29/01/2010

The grim inevitability of World Cup hooligan stories

The first story about the hooligan threat to the World Cup has emerged courtesy of South Africa’s Times Live. It follows incidents at Wednesday night’s Carling Cup Manchester derby. There’s just one problem. The author takes some critics to task for suggesting the Togo attack will have any bearing on the World Cup. It probably won’t, a sentiment I happen to agree with. So to then suggest the actions of a couple of morons are likely to be repeated in South Africa is a blatant double standard.

“Is Wayne Rooney the white Pele?”, asks James Lawton in the Daily Mail. Judge the evidence for yourself. While you’re there, consider this fact. Pele was just 5ft 7in. Imagine how good he would have been in the air if nature had seen fit to make him just a few inches taller.

The final pieces of England’s preparations are falling into place with the news of a May friendly against potential World Cup opponents Mexico. The sides could meet in the quarter finals in Johannesburg if both win their respective groups and last 16 matches. Here’s a report on the background.

“Capello pulls plug on Twitter” is the headline in the Telegraph. Frustratingly, the link on the website is broken, so we don’t know whether this really is just the Capo putting a stop to England players twittering or if he has some general problem with 140-character messages.

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