WC06

My grandmother’s funeral was a good afternoon of remembrance that included sorrow and laughter. For the first time in about seven years we had all the cousins on that side of the family together. It was good to catch up down at the ‘pub’ after the wake. Pub earns the single quotations because it’s hard to call such an upmarket establishment a pub. I’m sure it used to be one, but it’s been renovated and refurbished to a contemporary style that doesn’t seem to be a pub, and certainly wouldn’t be what any of you dear readers are thinking of when you imagine a ‘pub’. Though I don’t know what else you would call it.

None of this matters even a bit… I’m simply obsessive about detail and explanation thereof. Quite clearly, I digress.

On to the post’s title, WC06. It is with great joy I read the headline from BBC Sport, Eriksson keen to avoid Australia. Sven-Goran Eriksson is England’s coach. The draw for the World Cup finals in Germany next year starts at 5.15am my time and divides the 32 teams left to compete for the World Cup into 8 groups of 4. My favourite quote from Eriksson is this,

If I had known all about the rivalry, I would never have played that friendly against them. It was far from a friendly game. They wanted to beat us – and they did.

He refers to the friendly match between England and Australia where England were beaten 3-1 by Australia. Yes, and we still want to beat them, and we will. I don’t know if it’s possible to draw both, but my dream group would include England and the United States. I had held no particular animosity towards the Americans until their coach Bruce Arena said in an interview with Sports Illustrated that he believed Australia and Trinidad & Tobago were the weak teams in this World Cup. Bring it on.

I think there are 64 games in total over the two weeks or more of the tournament, and SBS will be showing every single one of them live. I’m sure Kate will read this at some point. I love you babe.

Yes, I love foo-ootball.
But not as much as you my doll.
But still, I love foo-ootball.
Always and forever.
Always, and, foreverrrrr.

Unfortunately there’s a pesky side of life called university and the tournament will start right around exam time I think. I could say only the important games will have to be watched, but we’re talking about the World Cup!

UPDATE: Australia gets drawn into a group with Brazil, Croatia and Japan. It’s been noted before that Australia has a lot of players of Croatian descent, so that should be a good game for them. I don’t like the group so much though because it’s a tough one. Any group without Germany, Brazil or Argentina would have nearly guaranteed us a place in the second round because the top two spots in the group would have been contested between four teams. In these three groups though, one of those teams is almost guaranteed the top spot, leaving three teams fighting it out for second spot, making things a little more difficult. Also, as I mentioned before, I would have liked a clear ‘bad guy’ for us to play against. It does give a team that extra edge to play against traditional rivals, old foes or those who would insult the team. I speak of England, Iran and the USA. Ah well, bring on the World Cup in six months.