Val..... especially for you ...a best seller in Scotland ..........The official ABE T Shirt .. ?Anyone But England?....




England - one world cup win at home and one semi final placing, and in European Championship campaigns, one semi final placing and Germany - three world cup wins, four runners up placing, plus eleven semi final placing and European Championship campaigns, three wins, three runner up placing and seven semi final placing. ...............My almanac tells me England and Germany have been matched on twenty seven occasions together, of which England has won twelve and Germany ten plus two if penalty shootouts count. What does all the history mean? Tomorrow two totally different teams of players will battle it out, in Germanys case their youngest in 76 years, does victory mean more in terms of money and prestige than national pride ?....

Yesterday in a political science debate the coverage of Germany v England, newspaper national football propaganda came under the spot light.... imagery from past European championships included evil Hun soldiers goose stepping shouting "Himmel" and "Achtung" in preposterous Nazi uniforms as they went out and about killing everyone and everything in sight, all clear evidence the English red top newspapers are keen to keep this tradition of ?bashing the bosch? alive and Sunday's battle between the two offers another opportunity to fire one last shell at Germany........

Expect to read a raft of German stereotypes from the cold hearted style of play, to the perceived lack sense of a sense of humor , cue the "sour-kraut" label, and there?s the songs and chanting England fans aim at German fans.... Two World Wars and One World Cup - Do Dah ,Do Dah.......with The Sun?s head line blaring out ?stand by for ?Germ? warfare? ...while the Daily Star chortles "Job done..now for the Hun"....

The German red tops not wishing to miss out are just as keen to engage the English red tops in a furious war of words...... with Berlin's Berliner Zeitung first out the traps with..."Yes! Now we are going to sort out the little English girlies."..... Followed by Bild...."Rooney holds no fear for us. He has gone eight games without a goal? and the ninth will follow against Germany, he says he wants to throw us out of the tournament but he hasn?t thought about his own form. In his second World Cup Rooney is once again harmless, goalless, and toothless.?......

However as Michael Ballack pragmatically pointed out ?England have not shown their true selves and have a lot more to give, watching them play in the group matches you could see they were feeling the pressure. Because they were afraid of going home early, at the knockout stages you have to perform to your limit or you'll be knocked out. The gap from where they are now to their best is bigger for England but they can get there."

And as the last word from Franz Beckenbauer... "This is a classic game of football, but unfortunately it has come too early in the competition. It is worthy of a semi-final, but not a last 16 game," .....for once spot on .......


Brazil 0-0 Portugal a waste of 90 minutes, what a bunch of woosies, it was more like kiss chase, I swear I saw a groups of player dancing around there handbags and Renaldo?s pathetic posing and posturing made me scream, these two teams are supposed to be ranked respectively 1st and 3rd in FiFa rankings.....


But the pi?ce de r?sistance was the Japan 3 - 1 Denmark, with two stunningly executed free kicks, the Danish goal keeper caught hopelessly out of position might as well have gone for one of Kayoko?s cocktails with Rob Green ....

Honda selfless act of cleverly passing the ball for Okazaki to slide into the net was an inspiration to many young players globally.

On the final whistle Kuma was last seen singing and dancing Queens ?We are the Champions?....sounding suspiciously like Utada ...

So today we have South Korea v Uruguay Port Elizabeth 15:00 ......Manager Hun "The merit goes to the players and to the coaching staff, not to me, the players and the staff really became one and worked together very hard to get our goal of reaching this stage."

Edit: Good Luck Kayoko I will be behind South Korea all the way ...


USA v Ghana Rustenburg 19:30 ..... US Captain Carlos Bocanegra "We have to make sure we hold our structure while we are going for it and stay organised - the team wants to go full blast all the time and we actually have the energy to do that."

Yep Kayoko can't wait just 1 hour to go ...