England World Cup Blog 2010

We’re playing England away. What?

England World Cup Blog

Written by Kris Mole Saturday, 26 September 2009 02:12

Saturday 5th September 2009 was a day of firsts for me. My first England game. My first visit to the new Wembley (my only visit to the old Wembley was part of a school trip). And most significantly of all, the first time I’d ever given my support to a team playing against England.

Yep, you read that correctly. I didn’t want my home country to win. I know, I find it strange to read that too.

Read more: We’re playing England away. What?

Early memories

England World Cup Blog

Written by JR Wednesday, 03 June 2009 09:58

I will be honest with you when it comes to writing a piece about the England national team I initially had no idea what to put down. You see, my favourite footballing memories and romances do not involve England. Its not that I am unpatriotic, but more to do with family, education, politics of the day etc. First of all my family (well mainly my Dad as it was him who I lived with) had a no interest in sport and a particular dislike for football in particular. There is also the fact that my school, family, location didn’t seem to be all that patriotic. As a young boy I can never remember being told “You are English”. Maybe occasionally I would hear the word British but what use is that to a young boy of the age of eight? Simply there was nothing there to make me feel a bond or be drawn towards the England football team. If anything being English was frowned upon by the media and education system – oh how so little has changed in the last thirty years! Anyway I am going off the subject area here which should be the England national football team (even if they do only play the role of a ‘fringe’ player in this article). In a way, this is most appropriate considering my earliest memories of international football.

Read more: Early memories

Goal!!

England World Cup Blog

Written by Dave Allan Monday, 02 March 2009 22:47

In English it’s goal. In Spanish, gol. In French it’s but and in German it’s tor. There’s more than one word for putting the ball in the back of the net, but if you’re an A2B World Cup reader then you probably already knew that.

Lauire and myself tried to come up with a few more than the four above, and came up with… nothing.

However, we did find this Wiktionary page which lists various translations of the “the act of placing the ball into the goal”. Here’s a selection:

What’s interesting in this list is how many cultures default to “gol”, despite the fact that the word for the post and nets thingy you put the ball in is something else altogether. For example, the “goal” (nets etc) in Russian is “voróta”, but when you score it’s still “gol”.

Also interesting: it’s “gol” in Brazil, but “golo” in Portugal. Which may or may not explain why Brazil has five more World Cups than Portugal.

One of the things I love about A2B World Cup is that our audience is a) international, and b) knowledgeable.

So if you’re from a country not on this list (or even if you are) then please enlighten us with some knowledge about what goals are called where you come from.

Group C Stats

England Team

England World Cup Blog

Written by Tony Saturday, 21 February 2009 20:59