Asia will host the World Cup in 2011 and Australia-NZ will host it in 2015. England gets 2019. England also looks to get the second Twenty20 championships in 2009. South Africa get the inaugral Twenty20 championships to be held in 2007.

Telegraph Calcutta already reported in the morning that Asia looks likely to get the 2011 World Cup.

How will we look back at the current English side in 2019? How would Australia have panned out by 2019? What about India. Would it still be talented, yet mediocre? Same could be asked about Pakistan.

Would the West Windies downhill slide continue or would they become a force? Would China play in the World Cup in 2019?

More importantly, how many times would Afridi have retired and made his comeback? So many delightful answers will be known in 13 years time.

(Thanks to Nirav for pointing errors made earlier.)

Okay Jose Mourinho is saying how he has won 4 domestic league titles in a row - titles first with Porto and now with Chelsea:

This is my second in England and my fourth consecutive title if you include Porto.

So, a nice reminder seems apt right now of events of a few days earlier for the Chelsea fans and their manager, who a year ago, said Rijkaard was not a prolific manager.

Since then, Rijkaard has won 1 league title, is soon going to win a second one and is one game away from adding the Champions League to his kitty.

We all know it was psychological talk but reminders are always nice. :)

The brief statement from the Man U website reads:

He will be out for six weeks.

Well, told you it was brief! To spell it out, 6 weeks is 42 days. The World Cup is 40 days, 12 hours away. Also, 42 days will be an estimate. No one can say for sure how many exact days it will take. We can say, though, that it is a serious injury noticing the days given.

Also, if he is out for 42 days, how would he be able to just come pick up and play excellent football right from the word go.

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If you believed the press hype a few days ago, Man U were going to give Chelsea a good run for their money for the title. 82 minutes are over in the Man U-Chelsea game. A 3-0 drubbing shows what the difference between a clinically and technically proficient team and a Man U - talented, yet just that still, is.

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If you haven’t heard it already, Bush will not be the number 1 pick.Dead spin puts in a quality headline, not for the first time. So was it just to prove Kipper wrong?

Well, it does show that all the pre talk counted for nothing. Go for a player because he is attacking or defensive? If the difference in talents between the attacking and defensive player is huge, would it not be sensible to chose the much more talented player and then trade him off intellegently? The returns will not come? If the player in question is indeed that talented, why could a proper trade not be worked out?

John Murphy at Yahoo has a recount and reworked predictions. Story of the Bush family being blackmailed is also coming out.

Real life is just too strange. Sal Marinello has more on one of the biggest blunders.

Ahead of the FIFA World Cup, the quality football commercials are coming up faster than you can imagine. There are the impressive Joga Bonito ads of course. Watch them if you haven’t already.

Introducing the new feature seems just apt. One football commercial a day (for at least the first week) then. No, the quality wont suffer. Suggestions via mail welcome for the next edition.

Hope you liked this one!

Update: From week two, I am doing the feature as thrice a week.

For part 9 of the series, I interviewed Graham Drummond. A huge Australia and West Ham United fan, Graham ,was addicted to the 98 World Cup and got to watching Premiership
highlights on TV. Graham is the webmaster and one of the contributors to the Australian West Ham blog.

I thank Graham for agreeing to the interview.

Tell us a bit about Australia’s football history and the football culture which exists down under.

We first (and last, till now) qualified for the World Cup, also in Germany, in 1974. We didn’t score a goal. Traditionally football (”soccer”) wasn’t considered tough or cool to play or watch. People here watch various forms of oval ball thuggery instead. However, that’s starting to change. The fever has caught on for two main reasons: one is the new A-League which has been a startling success so far, and the other of course is qualification for the World Cup.

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Bill Tobin asked this in 1994 and found it soon enough. Kiper is all over the TV this time of the year. Kiper is the man who runs the NFL draft on ESPN. The marathon is a crazy, crazy weekend. As CNNSI puts it:

It’s the end of April, which means sports fans are asking two questions: Who the hell is Mel Kiper Jr.? And when is he going away? The annual draft onslaught has been in full force since well before the college bowl season began, and this year it’s being laid on thicker than Ed Hochuli’s neck. At this point, the NFL draft has become the most overanalyzed, belabored event in all of sports…

Thankfully, it will all be over Monday, and we can get on to what’s really important: exhaustive NBA draft coverage. Now there’s a draft where the coverage means something and you don’t get a bunch of early-pick busts. I can’t wait to choose between my Michael Olowokandi and Joe Smith jerseys and take in some exciting first-round action.

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For the Ecuadorian interview, I caught up with Dennys Burgos. Burgos is a college student in the Hotel Management field, born and raised in Toronto, Canada by two hardworking and loving folks from Guayaquil, Ecuador. Dennys loves to play the beautiful game, of course. Dennys is highly enthusiastic about travelling as well and looks forward to trips to Germany, Korea, Japan, Latin America and Europe.

Over to the intervew.

Tell us a bit about Ecuador’s football history and the football culture which exists.

Very well. As many people may know, Japan/Korea 2002 was Ecuador’s first ever appearance in a World Cup finals. Many people expected they would not get very far, but they did exit on a high note, defeating Crotaia 1-0 through Edison Mendez’s thunderous volley. Historically, Ecuador was once considered the minnows of South American futbol along with Venzezuela.

With that said, it is not to say Ecuador have only recently become a respectable side. On 2 occasions, they have missed out of the big dance by very small magins. Their club sides, especially Barcelona de Guayaquil and LDU Quito have performed well in the Copa Libertadores, the South American version of the UEFA Champions league, with Barcelona de Guayaquil coming out finalist on 2 occasions. The country has showed excellent progress, and by qualifying once again, have proven to their critics they were not a fluke.

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Looks like Afridi has been assured of more security in the test side, or been convinced like a kid is usually, to announce his great come back. He goes one better. He says that he meant that he was retiring for only two weeks!

I said this when Afridi did retire: