World Cup

With the football World Cup imminent, I was recently interviewed by the newspaper Suomenmaa, the organ of the Finnish Centre Party, on my thoughts about the English national team's chances.


To read the full article you'll have to get hold of the newspaper, but a trailer, complete with photo, can be found here. Since the article is in Finnish, it might not help many of you, but for a laugh you can use Google Translate to get a flavour of what was said. Click here and then use 'copy and paste' to paste the URL address of the Finnish article into the translation box. Use your imagination to guess what I said.


I was also asked who I'd have as my starting eleven - a question which caught me out somewhat. So to entertain the real football experts, here is my (spontaneous) answer:

Goalkeeper: David James
Defenders: Ashley Cole, Ledley King, John Terry, Leighton Baines
Midfielders: James Milner, Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard
Forwards: Wayne Rooney, Peter Crouch


As my starting line-up is a little short on pace, Aaron Lennon can come on after a while. And Rio Ferdinand gets to play in the first game of the tournament so the team can benefit from his experience. The sharp-eyed will note that there is no room for Steven Gerrard. He plays for Liverpool F.C. so he gets to sit on the bench and chew his fingernails.


Who is going to be the 'star' of the World Cup? It has to be Vuvuzela!