Ed:Nazz, bless his heart, was referring to the following excerpt from a WFP email to soccerdom following the WC2006 Group Round...
"If you've been watching the World Cup, and I'm sure you have, you might be wondering what on earth happened to the beautiful game. Though every four years brings its odd nightmare or two usually involving Italy, 2006 Germany is overloaded with such and needs a serious facelift.If we're lucky Thierry Henry won't be faking anymore head injuries and getting innocent players carded and unjust goals scored. The Croats and their hand-ball special teams have long-since departed, as have the dirtiest Dutch squad in history. We can only pray a Spanish ref won't gift Italy another PK with eight seconds to kill like the one that sent the better team back home along the yellow brick road. And let's hope that Figo's fascination with the Glasgow kiss has run its course. I'm counting on some terrific football this weekend to offset all that came before."

Oh!
Glad to see you haven't taken life support off WFP. I thought you might enjoy this amusing anecdote from "The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup." I've found the book invaluable for adding my two cents in pub discussions during matches, particularly for a football rookie like myself.
This week I wowed my bar buddies with this tidbit during the Brazil versus Ghana match, about how Brazil in 1982 played a heart-stopping masterpiece in losing 3-2 to Italy in the second round, captained by the chainsmoking doctor Socrates ... It was possibly the best football match ever.
There was something cool about his being called Socrates, too – all part of the strange romance of Brazilian names, most of which, thanks to the complexity and length of people's full monickers, and a deep love of familiar forms of address, tend to be nicknames. And then there are the suffixes to consider. The winning coach from 2002, Luiz Felipe Scolari, is always called Philao -- the "ao" suffix meaning "big", thus Philao means "Big Phil". The "inho" suffix means "small". The current Ronaldo was once himself known as Ronaldinho because there was already another Ronaldo in the side, as well as a Ronaldao. When the current Ronaldinho came along, this could have meant that Brazil was fielding Ronaldao, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Ronaldinhozinho: big Ronald, normal-sized Ronald, small Ronald and even smaller Ronald. Instead, the former Ronaldo dropped out, the new Ronaldo became Ronaldinho Gaucho (after his birth place) and the former Ronaldinho was promoted to Ronaldo, a title he still holds.
Perhaps this is no odder than the time England had one player called Trevor Steven and two players called Gary Stevens (prompting the immortal chant, to the tune of Guantanamera: "Two Gary Stevens... there's only two Gary Stevens...".
• Michel Comte, June 30, 2006
Correspondent, Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Ed:France lost the World Cup and sadly, we haven't heard from Michel since. Fortunately, considering the sheer length of this letter we're good till 2010 anyway.

The rest of the story
You are right... the Spanish ref did make a mistake in the Italy game. Since the defender brought his arms up to trip the Italian and take away a sure goal and because he was last man back, he should also have recieved a red card. Hopefully the ref will be disciplined!
• Mimmo Marello, June 30, 2006
National Champion Head Coach, Burnaby Royals

Ed:It stands to reason Mimmo is Italian and there's little he can do about that however, we all chipped in and bought him a one-way ticket to Sydney so he can explain the infamous eight-second PK to the Aussies.

English, his second language
In Italiano, FI (Forza Italia); in English FE (!@#$ England)!
• William Azzi , June 30, 2006
President, Vancouver Metro Soccer League

Ed:Oh well, that's very bloody nice William, kicking off our god-forsaken Letters section will all that crap trash-talking. What the !@#$. Come on England! Ah, shit, we're out!

Restoring football's image
I love the selection of the qualifying girls for the next round. That truely is the beautiful game!
• Richard Keleher, June 30, 2006
f. Canterbury FC, defender, somewhere in Asia

Ed:Shortly after this email we received one from Mrs. Keleher asking to be removed from the WFP mailing list.

One pixel at a time
Great news that WFP lives again! Can't wait to bookmark it. (I'm in Whitehorse now). Take baby steps, but think of the possibilities... Podcasting? Content for mobile phones? Video? How about WFPTV?
What else is keeping you busy these days?
• Bob Mackin , June 18, 2006
IdeasRUs

Ed:It's important to keep in mind that Bob was actually born at 115 mph and hasn't slowed down since, except on Sundays when he takes his Greyhound for a run at the dog park.

Be careful what you wish for
Congratulations, kiddoo. I hope it continues to grow – you are definitely a devil for punishment.
• Ken Hume, June 17, 2006
President, Hume Travel

Ed:That's exactly what Mr. Crouch whispered to Mrs. Crouch the day Peter was born.

Always on the ball
You're still not using the old spellchecker, I see. Other than a few gaffes and goofs in the columns sent from abroad (or a guy), some funny stuff there. I hope the honey was good.
• Jerry Eberts , June 17, 2006

Ed:That's Jerry... superwordsmithguy... able to stop entire sentances with a single period. Jerry was, is, WFP's first and only bonafide copyediting commander in chief and was entirely responsible for keeping us rated 'general admission' through a dozen issues or more. Jerry eventually bailed on us... the bastard... something about a real life, a paycheck, can't live on Cod Puss Soup all his life or some nonsense like that. Still, he's out there, as is evident here with our very first online letter, and he just can't help but do his thing.

© 2006 World Football Pages
Photo: Azzi © 2004 Mark Okoth/ www.digitalaction.ca