have been turned off you can still hear the whining) and the Ukraine have wobbled home to Kiev in Sheva's Lada. What we're left with is something that looks like the edited highlights of the last couple of European Championships: Germany, champion of Euro 96; Italy, dodgily beaten finalist of Euro 2000; France, dodgy champion of Euro 2000; and Portugal, beaten finalist of Euro 2004. From here, it's flip-a-coin territory. Cue our preview, handily far too late to have any useful input into your office tipping.

The semis: the stoushes, the scuttlebutt and the supposition

GERMANY VS ITALY
Stoushes

13	Played	13
5	Won	3
5	Drawn	5
3	Lost	5
16	Goals	12

Germany haven't beaten Italy in 10 years (since a 1995 friendly) and have never beaten them in an international tournament in five meetings dating back to Chile 1962.
Most recent stoush: Italy 4 annihilated Germany 1 in a friendly in Florence four months ago (three-blot at the half)
Most famous stoush: 24 years ago next week, in the final of World Cup Spain 1982 - Italy 3 Germany 1 courtesy Paolo Rossi.

Scuttlebutt
Deutschland: Torsten Frings has been outed - no, the mullet isn't a weak attempt to not look gay, he's been suspended for the semi over his role in the massively entertaining handbags-at-sunset between the dirty stinking Argies and the lording-it-over-everyone Krauts. Apparently this all began during the shootout with the Argies giving each German penalty taker a free character reference en route to the spot. Helpfully this was delivered entirely in Spanish, spoken by exactly none of the German squad. However Tim 'No I'm not sure why a German male would be called that either' Borowski didn't help matters by shushing the Argies on the way back from a successful bombing sortie. Once Mad Jens had slapped away the last Argentine attempt, it was enough with the match already, time for the stink... and apparently Torsten cracked a few too many heads together for Sepp Blatter's liking, so he's washing his hair Tuesday night. Ballack's fit however and Mad Jens is clearly up for another shootout.

Italia: The Azzurri ain't doin' it for the kids - they're doing it for former international Gianluca Pessotto, who tried to top himself last week. Pessotto, who became Juventus team manager following his retirement from football in May after a long and successful career at Juve, hurled himself out of a window at Juventus club HQ clutching a rosary, falling 15 metres to bounce off two parked cars. Yes, he's tied up in the whole Juve thing - this is all fucking Luciano Moggi's fault, just like everyone else. In hindsight, given that most of the current Italian squad either know or played with Pessotto, it's astonishing they were composed enough to fashion the Ukraine a novel orifice in the quarter-final in the clinical manner in which they did. Italy will hope to get Alessandro Nesta back to partner Fabio Cannavaro in defence; the rest of the lineup should be as per program.

Supposition
Both sides have kicked against type in this tournament, ditching their dour, defensive A-game and pushing forward in hugely uncharacteristic fashion. You just know it'll be back to Plan A come Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. The most important player on the German side will be their 12th man - no not some crazy Kraut version of Billy Birmingham, but the partisan crowd inside the safety-yellow Dortmund stadium. Without this support they will not beat Italy; with it, they'll probably not beat Italy either. Italy are yet to be seriously challenged in this World Cup (with one noble, wattle-scented exception) whereas the Germans were outplayed for most of the quarterfinal by the Argies and have Mad Jens to thank for their continued presence. The 4-1 in March was only a friendly, but the respective lineups aren't likely to differ much. It won't make the crowd happy, but fuck 'em, they'll get cheaper tickets for the bronze medal playoff. Italy, reverting to type, one-nil.


FRANCE VS PORTUGAL
Stoushes

4	Played	4
4	Won	0
0	Drawn	0
0	Lost	4
11	Goals	3

France have never failed to beat Portugal in a serious match or otherwise. Serious matches however, it should be noted, only amount to one game - the semi-final of Euro 2000.
Most recent stoush: France 4 Portugal 0 in an April '01 friendly in Paris... ouch
Most famous stoush: France 2 Portugal 1 after extra time at Euro 2000 - a gut-wrenching golden goal robbing the 'Guesers from a deserved spot in the final after they'd bossed the whole game (with their Golden Generation - remember them?) France went on to mug the Italians in the final minutes of the final, the coqs

Scuttlebutt
France: No surprise to see the French labour force out on strike of course, but it's France's strikers who have failed to turn up for work at this World Cup. Domenech has been playing Henry out of position for the entire World Cup, which is why he's scored fuck all goals. Obviously he's not that far out of position - he's not between the sticks in the gloves and the dubious jacket - but Henry works best when he drifts wide-left then makes angled runs into the box, whereas Domenech is using him more like an Alan Shearer-style target man, which (a) Henry doesn't have the size or presence for and (b) is a waste of his ability. Massive pressure is being brought to bear on Domenech from within his team and his nation to play with two strikers - Henry and Trezeguet most likely - in a more ambitious 4-4-2 with Trez-R-Gay up front and Henry drifting just off him as per his usual Arsenal role, linking between Treza and Zizou in attack. And in related news, how fucking good is Zidane travelling?

Portugal: Keeper Ricardo has blown up deluxe at reporters who keep asking whether he is 'lucky' in penalty shootouts, maintaining it's a matter of skill rather than luck which ensures his success (Mystic Meg claims the same about the office tipping comp, which means it must be bullshit. Sorry, true.) The 'Guesers get Deco and Costinha back after their respective one-match enforced holidays, and they'll need them. Costinha will slot into the side in place of Petit who's on a RDO for the same reason those boys missed the quarter. Annoying little shit Cristiano Ronaldo is likely to be persona non grata in the greater Manchester area immediately after the World Cup - like he gives a shit, he's off to Madrid and is taking his superfluous stepovers with him. Big Phil Scolari, having yet again made Sven his quarter-final bitch for the third tournament running, will calmly pull the strings from the sideline (actually he'll rant and scream like he's channelling a McEnroe-Connors match from 1981, but at least it'll be entertaining.)

Supposition
Probably a more entertaining game than Germany-Italy; probably easier to pick as well. France haven't lost to Portugal, they don't lose to Portugal, and they won't lose to Portugal. New wide-midfield sensation Frank Ribery might be the ugliest man ever to play for les Bleus but he's far from the least talented - watch for him to get around his man and bang a few crosses in for Henry et al. With a head like his it's all he'll be banging. France 3-1.


And as the crystal ball further fogs...
Italy to shade France in a replay of the Euro 2000 final but without the Trez-R-Gay winner at the end - will go to penalties, will be won by the side with the goalkeeper who is not shaped like a penis.

Germany and Portugal to hammer in shiteloads of goals in the 3rd place playoff, which the hosts get away with, along with the golden boot for Klose.

Most of the world to go into acute long-term-tournament withdrawal, treatable only with ineffective substitution therapy (following Le Tour) and hanging out for Euro 2008. Or Asian Cup 2007 for the true Socceroo tragics...


The Doctor is OUT.
(And so's Becks - don't let the door hit your arse on the way out, sonny...)