Friday, October 16, 2009

How do you like that?



Not a lot if you're of the tico persuasion.

Honduras booked themselves a place in South Africa on wednesday evening, thanks to that late and possibly unconstitutional gringo equaliser in the fifth minute of extra time.

Costa Rica will get one last bite at the guinda however, as they now face a play-off against the Uruguayan team who let everyone down by not putting the Argies out of their misery earlier the same day.

Maradonna then showed everyone what a class act he is by calling a Coke- sponsored press conference in which he asked the gathered press pack to keep sucking on the big one...



...and singling out one hack called Toti Pasman for some shaming comments, such as "“Vos también la tenés adentro."



(Update: Diego's remarks could earn him a five match ban, which would keep him out of everyone's hair until the semi-finals...should the Argies even progress that far.)

Guatemalan interest in next year's Mundial is likely to be even more consuming than it was back in Germany 2006, since there may well be two Central American teams involved, plus Mexico — for whom the chapines seem to acquire a grudging respect if not actual affection for a few weeks every four years.

Once all these have been knocked out, Hispanic allegiances will tend to switch to Brazil and Spain, handily the two teams with the greatest chance of actually winning the competition.

England will be somewhere in the chasing pack (and thanks to events in Montevideo consigned to the second tier of seeds) with the likes of France and Argentina straggling further back, unless they somehow manage to effect a change of manager before the tournament commences.

France of course still have to qualify through the European play-offs, but have been helped by UEFA's (run by a Frenchman) belated decision to change the format from a free draw to a seeded one, thereby giving the likes of Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo the best chance of actually appearing all kitted up in South Africa...to the great delight of advertisers everywhere.


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