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No Frills Football
Giovanni Trapattoni was sitting at home watching a black cat on a ladder smash a mirror for seven years. Pointless superstitious beliefs – or religion as I like to call it – meant that he opted to stay at home as FIFA’s bigwigs rigged it so France could have a handy passage into the World Cup. One strange phenomenon that tends to accompany any draw involving Ireland was the mystery of the rising prices and some airlines got criticised for raising prices directly after the draw was made. It’s bad news if you want to go and watch the Paris leg of the playoff, but think about all the people who can now enjoy cheap flights to Athens, Lisbon and Moscow! Bonus! Ryanair got the brunt of the blame with Aer Lingus getting only a cursory mention, which suggests they take the far more honourable route of ripping you off all the time, not just after World Cup playoff draws.
 
And I move from a no-frills airline to the no-frills football of Ireland. There was a variety of responses to the draw in the comments section and by variety I do in fact mean two, which technically is the maximum possible views you can have on the draw – Ireland will qualify or France will qualify. That’s pretty much every eventuality bar a shock Godzilla attack where he eats all the players and any people eligible to play for their countries so neither nation can field a team for next year’s World Cup. Strangely, that one wasn’t mentioned.
 
According to FIFA’s rankings, it’s the worst draw Ireland could have got, but these are the same FIFA rankings that say the USA are the 11th best team in the world, so they’re about as reliable as William Gallas’ mental health. Gerard Houllier, still hanging around the French FA for some reason, says it was a tough draw for France and both teams have a “50-50 chance” of qualification – it was a nice thing to say, but the fact he said it all while having smug shit-eating grin on his face only slightly took away from it. In fact, that was the most diplomatic thing to come out of the France camp as new age hippy, Raymond Domenech called Ireland “sort of an England B side” because most of the players play their trade in England, which is rather like a lot of his players.
 
If you list off all the names likely to feature on the teamsheet, then it can seem daunting. But once you list them off and quickly ask yourself, ‘what have they done in the last couple of years?‘ it doesn’t seem so bad. Sure Thierry Henry won a treble last season with Barcelona, but did you see him on those crappy Gillette ads? He’s the only one who can be bothered to turn up in person these days! Franck Ribery always looks good – or more accurately he looks like he’s in a streetgang, but a streetgang that can play a bit – and he’ll need to be watched, but we’ll set the Hunt brothers and Glenn Whelan on him and then he’ll know all about gang warfare. Plus there isn’t £100,000 a week up for grabs so Nicolas Anelka isn’t going to try as hard as he does for Chelsea.

Other Football Stuff
- Elsewhere in the Grand Old World Cup Carve Up, Portugal will just about sneak by Bosnia-Herzogovina, Russia should beat Slovenia and if not busy in Paris, hopefully Godzilla will intervene to deny both Greece and Ukraine a place in the World Cup.
 
- The hosts of next year’s World Cup have more completed stadiums than they do managers, but that’s not saying much, particularly as the number of managers is now zero after they parted company with Joel Santana.
 
- There was an upside to the beach ball incident that saw Liverpool lose out to Sunderland – the Beach Set is now the top seller in the club shop. Although that’s mainly because ever-witty Man Utd fans have snapped them up and plan to throw them on to the pitch to remind them of something that cost them a goal. Liverpool fans plan to respond by throwing Ben Foster on to the field of play at some stage

The Lazy Round Up Of The Rest Of The World Of Sport
- Being undead and all the whole man in the sky deal doesn’t really work for me but those Jews sure do believe in the whole chosen people deal. When a coach for Israeli basketball side Maccaibi Haifa was ejected from the court during an exhibition game against the New York Knicks he refused to leave, got a rabbi in to plead his case and held up the game for 8 minutes.

“If you forgive him, I can speak to the children and say, ‘You also forgive. If you have a fight, you forgive.’ But he says this is the law, that you must obey.” Explained Rabbi Yitchak Dovid Grossman after failing to convince the referee to change his decision. Imagine that, blindly following some arbitrary rules without taking the individual circumstances into consideration. It’s like some kind of crazy reli…….ehem…..
 
- Joe Calzaghe tells Carl Froch that he needs to improve his defence. Carl Froch tells Joe Calzaghe that he needs to improve his jive.
 
- Two tennis players are ‘detained’ in Sweden on suspicion of soliciting prostitutes. If you were to solicit prostitutes, you’d be detained also – for half an hour or an hour, depending on how much you wanted to pay. Judging by Rafa Nadal’s massive left arm and Andy Murray’s frequent wrist injuries, we can rule those two out as suspects.

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BREAKING NEWS!!!
Ignore everything but the bit about France in my preview!!
The universe isn’t coming to an end and Roy Keane isn’t coming back for one last murder in an Ireland shirt. It’s France versus Ireland for a place in the World Cup! As I speak, Raymond Domenech is putting a red wig on his voodoo doll.

=====================================================
Today we discover Ireland’s fate. Well, we already know our fate – Trapattoni already signed a contract extension so we’re doomed to at least another two years of central midfielders who need a compass, map and several seconds longer than is strictly advisable to find a team-mate. And I can also guarantee there’ll be a good few squandered leads in the future too.

After FIFA backtracked on the plans for the open draw because their friends in high places needed an excuse to leave their wives for a few weeks next summer, Ireland are faced with the four options. Now in the spirit of pointless prediction that filled the pages of so many of Sunday’s papers, 75% of which will be useless by about 1pm today, here’s my preview of our possible opponents.

The common consensus is facing a side managed by Guus Hiddink is never desirable, but my big fear in facing Russia would be that Giovanni Trappatoni sees Andrei Arshavin’s bowl cut and captivated by it’s regimental beauty, spends most of the two legs in an awestruck stupor which leaves the brains trust of Liam Brady and Marco Tardelli as the architects of our tactical destiny. Disaster will ensue.

France wouldn’t be so bad. Mad oul Raymond Domenech says he wouldn’t fancy taking on Ireland. Whether or not he means that in a ‘leading the country out of recession’ way or in a footballing sense is unclear, but we’ll stick to the football for now. He can’t be too worried about our football talents, so I presume his biggest worry would be devout Catholic Trapattoni trying to perform an exorcism on his heathen ways. A failure to reach the World Cup might seem like small potatoes in view of emergency surgery to remove a crystal ball and a pack of tarot cards from about the person.

Portugal would be tricky. Oh they might have the best player in the world, but we have kicking and we’re not afraid to use it. People are already saying it would be a real shame not to have the best player in the world at a World Cup, but we already see quite a bit of John O’Shea, so I don’t think it would undervalue the tournament that much. It truth, Ronaldo struggles against top class full backs, which is why he’ll do just fine against us. Our only hope is he’s injured for the playoffs and if he isn’t before the playoffs he will be about five seconds into the game when Roy Keane makes a shock return to the international team in the new position of central kamikaze.

I’d have real fears about facing Greece. I don’t think they’re particularly good, it’s just I think whoever is in charge of this universe would see this fixture, think ‘Oh why do I even bother?’ and in an instant all of creation would be transformed in an everlasting black hole. Actually, if you consider about the 180 odds minutes of arm-chewing boredom that an Ireland and Greece match would bring about, a never-ending black hole where the earth used to be doesn’t sound so terrible.

Other Football Stuff
- an inanimate object at the heart of Liverpool’s defence costs them at Sunderland. And it’s not Jamie Carragher for once, it’s a beach ball.

- Robbie Fowler won’t be giving up expanding his southern hemisphere property portfolio to return to Merseyside for the vacancy at Tranmere. “I won’t be going to Tranmere and I won’t be reducing the rent for my tenants! Mwah ha, ha, ha, ha ha” an official statement would probably say.

- “Bags not Rooney” would be the cry if Fabio Capello brought this into the England dressing room. Bosnia-Herzegovina manager, Miroslav Ciro Blazevic has ordered his players to kiss each other on the lips. “You can’t do anything without an atmosphere in a team,” he says and presumably if that atmosphere is sexual tension and repressed sexual orientation, that’s just fine.

- Some interesting news from Belgium that doesn’t involve Jean Claude VanDamme or waffles. Alex Ferguson is keeping his eye on Standard Liege midfielder Steven Defour. Here’s the odd bit, the 21 year old, who is currently injured, received a letter from the Man Utd chief to keep his head up because “everything will work out.” The Scot added gushingly, “You will have to work hard to come back and I am going to follow your performances. I will remain in contact with Standard.” It can’t be tapping up if you write a nice letter.

The All Hail Jenson Button Bit
- Poshboy proves that it’s not all about the car. It’s also about your team favouring you over your more capable team-mate. In fairness Poshboy, you have proven that you are clearly the best driver EVER! … to have driven a car with a rear diffuser when no-one else had them.
 
- This is actually from last week’s NFL games, but it’s still funny. What a tool.
 
- Cork hurling goalkeeper Donal Og Cusack has made his way out of the Rebels closet and informed people that he plays for the other team. And I’m not talking about Waterford. That’s fair enough, but his dad demonstrated some legendary Cork wit and stubbornness. His father said: “Right, you know the way we need to deal with this? You need to get fixed” before adding “it was hard enough defending you over the short puck outs but now this.”
 
- This one isn’t funny at all, but 3 people dropped dead whilst running the Detroit marathon this weekend. No crazed gunman involved, they just died from running too much. So this year’s Christmas message is stick that Gym membership up your arse, buy me a Playstation 3 instead.
 
- I’m not sure Alex Rodriguez said any of this, but it’s on someone else’s website, so it’s their potential lawsuit. That’s how the law works isn’t it?
 
- The only impressive thing about Carl Froch’s win over Andre Dirrell was his missus at ringside. Stranger still, the Nottingham fighter claimed he was celibate for the 10 weeks prior to the bout. The middleweight champion has strong willpower, I’ll give him that.
 
- Perving on Speaking of other people’s girlfriends, Rory McIlroy has delivered a line to his childhood sweetheart which effectively means the heave-ho for Holly Sweeney. As most men know, ‘taking a break’ is just nice way of saying “it’s time I took this fro interntional without having to consider your feelings.” The 20 year old clearly hasn’t heard about the different time zone rule.

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A small snippet from the world of Australian racing.

 
Thanks to Martin Palermo’s last minute goal against Peru on Saturday night, Diego Maradona will have one more throw of the World Cup dice when Argentina take on Uruguay. The Czech Republic are in a equally desperate situation and are relying on San Marino to beat Slovenia to ensure their progress to South Africa. Resorting to new lows, even for a tabloid, Czech newspaper Blesk have offered the San Marino players 1 million Koruna which is about 38,000 Euros if they can win. “We will do the maximum for a win but our biggest problem is that we rarely score a goal,” captain Andy Selva offered.
 
Few things in this life come for free unless you’re John O’Donoghue or Jacqui Smith’s husband, so I’ll forgive Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti for savouring every moment of the lap dance he got on Italian TV show Chiambretti Night. Jose Mourinho and Capello have also been saluted in this way, but unfortunately there are no plans to invite Steve Staunton or Jim Fallon onto the show.
 
Ladies man Sven Goran Eriksson is reportedly interested in North Korean women and, while he’s over there, he might manage their international team. Allegedly Kim Jung Il is financing the deal by selling his porn collection and abandoning their nuclear armaments programme. That’s about as politically active as I get. Notts County deny that he can do the job on a part-time basis while the man who got Sampdoria relegated and brought Nottingham Forest close to financial ruin is allegedly Ian McParland’s successor. It’s not Guy of Gisborne, it’s David Platt.
 
FIFA’s new rules will hopefully help Wales stop being so crap. It still wouldn’t allow Frenchman Tony Cascarino qualify to play for Ireland though.

 
Steve Borthwick can see – metaphorically at the moment – the funny side to Olivier Azam’s attempt to turn him into rugby’s Ray Charles [Watch it!!]. Gloucester had the audacity to appeal the 12 week ban which was turned down yesterday while Jeremy Guscott believed it was accidental. Anyway, it’s all fun and games till someone loses an eye, then it’s still fun and games. “As the doctor shone a pen torch in my eye, he suddenly cried out, “It is broken!” the Saracen’s player said, “I asked if he meant there was something seriously wrong with my eye and he said, “No, the pen torch has run out of batteries”.’
 
David Haye’s preparations for his fight with WBC Heavyweight Champion Dimitry Bumpovski Nikolay Valuev are going well. He’s not spending much time in the gym apart from knocking the head off a cardboard cut out of his opponent.
 
Ding, ding – round 2. Padraig Harrington and Thomas Bjorn’s public spat over whether senior Tour members should be obliged to play a minimum amount of events has reared its head at the Portugal Masters. Euro Tour CEO George O’Grady, possibly upset at Barack Obama’s unmerited Nobel Prize win, will attempt to broker a peace deal between the stubborn golfers.
 
The line judge who Serena Williams told to ‘shove a ball down her throat’ is mysteriously missing in action. Colleagues think the potential of a repeat performance at the WTA Tour Championships led to her absence. Who isn’t scared him? I mean her.
 
Despite attacking a camera and a tree at last year’s Australian Open, John Daly is going back for a second bite at the cherry down under.

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You’re Net Gonna Like It
If I’m going to pay £4.99 to watch anything on the internet, it’s going to involve Russian lesbian twins, a room that’s too hot to wear clothes in and some sort of scenario whereby they both need to orgasm or the world will explode. If that’s likely to happen at any point during the Ukraine versus England World Cup qualifier, then I’ll consider it, but as I expect an already qualified England to faff about a bit in a dull defeat to Ukraine where Andriy Shevchenko scores the winner and then does some sort of celebration in which he tries to indicate that he’s not the crap goalhanger we saw at Chelsea (oh, but he is), me and my Kleenex will be spending Saturday evening elsewhere on the global superhighway.

What’s more, the £4.99 price is only available up until Wednesday, after that, it’s going to be £9.99 or as much £11.99 if you hold out until Saturday and then crack because you think you’re going to be labelled as some sort of turncoat and have the BNP spray-paint something badly spelt across the front of your house if you don’t support your country. Think about all the lesbians you’d get for £11.99!! Or don’t if you’re in work and planning to stand up anytime soon.

As usual, the FA have buried their heads in the sand and said it’s not their problem – although you probably won’t be able to hear them on account of the head being in the sand. They’ve no jurisdiction on who buys the rights for England’s away games and none of the TV channels reckon the glorified friendly is worth the money they’re asking. It’s also going to be shown in Odeon cinemas across the country. That’s novel because normally if you want to watch a few tits running around in something with a drearily predictable ending, you normally have to go and see a Sandra Bullock movie.

The Rest Of The Football News Round Up
- Scooby and the gang are speeding to Old Trafford with a real humdinger of a riddle to solve. Not for the first time, Man Utd players are falling victim to ‘mystery’ injuries just before a programme of international matches. It was old man Non Specific Hamstring Knack and he says he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids.
 
- Doing his own bit of mystery-solving, Alex Ferguson hits the nail on the head in finding out why Man United dropped points at home to Sunderland. It wasn’t a dreadfully wasteful and inadequate midfield, it was because Alan Wiley has been overdoing it on the pies lately. It’s alright, the FA are going to investigate which will give him an almighty slap on the wrists which has so hindered Fergie’s disrespectful comments in the past.
 
- 34 year old Gary Neville, yet to play in the Premier League for Man United this season, has dropped the bomb shell that his England career is coming to an end. In similarly shocking news Peter Crouch has revealed that he’s kind of tall.
 
- It was a shame that a game of football threatened to ruin what was an enjoyable afternoon of Didier Drogba falling down and grabbing his ankle. Despite the defeat, Rafa Benitez says Liverpool can still win the title. Next season, I presume he means.
 
- Everybody deserves a second chance. I’d have thought Steve Staunton was the obvious exception to that rule, but Darlington are happy enough to find out the hard way.

The Not Really Best Of The Rest
- I’d like to take a brief moment out of my sneering comments to salute Sea The Stars, who has overcome a crappy name to become possibly the greatest flat horse of all time.
 
- My commentary moment of the weekend. Moments after John Hayes was sent off for a disgusting attempt to burst Cian Healy’s head during the Leinster v Munster match, the commentators saying something along the lines of “oh, the ref must have made a mistake. John Hayes isn’t that sort of player.” One fairly conclusive replay later and those protestations were a lot more muted and the Bull was looking a lot more like the Bowyer.
 
- After winning Prizefighter on Friday, Audley Harrison insinuated that he was forced to leave the country because of a “terrible campaign” against him run by the BBC. Nothing to do with all the terrible performances you’ve put on since winning your gold medal then?
 
- I know with her being 54 it was always unlikely that Chris Evert and Greg Norman would produce and tennis and golfing superbaby, but science these days really is remarkable – they now have a Twix, but in the form of a milkshake. I’m not saying it won’t happen now that they’re getting divorced, but it’s going to take a lot of scientific progress and a few nights of drunken ‘I should have never let you go’ sex.
 
- Tired from all the sitting down and sipping water and occasionally standing up, John Higgins has asked for a rest day before the final of the World Championship, a bit like they have in the Tour De France. Mind you, in the Tour, they travel over 2,000 miles and taking all those drugs can really take it out of you whilst in snooker, players have been known to cover as much as 500 metres getting up and down from their seats.

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Group Therapy
In a welcome attempt to inject some spice into the dreary predictability that is the group stages of the Champions League, Adrian Mutu has thrown some mildly insulting comments towards Liverpool. Mutu reckons beating Liverpool these days isn’t the big deal it once was. Errr … miaow? Mind you, this is the same Adrian Mutu that had a line of coke that ultimately cost him €17 million, so maybe we shouldn’t put too much faith in his judgement. Tonight is the first time in a long time that many of us will see the Romanian - unless you’re a dealer. After being turfed out of Chelsea for getting caught sniffing the Kensington Marching Powder, he’s knocked around Italy and now the Blues are expecting €17 million to arrive in a ‘Sorry I Cost You A Hefty Transfer Fee’ card. He’s been earning some big money, but not that much big money apparently, as Mutu says he can’t pay.
 
Liverpool are likely to be without Benayoun and Mascherano for the trip to Florence, which sounds like bad news, but should reduce the ‘great tackle followed by giving the ball away‘ occurrences by at least 75% and Benayoun’s playing pretty well, so I can#t really slag him off.
 
Elsewhere Arsenal take on Olympiacos. The Gunners should be about 3-0 nil up by half-time, which will give the real fans who paid thousands of pounds to be in the corporate hospitality area ample time to scoff quails eggs and increase the profits, profits which Arsene Wenger says he’s saving for a rainy day. Like a rainy day that started in 2005 when you last won a trophy?
 
Rangers will keep their hopes of Europa League football alive with a gallant draw home to Sevilla.
 
**Got it – Benayoun’s absence will reduce the number of Sarah Silverman look-alikes by 100%.

Injury Based Football Round Up
Nicklas Bendtner’s dad has come out and said that his son was ‘lucky’ to have only suffered a few bruises after what looks to have been a pretty violent car crash which as we all know means “he’s fine so he’s fair game for a slagging.” He mentioned nothing about being ‘lucky’ to be a Premier League footballer.
 
A witch claims that she has put a curse on Cristiano Ronaldo so that he suffers a serious injury. It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Gemma Atkinson.
 
Watford captain, Jay DeMerit cut his eye with a contact lens. That sounds a bit too much like something middle class teenage Emo’s do, so allow me to clarify that it’s not self-harm. He says the damage to his vision means he could be ruled out of Championship football for several months, which seems excessive. Most of the referees at that level can’t see and it doesn’t stop them doing their jobs. Exhibit A – Exhibit B – Exhibits C–Z (f-word heavy)
 

More Comedy Injuries And General Other Stuff
Continuing on the previous theme of freaky injuries – world number 25 (whodathunkit?) tennis player, Sam Querry will be out for a while after an accident involving a glass table. I’ve seen some pretty warped stuff involving a glass table, so I wouldn’t want to suggest that Querry was getting up to anything distasteful. Did I mention it happened in Thailand? Elsewhere, he might get all the girls and never had to have sex with an apple pie, but college jock, Stafon Johnson of the University of Southern California probably feels like a bit of a tit after a serious accident whilst working on his gun show.
 
A slap on the ass for the ladies, a punch in the face for the guys. Thats how a real man runs things. In the 1930s. New Mexico Lobos manager Mike Locksey didn’t like the back chat he was getting from his assistant after they lost a match so he lamped him one. Pow, right in the kisser. Locksey has been given a rap on the knuckles while the assistant has been given a bag of ice and some time off. I do not believe this is a reflection of his dealings. It’s not a reflection of his character, assured his boss Paul Krebs. The complaint of sexual harassment and age discrimination which was filed against him a year a go doesn’t seem to be very reflective either.
 
Henrik ‘Nostradamus’ Stenson has really stuck his neck out and predicted that Rory McIlroy will be a Ryder Cup player next year. In other predictions, he says he can’t see Jordan and Peter’s marriage working out and America will have a black president by the end of the decade.
 
Speaking of which, not that Barack Obama thinks he’s great or anything, but he does think his presence at the meeting of the Olympic Committee will get them to award the 2016 games to Chicago. If I know the International Olympic Committee – and I think I do - a more successful approach might be reminding them of the corruption that was endemic in the Windy City during the era of Capone.
 
A bit of flair. A crunching tackle. Munching some fake blood capsules. The Saracens fans wanted something to liven up the ‘to me, to you’ kicking snoorefest against Gloucester. How dare they pay good money and expect to be entertained says Sarries’ chief executive Edward Griffiths.

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