Argentina v Germany - Round 2!

Following on from yesterday's Mostly Balls post, here's clip of the Argentina v Germany brawl from 2006 - let's hope we see similar excitement on Saturday, it will make for an entertaining few hours for the neutral! Not that I'm neutral darling... (but we do have a German Shepherd!) 

Lionel Messi: England are favourites to win

Lionel Messi suugested this week that England are one of the three favourites in South Africa. When the best player in the world speaks, people listen. Messi's elevation above the ranks of mere mortals in football boots during the past 12 months has earned him the right to be respected for his opinions as well as his body swerve.

Messi said: 'I think that, right now, the strongest sides going into the World Cup are Spain, England and Brazil. England had a strong, easy qualifying and are very tough.'

Whether that means people back in England will raise national expectations further is open to question. After all, great players do not always make great coaches, judges or commentators!

Something to be scared of...

With just under 18 days to go now, Diego Maradona, coach of the Argentina team, has made a frightening statement that if true could have a great impact on the destination of this summer's World Cup trophy. What did he say that should send a shiver down the spine of 31 other national team managers? Simply... "Messi is better than me!"

Lionel Messi is often criticised as an under-performer when playing for his country; but according to his national team manager, he is a better player than Maradona was when he pretty much single-handedly won the World Cup for Argentina in 1986.

Should Messi be able to reach the heights of Maradona's performances in Mexico in 1986, then Argentina with all their other talent could be a very hard team to beat when it all kicks off in 17 days and about 20 hours! Unfortunately if Argentina were to win, I'd never hear the end of it from my wife and her family in Patagonia!

Read the full article here on ESPN Soccernet

In the meantime I'm looking forward to England kicking off their warm-up match against Mexico in a couple of hours; if you're in the US you can watch it live on Fox Soccer Channel at 3pm Eastern/Noon here in Arizona. Here's hoping for a solid performance, and more importantly no injuries!

Argentina...Argentina...Argentina!

Argentina coach Maradona held his first training session with his World Cup squad on Thursday, and said he had high hopes for the June 11 - July 11 tournament in South Africa. Note that this picture isn't from the training session!

"Our World Cup starts today because we start work with 17 players. We have high hopes," said Maradona, who led Argentina to FIFA World Cup glory in 1986.

Maradona was without five players for his first trip onto the paddock with his South Africa-bound squad. Sergio Aguero played in Wednesday's Spanish Cup final for his club Atletico Madrid, while Inter Milan duo Walter Samuel and Diego Milito, and Bayern Munich's Martin Demichelis are all in Madrid ahead of Saturday's UEFA Champions League final. Clemente Rodriguez and Juan Sebastian Veron were to play for Estudiantes later today.

Two-time champions Argentina were drawn alongside Nigeria, UEFA EURO 2004 champions Greece and 2002 semi-finalists South Korea in Group B and begin their campaign against the African side on 12 June.

Of course I'm married to an Argentine gal, so I kind of/sort of have to "cheer" them on these days, unless they are playing England OBVIOUSLY, but it's tough to forgive and forget this from (can you believe) 24 years ago! You'll notice the commentator for the second goal is Martin Tyler who will be commentating on ESPN this summer.

And this is how the Argentine commentator described the secong goal! Football is religion in Argentina, so the commentators do tend to get a bit carried away! It's just not the way and Englishman would do it! To my lovely wife and Argentine in-laws, I hope your team does well this summer, just not as well as mine!