As Euro 2004 gathers pace, Justine Hynes and Claire Bowen ponder footballers' taste in wheels.
Some of the finest feet on the planet are taking to the pitches of Portugal to contest the European Championships. But finest feet are not often partnered with the finest minds in the world. A cheap and obvious proof of this lies in the modes of transport chosen by Europe's elite footballers.
Top of the list of footballing car fetishists, comes, surprise, surprise, fashion plate and sometime Real Madrid star David Beckham. His choice of insults to linesmen might border on the picaresque - he recently employed his rudimentary Spanish on a linesman - but his taste in wheels is flash but sadly pedestrian.
There's a lot. Take a deep breath: Range Rover Vogue, Ferrari 360 Spyder, Ferrari 550M, Aston Martin DB7, Lincoln Navigator, TVR Cerbera, Porsche 911 Turbo, Land Rover 4.6 HSE, Mercedes SL500, Chrysler Grand Voyager, Jaguar XKR - and a bunch of armour plated BMWs (750i, 540i, X5) usually reserved for the hounded lad's minders.
Admittedly, in among that selection are a couple of gems. Specifically the utterly desirable Ferrari 550 Maranello. And there's the style mixed with kitsch in the f But the rest? Lincoln Navigator: you'd have more fun navigating a canal barge through the backstreets of Madrid. Chrysler Grand Voyager?
Here's a man who makes millions of euros a year and he buys a Chrysler Grand Voyager. Does he ever actually drive it? Has he ever sat in it? Did he sit in the living room of Beckingham Palace and lean over to Posh and say: "Victoria, I think we'll pass on the concourse condition Ferrari California Spyder and have the Chrysler Grand Voyager, I like it's snappy design." Even when he does get the car choice right he goes and adds his 'personal touches'. He has a Bentley - good choice - but with monogrammed child seats. Ho hum - and they say Beckham has style.
Not much better is his England team-mate Michael Owen. The once fleet-footed striker is about as predictable as it gets: Jaguar XKR , Aston DB7, Range Rover Vogue and - hold on - a Chrysler Grand Voyager.
Of course the French has more panache. Take Thierry Henry. Well, of course, he's French, plays for Arsenal and advertises the Renault Clio. Thierry might tell you he gets a bit of va-va-voom from his little Clio but heleaves the set of the advertising shoot in his utterly, utterly dreamy Aston Martin Vanquish.
The Vanquish is so hairy chested it probably loves nothing more than trudging into forests to hunt down woodland creatures and despatching them with a rusty spoon before eating the carcasses whole. Viciously sculpted at the front, massively over endowed where it counts and poised like a pit bull with a personality disorder, it'a proper sports car.
And just to add some spice to his garage he's gone and bought a Porsche Carrera GT. This car doesn't like your children or your wife, sounds like the first warning bells of Armageddon fed through a wall of cranked up Marshall amplifiers. It rocks. Hats off to Thierry.
The same can't be said for Ireland's forays into the superstar car market. Okay, so we're not actually taking part in the championships, but we should be there and that's good enough.
Not good enough though are Damien Duff and Robbie Keane. Keane might have lamped a sublime 25-yard scorcher against the Dutch but his taste in cars is predictable and bordering on the mundane: BMW X5, Porsche 911 - yawn. Duff, the sleepy winger, obviously feels a frequent need for a snooze, so he drives a, wait for it, BMW X5.
A recent survey carried out by Nuts, a new British men's weekly magazine, discovered that Premiership players favourite car was the X5 with 48 players owning one. What is it with these 4x4 Beemers? A Range Rover I can understand, it's just cool in a shooting stick, foie gras, grouse-shooting, peasant-evicting sort of way. But an X5? It's just a bit, well, nouveau. Thankfully Roy Keane returns to save the day for Ireland. While he's yet another 4x4 driver in his Range Rover, his driveway also features Audis RS6.
Further afield? Well, Spanish striker Raul apparently, drives an Audi RS Quattro. Sure, it's a mad old thing with 450 bhp, a twin turbo V8 and will do 0-62 mphh in a tasty 4.7 seconds, but otherwise it's a family saloon.
Michael Reiziger of the Netherlands and admits to being passionate about cars and is a regular at the Spanish Grand Prix, but he chooses a 5 series BMW and, surprise, surprise, a Porsche Carrera - in his defence, it's a vintage model the smell of which he claims to love (must be all that burning oil). His Dutch team-mate Ruud Van Nistelrooy has no such classic taste, opting for a Mercedes ML55 AMG.
The bottom line appears to be that footballers, no matter what league they play, have the imagination of a guppy. Their cars, while invariably top line and undoubtedly scoring high on the flash chart, show a startling lack of vision.
Where are the Koenigseggs, the Zondas, the 1973 2.7 RS Porsches, the DB6s, the Ferrari Daytonas, the 1959 Cadillacs, the Lamborghini Miuras, the Volkswagen camper vans, the Minis, the Fiat 500s? There are countless drool-inducing cars for men of such Croesian means. But, no, what do they go for? A car park full of MPVs and nouveau-riche off-roaders.
Hope their football is better than their taste in wheels.