germany 2006 begins in a few weeks. time to get a thread going for anyone's thoughts and opinions.

all the latest world cup news




ah ......the beautiful game!! joga bonita!!

tables and results

Germany 3rd, Italy 2nd, and France 1st.
Italy will fail at the last hurdle just like they did last time. The lack of strikers will be the end, Luca Toni is basically a brutal donkey who had a good season, rather like Darren Bent. Del Piero is an ageing old boy who got lucky and Totti is shameful.

mr potts, i'm very happy with your predictions considering you've got fcuk all else right in this tournament !! :) could've done with france having a tougher game than the gentle workout they got last night, but, i think italy will be too srong for them. the only thing that worries me about france is the pace they have up front. bvut, then gain, the way this defence has played this tournament i think the french will be more concerned in trying to figure out a way through.

They ll breeze through your defence, do you still have Zambezi ( or Gianluca Zambrotta ) at right back? I havent really followed Italy but I heard about an injury to him. He could be a good buy for Chelski this season when Juve begin their challenge of the Italian Division Two Title.

Post deleted by Moderator.

blimey, was his next prediction that bad ?

Tipped Italy to win :-))

What the hells a moderator?

I didnt even write anything bad!

The moderator is like the referee - he sends people off for bad behaviour! Although I'm sure that you wrote nothing to cause anyone any offence, GDP.

Here's a thought - what are we all going to do next week when it's all over?

By a quirk of rotten planning, the Wombles will also cease wimbling on Sunday, so there'll be no tennis. I only found out last week that Maria Sharapova is 6' 2" and am still recovering from the shock. It didn't help her beat Slugger Mauresmo though.

Which means that the only thing left that's worth watching (at least here in the land of Beer and Lukas Podolski, if you can't be bothered with all of that Satellite-and-Subscription jiggery-pokery) is the World Touring Car Championship. Which only stages races a minimum of eighteen months apart when Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn are in alignment and there's a double "z" in the month.

I fear I am about to be bereft of sport on TV.

Amities / ST ...So much for your predictions !! ,,, hehe ,,We have now beaten Spain , Brazil , Portugal ......and will beat ltaly who have a poor record V France . l feel we deserve it . And it would serve as a great accolade to the end of the career of one of the finest attacking midfielders to have graced the game. Namely ZZ ,,, ltaly are nothing special with ageing players and inflated ego's ......The WC is as good as in Paris !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ,,,,err again within years 8 years .....@+

Errm, TFC, the thing about my predictions is that so far they have been correct - Italy and France are in the final! I will grant you your right to laugh at me only if France win.

And "deserve" has nothing to do with it. Although I haven't consulted the FIFA regulations I believe that the final will, like all the previous matches, be decided according to which team scores the most goals :o)

Bonne chance quand-meme !!

whoaaaaaaaaa!! tfc, hold your feckin' horses!!! france have spluttered and stuttered through this tournament , only playing when zidane plays. italy will make zidane ineffective as they did in euro 2000. with better finishing than on that night and a wrong will be righted. the trophy will be in rome. cannavaro should be player of the tournament but zidane will win it because people are monkeys and think what the press tell them to think. italy will triumph because they are the better team and they need it more than france.

Thank you, Bosley. My round - what do you fancy?

I agree with your comment that Italy need it, Bos - at least they actually showed some will to win out there against Germany. France didn't convince me that they actually want to win.

E!Amities / Sorry ST. l confused your posting with that of someone else of which i cant be arsed scrolling back ........But lets face it when a tean can attain a result whilst playing poorly then surely when everything clicks they will be awesome !!! Of all the players plying their trade in t he English League the only one who has the guile,ballskills , and awareness and vision of ZZ is D. Berkamp...and he is Dutch Also both Steve McManaman { ex of Liverpool } and David Beckham were brought to Real Madrid as mere feeders to ZZ . Underestimate this man at your peril ! .He is mustard !.. Ello again BOS Why do you say ltalia NEED this cup ?? Why exactly ? Specially when FRANCE deserve it !!!! You know that -Dont stay in denial ,,lol

cannavaro small man but a giant in stature, he has tremendous vision and will snuff
zidane and henry out........1/0 to Italy.........

tfc, in what way , shape or form do france deserve it???? no one will be under estimating zidane, least not the italians. let's not forget that he made his worldwide reputation at juventus so i think italy will be fully aware of the great man and what he can do. my point was that italy nullified zidane in euro 2000 to the point where he was having to go back to the edge of his own area to get the ball. they've done it once and i feel they can do it again. hopefully , henri will ease up on the theatrics and it will be a great game. as i said before, i don't think the threat will come from zidane but from the pace france have up front.
btw, i'm not in denial ........ i'm in bolton :))

Wayne Rooney's hopes of escaping further punishment from FIFA for his sending-off against Portugal have dwindled still further after one of the most senior figures in football backed the match referee's decision.

Lennart Johansson, UEFA president and head of FIFA's World Cup organising committee, said Argentinian official Horacio Elizondo had been quite right to send the Manchester United striker off for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho's groin.

Johansson told PA Sport: "I was at the game and I had a different opinion when I first saw the incident from the stands and then later on television. But having seen the replay, in my opinion he was absolutely right to send him off."

He added: "I also saw this referee in the opening match and I did not notice him much, which is a very good thing - much better than if you see a referee who says 'here comes the king of the road'."

Elizondo once red-carded David Beckham when Manchester United were playing Mexican side Necaxa in the first game of the 2000 World Club Championship in Brazil.

Since then, Elizondo, 42, has officiated at the Olympic Games in 2004, and the opening match of this World Cup between Germany and Costa Rica.

He created some controversy during South Korea's game with Switzerland when he overruled his linesman's offside flag and allowed Alexander Frei to make it 2-0.

Elizondo correctly spotted the ball had come off the leg of a Korean defender but he was surrounded by angry players after allowing the goal.

Out on her Royal Yacht, HM The Queen was enjoying the sea air when she spied a man in the water off the port bow - clearly being menaced by a very large shark. Through her binoculars she could see it was Christian Ronaldo, struggling frantically to free himself from the jaws of a 20 foot shark!

The Queen ordered the captain to change course to try and save the poor man, but she knew the yacht's top speed would never get them there in time.

At that exact moment a speedboat containing three men wearing white England shirts sped into view. One of the men took aim at the shark and fired a harpoon into its ribs, immobilising it instantly. The other two reached out and pulled Ronaldo from the water and, using long clubs, beat the shark to death. They bundled the bleeding, semi-conscious Ronaldo into the speedboat along with the dead shark and prepared for a hasty retreat, when they heard frantic calling .......

It was the Queen calling them to the yacht.

On reaching yacht the Queen went into raptures about the rescue and said to Beckham, Rooney and Gerrard (for it was they) "I will give you a knighthood for your brave actions. I thought the England team would hate Ronaldo after the world cup, but I see that my England team are true heroes and should serve as a model for sportsmanship to other countries."

She knighted them there and then, and proceeded to sail away.

As she departed, Rooney asked the others: "Who was that?!" "That," Beckham answered, "was our Queen. She rules the Commonwealth and knows everything an all that about our country."

"Well," Rooney replied, "she definitely knows f***-all about shark fishing. How's the bait holding up?"