Several readers who read our whole-hearted mocking of Trinidad and Tobago have written to tell us how pleased they are that the Caribbean minnows have been drawn in England's World Cup group. In the hopes that Team Limey ends up with egg on our faces, they were relishing the prospect of an upset in that match. Fat chance.
Here at Castle Limey, there was much patting of backs following the draw. Our drawbridge rose with anticipation as we watched Heidi Klum fiddling with our balls. And the cannons fired from our battlements when she pulled out Trinidad (a team with less pedigree than the cast of Lady and the Tramp), Paraguay (the worst South American qualifier) and Sweden (men with comic Viking hats and attractive sisters).
And it got better from there. Team Limey sat salivating at our TV, eager to see to which teams we would be applying our favorite football cliché: Which teams had been drawn into the group of death? But at this World Cup, in a situation akin to finding two candy bars in your school lunchbox (next to the matching flask), there will be not one, but two groups of death.
Fighting it out in Bear Pit C will be Argentina, the Netherlands, Ivory Coast and Serbia and Montenegro. The Argies and the Dutch should progress, but not without a strong challenge from the robust Serbs and arguably Africa's best team.
Chelsea's Michael Essien found his Ghanaian countrymen assigned to Bear Pit E, and a probable early flight home. They line up against one of Team Limey's outside tips: the Czech Republic, potential tournament winner Italy, and of course USA, USA, USA. Italy should win the group, but although second place is almost too close to call, we reckon that the Czechs will nick it and that flights from Nuremberg to New York on June 22 will be heavily booked. At least Americans will have fond memories of their deep-dish/thin-crust pizza standoff with the Italians to look back upon.
Those fans that need to be booking long-term accommodations in Germany hail from Brazil, England, Germany and Italy. In fact, we hear the Germans are so confident, they've even bought some real estate in the country. However, Team Limey can already feel the tears welling up in Dortmund on July 4 as top seed Brazil dispenses of England (the second seed) for the second consecutive World Cup. But we'll have our bronze medals to look forward to if we beat Italy (eighth seed), which we predict will have been dispatched by host Germany (fourth seed). Who wins the final? We didn't need any Brazilian barmaids to help us answer that one!
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/soccer/12/16/the.limey/