Patience.org

On and Ahn it goes, but it appears that the Perugia chairman is pulling his chair up to the table to eat a large portion of humble pie. Yeah, believe that when I see it.

In other news, Fulham are back in training minus their two World Cup stars, both of which we’ll be lucky to hang on to, but for opposite reasons. Less than two weeks until Fulham’s first ever match in an official European competition, albeit the Intertoto Cup.

So it turns out that Perugia had told Ahn that his contract – up at the end of this month – would not be renewed before the World Cup even started. Which makes the chairman’s proto-fascists rants even more bizarre.

And now RAI is thinking of suing FIFA for loss of advertising revenues from non-existent Italian games later in the tournament. Everybody’s got it in for them.

And as for today’s events, I’m off to the beach….

Well, well, you might be mistaken into thinking that the Italians are a little bitter at their defeat by South Korea. Witness the firing of Korean goal scorer Ahn Jung-Hwan by his Italian club, Perugia.

It includes a great neo-fascist quote from the Perugia chairman Luciano Gaucci: “I am a nationalist and I regard such behavior not only as an affront to Italian pride but also an offence to a country which two years ago opened its doors to him.”

So, no bitterness there then. Assume it’s now in the hands of Ahn’s lawyers

And FIFA aren’t too happy with the Italians either. I guess being the only country to be beaten in the World Cup by both North and South Korea must be a real pisser.

It wasn’t quite Paris following France 98, but the way I discovered that the US had won today was by being woken at 4.30am by people on the street outside whooping & hollering and honking horns.

Those plucky few who stuck it out in the pubs until 4.30 on a Monday morning deserve some recognition, modest though this may be.

A priceless example of Wacko Jacko lunacy, as described here. It’s got Wacko himself, spoon bending, British trains, Exeter, British pomp and circumstance, the list goes on.

Wacko once turned up at a Fulham game against Wigan in the Second Division a few years back, but that’s another story.

In terms of important World Cup issues, the shirts, as ever deserve some attention. You hear a lot of talk about the balls every four years, but the shirts are what really count to the supporters. There are at least six brands battling it out, as far as I can tell from the vantage point of my 21″ TV screen.

Adidas, as worn by Argentina, France, Germany, Spain etc; Nike, worn by Brazil USA etc; Kappa, worn by Italy; Puma as worn by Cameroon; Umbro, donned by England and Ireland; and plucky little Hummel, as worn by the plucky Danes.

Here’s my verdict on the relative performances:

Adidas – classic design & solid as ever. Nothing too flash, although experimented with much needed under-arm ventilation it seems.

Nike – big own goal when Olic of Croatia ripped his off to celebrate the first goal against Italy, only to find himself unable to get it back on until one of the blokes on the sidelines cut a large piece out from the inside undershirt type thing. They look ridiculous when not tucked in, as they have a see-through over shirt that resembles chiffon. Coupled with that and the bloody awful font and material used for the numbers, which look like iron-on transfers from the 1970s and that makes them the big losers of the World Cup for me, apparel-wise.

Puma can rightly claim to have been a real innovator with their shirts/vests/tanks (depending on where you come from) that Cameroon wear. Sometimes they are with sleeves, sometimes without. Who makes the decision to wear sleeves, I wonder. It’s not as if they provide any additional protection as they’re so short and anyway, they have large holes underneath the arms – underarm ventilation has been one of the central themes of this World Cup.

And where would the Italians be without Kappa’s skin-tight numbers, which hugs the bodies of Totti et al so well. Only the Italian boys could get away with it. Can you imagine Paul Scholes in one of them?

Talking of which, England and Ireland doing their bit to support Umbro, but while the England kit isn’t bad – nice use of the asymmetrical stripe thingy, the Irish one is bland.

Winner: Kappa
Beaten finalist: Adidas
Third place respectability: Puma
Fourth place humiliation: Umbro
Quarter Finalists: Hummel
France: Nike

Take 3/1 on Brazil to win, if you can get it. Get on!

The US stil hasn’t really grasped the enormity of their achievement against what was admittedly a lacklustre Portugese side the other day. Unfortunately that’s probably all down to the time the games start – that one started at 5am on the east coast and 2am on the west.The Koreasn match is no better – 2.30am ET & 11.30pm on a Sunday night on the west coast.

But this is still a relatively shallow football culture compared to Europe and South America. But I think it’s less to do with th sport, as it is the most popular sport for kids below the age of 16. It’s more to do with the lack of international competition in anything aside from the Olympics every four years and the intervening two for the Winter version.

There are not intervening international baseball, hockey or basketball tournaments, or if there are, they are deemed so obscure and subordinate to MLB, NHL & NBA. There is a feeling of “why bother?” when it comes to international competition, thoguh some plucky journalists are trying to stir up passion.

Britain will pay back the last of its World War Two debt to the US by the end of 2006, reports the Telegraph.

There is apparently £346m left of the $4.3bn which Britain borrowed back in 1945 following the end of the Lend-Lease program when the war ended. That amount is about $102bn in today’s money.

The irony is that much of the money had been spent within the first two years by Clement Attlee’s government on the distinctly socialist notions of nationalization of the railways, and the coal and steel industries – things that probably did not go down too well with President Truman’s administration.

Most other countries had paid their debts back to the US a while back, but they didn’t incur the sort of costs that Britain did during the war. Nor did they nave such a large Empire to try and maintain.