The World Cup: A Guide To The World's Largest Sporting Event

On June 11th the world will stop what its doing for a month and turn its attention to South Africa as the World Cup kicks off with a match between South Africa and Mexico.
Here at The Common Room, we love the beautiful game. We love everything it represents, especially on the national level. However, we do realize that in the US, it is much harder to follow than baseball, football, or basketball. Since soccer doesn't get much attention from the sports media here in the states, we are here to help you, our loyal readers with a guide to the World Cup. Today we are going to start with a little background on the 32 countries in the tournament.

Group A

South Africa
Fun Fact - Host Nation
Colors - Green and Yellow
Nickname - Bafana Bafana (The Boys)
FIFA Ranking - 90th
Coach - Carlos Alberto Parreira


Mexico
Colors - Red, Green, White, and Black
Nickname - El Tri
FIFA Ranking - 17
Coach - Javier Aguirre

France
Colors - Blue, White, and Red
Nickname - Les Bleus
FIFA Ranking - 10
Coach - Raymond Domenech
1998 World Cup Champions

Uruguay
Colors - Light Blue, Black, and White
Nickname - Charruas (Indigenous People of Uruguay)
FIFA Ranking - 18
Coach - Oscar Tabarez
1930 and 1950 World Cup Champions

Group B

Korea Republic
Colors - Red, Blue, and White
Nickname - Taegeuk Warriors (Taegeuk is the Korean equivalent of Yin and Yang)
FIFA Ranking - 47
Coach - Huh Jung Moo (really.)

Greece
Colors - Blue and White
Nickname - The Pirate Ship
FIFA Ranking - 12
Coach - Otto Rehhagel

Argentina
Colors - Blue and White
Nickname - La Albiceleste (White and Sky Blue)
FIFA Ranking - 7
Coach - Diego Maradona
1978 and 1986 World Cup Champions

Nigeria
Colors - Green and White
Nickname - The Super Eagles
FIFA Ranking - 20
Coach - Lars Lagerback

Group C

England
Colors - Red and White
Nickname - The Three Lions
FIFA Ranking - 8
Coach - Fabio Capello
1966 World Cup Champions

United States
Colors - Red, White, and Blue
Nickname - The Yanks
FIFA Ranking - 14
Coach - Bob Bradley

Slovenia
Colors - Green, Yellow, and White
Nickname - Zmajecki (Dragon)
FIFA Ranking - 23
Coach - Matjaz Kek

Algeria
Colors - Red, White, and Green
Nickname - Les Fennecs (The Desert Foxes)
FIFA Ranking - 31
Coach - Rabah Saadane

Group D

Serbia
Colors - Red, White, and Blue
Nickname - The White Eagles
FIFA Ranking - 16
Coach - Radomir Antic

Ghana
Colors - Red, White, and Yellow
Nickname - The Black Stars
FIFA Ranking - 32
Coach - Milovan Rajevac

Australia
Colors - Green, Yellow, and Blue
Nickname - The Socceroos
FIFA Ranking - 20
Coach - Pim Verbeek

Germany
Colors - White, Black, and Red
Nickname - Die Mannschaft (The Team)
FIFA Ranking - 6
Coach -Joachim Low
1954, 1974, 1990 World Cup Champions

Group E

Netherlands
Colors - Orange, Blue, and White
Nickname - The Oranje
FIFA Ranking - 4
Coach -Bert van Merwijk

Denmark
Colors - Red and White
Nickname - Olsen's Eleven
FIFA Ranking - 35
Coach -Morten Olsen

Japan
Colors - Red, White, and Blue
Nickname - Samurai Blue
FIFA Ranking - 45
Coach -Takeshi Okada

Cameroon
Colors - Yellow, Green, and Red
Nickname - The Indomitable Lions
FIFA Ranking - 19
Coach - Paul Le Guen

Group F

Italy
Colors - Blue and White
Nickname - The Azzurri
FIFA Ranking - 5
Coach - Marcello Lippi
1934, 1938, 1982, 2006 World Cup Champions

Paraguay
Colors - Red, White, and Blue
Nickname - Guaranies (Indigenous People of Paraguay)
FIFA Ranking - 30
Coach - Gerardo Martino

New Zealand
Colors - White and Black
Nickname - The All Whites
FIFA Ranking - 78
Coach - Ricki Herbert

Slovakia
Colors - Blue and White
Nickname - Repre
FIFA Ranking - 38
Coach - Vladimir Weiss

Group G

Brazil
Colors - Blue and Yellow
Nickname - The Samba Kings
FIFA Ranking - 1
Coach -Dunga
1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002 World Cup Champions

Cote d'Ivoire
Colors - Orange, Green, and White
Nickname - The Elephants
FIFA Ranking - 27
Coach -Sven-Goran Eriksson

Portugal
Colors - Red, Green, and White
Nickname - Seleccao de Quinas
FIFA Ranking - 3
Coach - Carlos Queiroz

North Korea
Colors - Red and White
Nickname - Chollina
FIFA Ranking - 106
Coach - Kim Jong-Hun

Group H

Honduras
Colors - Blue and White
Nickname - Los Catrachos
FIFA Ranking - 40
Coach - Reinaldo Rueda

Chile
Colors - Red, White, and Blue
Nickname - La Roja
FIFA Ranking - 15
Coach -Marcello Bielsa

Spain
Colors - Red, Blue, and Gold
Nickname - La Furia Roja
FIFA Ranking - 2
Coach - Vincente del Bosque

Switzerland
Colors - Red and White
Nickname - Schweizer Nati
FIFA Ranking - 21
Coach - Ottmar Hitzfeld


Thus concludes the first part of our World Cup coverage. We leave you with the Official Theme Song for World Cup 2010.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

PARMA, Ohio – Police near Cleveland say a man dressed as Santa Claus tried to kidnap a 12-year-old girl walking to school.
Anthony Russo was later arrested wearing the Santa suit, complete with pillow and beard, and carrying a sack, a large box of candy canes and a unicycle with Christmas decorations.
Parma Police Capt. Robert DeSimone says the 46-year-old Russo, of Brook Park, is jailed pending charges expected to be filed Thursday.
DeSimone says Russo was hiding in bushes Wednesday in costume and jumped out at the girl. He says Russo tried to get the girl into the bushes, but she walked away. DeSimone says the man followed the girl and grabbed her arm before she entered a store and reported the encounter to a worker.
Police say Russo was arrested on a transit bus.

Okay, lets just ignore the fact this guy dressed as Santa, hid in the bushes, and tried to kid nap a girl. What I want to focus on instead is the fact that this guy was fucking riding around on a unicycle. This man tried to kidnap someone on a unicycle. How the fuck is that supposed to work? Where was he going to put her after he completed the kidnapping? His lap? The Sack? If this girl did in fact get kidnapped, I would not be upset, just really impressed that someone kidnapped someone else on a unicycle.

Merry Christmas!

Playdates: A Nostalgic Trip Back To My Younger Years.

I loved play dates. Loved 'em. Everything about them to me was so innocent and wonderful. However one play date in my long history of play dates reigns supreme over the rest. It was a nice Spring day in 3rd grade and it was gym time. After a nice round of Tom and Jerry me and two friends slaked our thirst at the water fountain. While on line, a girl came behind me on line. She complemented me on my play and we went our separate ways. When gym was over we met up again. She asked me if I wanted to play kickball on her team at recess (the modern day equivalent of an absolute smoke show asking for my number at a bar or something, maybe I peaked at a very early age). Obviously I acquiesce her request and play kick ball. Now my memory is a little fuzzy here but I was a force at kick ball. I used to put on more clinics than a Baptist Church in Inner City Detroit. So, with that in mind my stats were probably something like this: 6 for 6 with 4 home runs, a triple, and a double. Most likely I drove in somewhere between 18-22 runs. In the field I probably put on a show as well, but we don't need to get mixed up in stats really. So anyways, after I went bonkers in kick ball me and this fine young lady got to talking. She told me that we should set up a play date after school. We decided it would be a good idea and that we would go home and then set it up. So, when the day ended and I went home I immediately asked my mom to call this girl's mom and see if we could have a play date. My mother played wingman for me and got out the PTA phonebook and gave this girl's mom a ring. When the conversation ended I looked at my mom with eager eyes and she told me that this girl was going to come over for a play date. Well to make a long story short this girl and I had a wonderful play date, played some soccer in the yard, watched some full house, probably ate some pizza bagels, and sent her on her merry way. Needless to say, this girl developed into one of the hotter girls in my neighborhood and soon enough she stopped recognizing my existence. Girls suck. But anyways, the reason I bring this up is I saw someone mention play dates on my Facebook news feed today, it made me think of how great they were. One mom calls another and sets up a play date with someone who you won't be friends with in a couple of weeks, most likely because they won't share their new Tonka Truck with you. Nowadays, kids don't need to do any work to have a play date. They just text their buddies from their Blackberry and boom, its done. Back when the days were good, we had to work for our play dates. I guess thats what made them that much sweeter.