World Cup One Twos
L-R: TAE-SE and CESAR
FRENCH WANT STARS TO SLUM IT
France's junior minister for sport, Rama Yade, has criticised the squad's South Africa base for being too luxurious. Instead of the five-star Pezula resort in the Western Cape, she said, Raymond Domenech's beleaguered Bleus should be slumming it. "Personally I would not have chosen that hotel. I had asked them to show decency. In times of crisis you need to think about it. If the team's results do not meet our expectations, the [French Football] Federation will have to account for this."
TAE-SE PROMISES GOAL A GAME
North Korea's centre-forward Jong Tae-se has vowed to score in every game he plays in South Africa and has predicted his country will make the final 16. "I will keep my promise of scoring one goal per game," said the striker, who revels in the freshly minted nickname the People's Wayne Rooney. "In our group it will be Brazil and North Korea who will advance," he added.
LULA HAPPY AT SEX POLICY
The Brazil president, Lula da Silva, thinks Argentina's decision to let their players have sex with their partners in South Africa undermines their chances. "Diego Maradona is the only coach to adopt such a policy," he said. "I want to see the Argentines arrive staggering and exhausted to their games."
SHAKIRA HOLDS UP GERMANY
Three-time champions Germany became the latest team to arrive at the World Cup on Monday and were set to hold an open training session later in the day.
Joachim Loew's team arrived in the early morning in Johannesburg on the first official flight of national carrier Lufthansa's Airbus A380 super jumbo.
Also aboard the flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg was pop star Shakira, who sings the official World Cup song "This time for Africa." Shakira will perform among others at the tournament-opening gig on Thursday.
The German team's departure was delayed Sunday night when their plane had to wait Shakira whose connecting flight out of Madrid was delayed. Organisers were reportedly reluctant to leave without the pop star.
On arrival the team left for its base camp close to the nation's capital of Pretoria. A first training session was set for the afternoon and it will be open to the public, with some 20,000 fans expected.
"We want to show the South Africans from the outset that we are happy to be here," said national team general manager Oliver Bierhoff.
Germany play their first match on Sunday against Australia, with Serbia and Ghana their other opponents in group D.
CESAR'S FIRST BREAK IN TWO YEARS
The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) said on Sunday that the 30-year-old would not travel to Tanzania after hurting his back in last week's match in Zimbabwe.
"Julio Cesar will not travel to Tanzania with the Brazilian team," CBF said in a statement. "He will continue working with the physiotherapist."
The Inter Milan goalkeeper, considered one of the world's best, went off in the first half of Brazil's 3-0 friendly win against Zimbabwe on Wednesday.
Brazil coach Dunga has already said that his injury is not serious and he should recover in a few days.
Julio Cesar has started each of Brazil's last 26 matches. The last game he missed was a 2-0 friendly defeat against Venezuela in June 2008.
The five-times world champions face North Korea, Ivory Coast and Portugal in their first round group.
THE NUMBERS GAME
386 out of all 736 players in this year's World Cup ply their trade in one of Europe's five big leagues; up from 346 in 2006.
The Premier League leads the way by some distance, providing 118 players (up from 103 in 2006), followed by the Bundesliga with 84 (75), Serie A with 80 (61), La Liga with 59 (51) and Ligue 1 with 45 (56).
England, Italy and Germany are the only countries who recruit all 23 players from their domestic leagues only. Although in case of England and Germany, injuries to David Beckham and Michael Ballack contributed to this result. Nigeria, on the other hand, relies solely on players, who play outside their country, closely followed by Ivory Coast and Cameroon with 22 foreign based players and Australia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Uruguay with 21.
FC Barcelona will be the club with the most players in World Cup action with 13. A title that would have been Chelsea's, if it hadn't been for the club's strange injury curse. Chelsea are second with 12 players, but could be down to 11, should Didier Drogba be ruled out for the whole tournament.
Brazil goalkeeper Julio Cesar will miss his first Brazil match for two years when he sits out Monday's friendly against Tanzania. --Agencies
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