Mary Hannigan casts a less than caring around the world to see how Ireland and th'others are getting on in their preparations for Japan and Korea.
KEANE TRUTH: IRISH TROUBLEMAKERS:
Barry Murphy take a bow. Barry read our revelation last week that, according to French newspaper L'Equipe, Damien Duff was born in the English town of Ballyboden, so he "decided that I would go to the website and use my Leaving Cert level French to have a little look around".
What Barry discovered, frankly, frightened us, particularly as we thought Mick McCarthy had put his days of formation-fiddling behind him. McCarthy, says L'Equipe, will play 4-3-2-1 at the World Cup, with Gary Breen at right back and Gary Kelly, despite his diminutive stature, playing at centre back. Mark Kinsella, Roy Keane and Matt Holland will make up a three-man midfield, with Kevin Kilbane (on the right) and Robbie Keane (left) playing behind lone front man Niall Quinn. The only good news in all of this is that Shay Given will be in goal, and not Damien Duff.
Elsewhere on the site?
"Eric Cantona said of him with tremors in his voice: '(Roy Keane) is a hard truth'."
Nice. And French assistant coach Rene Girard expects the Irish players to give 150 per cent in each of their games, 40 per cent more than usual, and predicts that the team will be "a troublemaker in its group - it will not go very far in the competition but it can badly annoy the world".
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH: GROUP E
CAMEROON: Winfried Schafer named his 29-man preliminary squad on Tuesday, made up of players earning their keep in 11 different countries (eight of them in France and five in Spain). The team will play an exhibition match at the Yaounde stadium next week before leaving for a training camp in Denmark - the final 23 will be named after the friendly against Denmark in Copenhagen on May 17th.
Schafer, it would seem, is not short of confidence ahead of the World Cup, insisting during the week that his lot is a happier one than that of fellow German Rudi Voller. "I would not like to be in Voller's place, but not because his players are often injured - because I have a wonderful squad, which plays from the heart, and is technically superior to Germany," he said. Should make him popular at home.
Meanwhile Cameroon and FIFA have reached a compromise on the issue of the team's natty sleeveless shirts. FIFA had banned the creations from the World Cup because their logo must appear on shirt sleeves but now they've now agreed to an extra piece of cloth being added to the shirts, where the logo can be placed, "while still preserving the sleeveless effect".
You'll sleep soundly after hearing that.
GERMANY: "I really don't know what the world has come to," said Martin Max (18 goals in the Bundesliga this season, making him Germany's joint-top scorer) when his name didn't appear in Rudi Voller's World Cup squad on Monday - a squad that included Carsten Jancker (no goals in the Bundesliga this season).
Others to miss out were Frank Baumann, Jorg Boehme, Lars Ricken, Ingo Hertzsch, Stefan Beinlich, Thomas Brdaric and goalkeeper Frank Rost, all of whom are on Voller's stand-by list, but one or more could yet win a reprieve should Sebastian Deisler, Marko Rehmer or Christian Ziege suffer recurrences of their recent injury problems.
Deisler, who joins Bayern Munich from Hertha Berlin this summer, returned for Germany in their 7-0 win over Kuwait in Freiburg last Thursday, playing 62 minutes, with Oliver Bierhoff (hat-trick) and Jancker, who Voller says will be his first-choice strikers at the World Cup, scoring four between them. It was, though, largely a second-string German side, with almost half of the World Cup squad unavailable.
Meanwhile, Borussia Dortmund defender Christian Woerns, having struggled with a problem with his left knee for weeks, will undergo minor surgery today. "We hope that Christian will be able to resume training 10 to 14 days after the operation and we are confident he will come to the World Cup," said Rudi Voeller's deputy Michael Skibbe. If the 30-year-old has to pull out, Baumann would take his place.
SAUDI ARABIA: Manager Nasser Al-Johar was in gloomy form on Wednesday at a press conference in Riyadh where he announced that a recurring knee injury had ruled Talal Al Meshal, the star of the Saudi's World Cup qualifying campaign (11 goals in six games), out of the World Cup. Al-Johar had already lost another of his team's most influential players, midfielder Ibrahim Mater Al-Harbi, with a similar injury.
Al-Johar was expected to name his World Cup squad during the week but he will first check on the fitness of the remaining 28 members of his preliminary panel who are in the middle of a two-week training camp in Riyadh. The team is due to play Senegal on May 14th in the capital before meeting either Paraguay on May 21st or Mexico on May 23rd in Japan in their final warm-up game.
SQUADWATCH: MCCARTHY'S MEN
Now that he's picked his squad Mick McCarthy might be tempted to avert his eyes this afternoon when up to 17 of his players complete their seasons with their Premiership clubs. For most the matches fall in to the meaningless category but for the Sunderland contingent and Ipswich Town's Matt Holland there's still the small matter of Premiership survival to be fought for. Easy with the tackling, lads.
Meanwhile Dean Kiely, Kenny Cunningham and Steve Finnan have all been named as their clubs' players of the year with Steve Staunton awarded the "Clubman-of-the-Year" gong at Aston Villa. Shay Given was just pipped to the title of North East Player of the Year by team-mate Alan Shearer.
DANISH UNTRUTH: LANSDOWNE LOSERS:
Ye're an eagle-eyed lot, none more so than Noel Crawford, who e-mailed us this snippet he found on FIFA's official website. "Denmark's soccer renaissance can be directly attributed to coach Morten Olsen, who has taken (the team) to an impressive 10 wins and five draws in 16 matches. The one loss was to world and European champions France in a friendly last August."
As Noel put it, Denmark must have been so eager to forget their Lansdowne Road experience last month "they've decided to airbrush the fact of it from their recent history".
QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
"I have an obligation to win the World Cup."
- Luiz Felipe Scolari suggests that "it's the competing that matters" is not a phrase oft heard in Brazil, even in Portuguese.
"Players who cannot control themselves when it comes to sex are not human, they are irrational beasts."
- Scolari again. Indeed.
"He really needs to realise what planet he's on."
- French coach Roger Lemerre hints at why he left Nicolas Anelka out of his World Cup squad.
"I think the guy Tigana is an absolute jerk."
- United States manager Bruce Arena says a big thank you to Fulham boss Jean Tigana who refused to release Eddie Lewis for three World Cup warm-up matches.
