Monday quick hits

How about some football quick hits while we’re all waiting for Mike to get off his ass, log on to Blogger and contribute to this here party. (If he doesn’t soon, I’ll start posting as him and make him sound really, really gay.)

• If we don’t get our fill of world football fever next year, perhaps we can try the friendly confines of England in 2018. Apparently FA chief Lord Triesman “emphasised the quality of England’s stadia, infrastructure and the country’s cultural mix in his opening speech.” I’m offended that His Lordship didn’t say anything about hooliganism. That’s part of England’s footballing charm. That’s all of England’s footballing charm.
  
• Only a couple more weeks until the U.S. national team’s next World Cup qualifier. The Yanks play Costa Rica in San Jose on 3 June before heading to Soldier Field later that week to battle the Hondurans. Both of those matches should be interesting, since the Ticos are only one point behind us on the CONCACAF leaderboard, and Honduras trails the Costa Ricans by two.
• Les Bleus have a tough road ahead — 18 August vs. the Faroe Islands. Holy shit, when those two teams get together … bloodshed. No love lost there. Wait, where the hell are the Faroe Islands? Oh, they’re some Danish protectorate. Blech. Wikipedia also tells me their football team is currently ranked 185th out of 207 national teams.

So hopefully Mike will come around. That wasn’t nearly as entertaining as I wanted it to be. However, I think this week I’ll take a closer look at the official FIFA World Cup Mascot, Zakumi. Because he sucks.