I Think Thou Doth Protest Too Much

Fifa must silence strip-poker 'liar' - Ramos

Spain defender Sergio Ramos on Tuesday urged Fifa to denounce the Brazilian journalist who claimed that the world champions had played strip-poker during an alcohol-fuelled party at the Confederations Cup.

The report, which appeared on website Globo Esporte, said members of the Spain squad had invited women back to their rooms following the opening 2-1 win over Uruguay in Recife on June 16. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of SuperSport.

Kicking Back Comments: FIFA the great protector of rights. Ha.

I think this is a great ploy by Brazil to rattle a few cages before the final. Based on the reaction of Ramos, I think it's working.

Germany Rejects Spain's Bid To Buy Octopus Oracle

Octopus oracle Paul's prescience wasn't needed to predict how this one would turn out: His aquarium in Germany on Friday gave a resounding "nein" to a bid to move the celebrity mollusk to Spain.

Paul rose from obscurity in Oberhausen's Sea Life aquarium during the World Cup to international celebrity as he correctly called the outcome of Germany's seven matches in the monthlong tournament, time and again picking a mussel from a tank marked with the flag of the would-be winner.

He also correctly predicted Spain would beat Germany in the semifinals — prompting many in his home country to speculate how he would taste grilled in garlic butter.

Already a celebrity in Spain after the semifinal prediction — Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero offered to send a security team to protect the 2 1/2-year-old floppy octopus from the hungry Germans — the country went wild for him after he correctly tipped Spain over the Netherlands in the finals.

Paul is now so popular in Spain that a northwestern Spanish town tried to borrow him. Officials in O Carballino, population 14,000, declared that the octopus is their "honorary friend" and wanted Paul's presence to promote a seafood festival, the Faro de Vigo newspaper said.

Full story here, courtesy of NPR.

Looks like quite a party

Spain's World Cup victory parade, in pictures:
Full post is here, courtesy of the BBC.

Ladies and Gentlemen ... Howard Webb

Howard Melton Webb, born 14-JUL-1971, hails from Rotherham, South Yorkshire England. Web has been a referee since 1993 and a FIFA referee since 2005. His FIFA bio is here, and Wikipedia page is here.

Webb will be joined by Darren Cann and Mike Mullarkey as his assistants for the final. No information at the time of this writing is available for the alternate referee, or alternate assistant referee.

Howard Webb's father was a referee and it was he who made his son aware of a referee's course. Howard passed the course when he was 19 years old and started refereeing locally. He became a referee in the Northern Counties East League in 1996. In the year 2000 he was included on the National List of Football League referees. By then he was only 29 years old. Three years later he was selected as a Premiership referee. In 2005 at the age of 34 he received his FIFA badge.

Webb will be the first Englishman sine 1974 to preside over a World Cup final where Jack Taylor was the last who refereed the Dutch loss to West Germany.

Webb is also the youngest at 38 to referee a World Cup final in 72 years, the last being Pierre Capdeville. 

During this time he has accumulated quite a record of matches as noted here by WorldReferee.com. Also of note is his discipline record statistics listed below:

Year	Games	Total	per game	Total	per game
2000–01	26	58	2.23	1	0.04
2001–02	32	69	2.16	5	0.16
2002–03	39	145	3.72	4	0.10
2003–04	34	92	2.94	9	0.26
2004–05	34	100	2.94	2	0.06
2005–06	47	117	2.49	7	0.15
2006–07	43	151	3.51	9	0.21
2007–08	38	128	3.37	2	0.05
2008–09	40	132	3.30	6	0.15
2009-10	35	124	3.54	4	0.11
Overall	368	1116	3.03	49	0.13

Webb's style is seemingly one of presence and communication, not strict discipline. This would seem to be emphasised in a recent BBC interview where Howard notes that, "being a good referee all comes down to the way you manage people and how you communicate with them".

NED v. ESP will be a significant test of that style as he leads us into the closing match of this quadrennial festival.

A new way to predict the World Cup winner ... Toxoplasma Gondii?!?

This one goes into the "you have to be kidding" file. However, the little blue bug to my left has a correlation with winning at World Cups, and maybe some other notable things in history.

While not conclusive by any means, the following is a fun and provoking story (it can get kind of gross in spots too) that describes this little guy and all it may have to offer the sporting world in the future.

We shall see the result of the match itself, but Spain has a toxo rate of about 45% in its population, where Netherlands has a toxo rate of a whopping 80% at last count. If that is any indication it would bear out my prediction for the final of NED 2 - ESP 1.

Of course this is against the prediction made by Paul the Pyschic Octopus the other day, who chose Spain.

This interesting article worth reading is here, courtesy of Slate.com.