the reason i hate england

I spend much of the year hating most of the England players anyway, and if any of those Manchester United or Chelski bastards are in direct competition with any of my beautiful, talented Arsenal French [and Spanish] boys, then there's no agonizing to be done. Allez Les Bleus.
~~Nick Hornby, The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup

p.s. and if anyone would like to see a slightly more objective view than i can provide of today's shabby england victory over brave trinidad and tobago, check out what Pete Tomkins had to say.

football hotties

for gio:

for the rest of us:

for kiki and the rest of us:

france nil switzerland nil

yes, henry could have finished better (but not much). yes, the wingers and zidane needed to get the balls through to henry up front (but they came pretty close). yes, the french got some good goalkeeping from barthez. but what all the commentators are ignoring is that the swiss are VERY good in defense. and they were very good today.

they took the sting out of henry's finishing by man marking him with phillipe senderos (and let's not forget that he faces henry 5 days a week in training, so he knows what to do); they took the sting out of the french crosses by closing things down fast and hard; and they very nearly scored on barthez twice.

switzerland played well, and they have been playing well since the qualifiers began. they even drew italy in teh build up last week. this is a GOOD swiss team. the french didn't suck, they were played hard and well by a tireless young team. so if you are a french fan don't despair, this is not a bad result, and if you are a neutral do not take for granted what the foolish pundits are saying (particularly the canadian ones). switzerland played hard and ground out a draw. france is not in trouble and they did play well -- just not well enough.

and the academy award goes to:

if you haven't had a chance to see the entire adidas world cup commercial go here and watch jose +10. it is absolutely brilliant. it should get nominated as short film of the year. not only is it a great coming together of all our favorite footie boys, it is a cool story about being kids and imagination. i hope los and te play like this someday.

craig forrest

shut up craig asshead. if i have to hear you drop the names of players you're friends with for the rest of this month i am going to find sportsnet headquarters after the wrold cup and kill your sorry ass.

and if that's not bad enough, your utterly uneducated views on every team that isn't england, germany or brazil is driving me mental. i don't mind listening to you on early premiership mornings in the middle of winter, cause at least you do know that league, but you don't have a sniff.

the fact that you can compare angola's and t & t's performances to ivory coast's performance shows that you have no concept of what the expectations of any of these teams should be.

i read an awful lot of complaints from brits who listen to their idiotic sky sport and bbc commentators...i wonder what they'd say if they ever had to listen to craig forrest. i've got to imagine that even tony adams has mor interesting things to say than canada's greatest ever goal keeper.

shut up, craig! shut up, craig! shut up, craig! shut up, craig! shut up, craig! shut up, craig! shut up, craig!