Formations

Looks like debate in Holland (debate in Holland? can't be) is centering around formations. Could the one below be in peril?

For England it's the mystery wrapped in an enigma that is Lampard/Gerrard - are they any good together? If not, who gets dropped? J. Cole, P. Crouch, Golden Balls? This is going to fun.

Nothing to do with anthing really, but here's one long suffering fan trying to remember Queens Park Rangers 2005-06 season.

It can happen here

As in 82 Italy are entering the World Cup trailing a cloud of domestic league scandal. The euphoria of winning then helped gloss over any outrage. The only way the current powers will survive the latest local difficulty is for Italy to win the World Cup. Watch Moggi working the phones to Germany this summer. The Italian emperors will go down fighting and if it means buying Italy the World Cup they'll do it. They have also cleverly found a way to insure Italy makes the final every twelve years.

Squad: Nederland

0MvB

                        1EvdS                        .
                       22HT                          .
                       23MS                          .
                                                     .
                                                     .
      2KJ         3KB         4JM         5GvB       .
     12JK        13AO        14JH        15TdC       .
                                                     .
                                                     .
            8PC         6DL        10RvdV            .
           18MvB       16HM        20WS              .
                                                     .
                                                     .
            7DK         9RvN       11AR              .
           21RB        19JVoH      17RvP             .
                                                     .

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There's gotta be a better way

Penalties are generally the outcome of a final where one or both teams go into the game determined not to lose. So how can teams to be encouraged to give it a go? Make penalties a worse option than losing the game. Huh? Okay, a little history. This is the first World Cup for which the holders have had to qualify; until now the holders, as in most competitions, were given automatic passage to the next tournament. France considered their failure to get through Japan/Korea's group stage to be a consequence of not having played a competitve match for two years, since the preceding European Championship. So they whined to FIFA, poor lambs, and FIFA caved. That decision has to be reversed: rules favouring the big guns are never good -- they're even worse for a competition as inherently lopsided as the WC.

Back to the final. Let's say two teams are deadlocked after 120 minutes of football. As usual, penalties would be played. The difference being that that wouldn't generate the final result, simply who'd get to look after the cup for the following four years. For being complicit in a combined lack of ambition, not just the 'winner', but also the 'runner-up', would get automatic qualification to the following tournament. Further, they would be placed in the same group -- condemned to their own personal group of death. Their group game would, in addition to its normal function, be the decider of the previous competition's permanent winner.