Category: Footy

01/07/2006 Footy

One petulant stamping in the sensitive bits…

…and it was all over.

There’s still something to smile about, though. I watched a couple of games last week with my German friend Daniel, who provided entertaining translations of German players’ surnames.

Mertesacker – Daniel thinks this chap is from Alsace-Lorraine, or thereabouts. In this case, the merte part of the name is from the French merde. The sacker part is essentially what it sounds like to an anglophone, that is sack or bag. Hence Shitbag, or Crapbag, whichever you prefer.

It gets better.

Schweinsteiger – Daniel thinks this is a quintessential Bavarian name. Schwein, as we all know, means pig. Steiger, as Daniel told me, means to mount. When I looked it up on Babelfish, it told me steiger=riser, but I prefer Daniel’s version. Pig mounter conjures up much more interesting images.

Well, it made me giggle.

18/06/2006 Footy

La Copa del Mundo!

The World Cup is available here, albeit early in the morning. I’ve eschewed ABC and ESPN’s coverage, though, because their commentators are both patronising and inaccurate. For example, yesterday they claimed that the USA was essentially playing the same formation as Italy, when in fact the USA were playing 4-5-1 and Italy 4-4-2.

Luckily another broadcaster is carrying the matches; the Spanish language Univision. Univision is great. I can’t understand most of what they’re saying, so even if it is as stupid as the US commentators (unlikely) I can’t tell, but best of all, when a goal is scored the commentator screams “Goooool!” for about thirty seconds. Sometimes he mixes it up and throws in a repetitive “Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol!”. Most entertaining.