In advance of Portugal v. England, you can file this one under lame stunts. From the Mirror.
ASDA wants to sign Portuguese striker Luis Figo for its advertising campaign – in the hope its injury jinx will strike a third time.
The supermarket saw Wayne Rooney get hurt after signing him up for ads, then his stand-in Michael Owen was sent home from Germany injured. A straw poll in Asda’s offices found Figo was the Portugese player most likely to score against England.
Asda’s Nick Agarwal said: “We want him to do some nice publicity shots and get injured in training. Nothing too serious. We are speaking to Figo’s agent at the moment.”
(the gent on the right would like to stress “we’re not playing basketball”)
Either you saw France’s old guard come back from a goal down yesterday against Spain or you didn’t. I mean, it’s too late to sort that one out, much to Luis Aragones’ chagrin (and I don’t think Saturday’s rematch between the 1998 finalists is going to turn out well for Zindane and Vieira). But it’s never too late to scoff at terrible commentary by ill-informed, biased mouthbreathers with little insight to share.
But enough about Marcelo Balboa, apparently they’ve got problems on Chinese TV, too. From the Times’ Tom Dart.
The Associated Press reports that Huang Jianxiang, commentating on Italy v Australia for Chinese television, certainly had no qualms with the penalty award in the 93rd minute.
He is quoted as saying: “Penalty! Penalty! Penalty! Grosso’s done it, Grosso’s done it! The great Italian left back! He succeeded in the glorious traditions of Italy! Facchetti, Cabrini and Maldini, their souls are infused in him at this moment! Grosso represents the long history and traditions of Italian soccer, he’s not fighting alone at this moment! He’s not alone!”
And after Francesco Totti scored…
“Goooooal! Game over! Italy win! Beat the Australians! They do not fall in front of Hiddink again! Italy the great! Left back the great! Happy birthday to Maldini! Forza Italia! The victory belongs to Italy, to Grosso, to Cannavaro, to Zambrotta, to Buffon, to Maldini, to everyone who loves Italian soccer!
“Hiddink … lost all his courage faced with Italian history and traditions … He finally reaped fruits which he had sown! They should go home. They don’t need to go as far away as Australia as most of them are living in Europe. Farewell!”