Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

nampigai wrote:@Chanilover – if the USA wins I’ll praise KJA on facebook for a week!

nampigai wrote:...– if the USA wins I’ll praise KJA on facebook for a week!

SandRider wrote:if the US wins the World Cup,
I will drink an entire bottle of Evan Williams in one sitting ...

SandRider wrote:if the US wins the World Cup,
I will drink an entire bottle of Evan Williams in one sitting ...

WAGs: England’s group of death

By Martin Rogers, Yahoo! Sports
jun 9, 13:53 EDT

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – They are some of the most photographed faces in soccer, yet they don’t make bone-crunching tackles or score spectacular goals.

They live the celebrity lifestyle and throw their money around like any self-respecting superstar, but they won’t even kick a ball during the World Cup.

They are the wives and girlfriends of the England soccer team, and they could be the United States’ biggest secret weapon in South Africa this summer.

The WAGs, as they have become derisively known, are a marauding force of champagne-guzzling, credit card-wielding, wild-partying paparazzi fodder who did such a spectacular job of focusing the spotlight upon themselves at the last World Cup that they were cited among the primary reasons behind England’s failure to get past the quarterfinals.

Their ostentatious antics became more than a mere sideshow in Germany in 2006. They also proved to be a distraction and an embarrassment to both their partners and to English soccer.

Four years later, the issue of how to deal with the problem called Victoria, Coleen, Carly, Abbey and others has raised its head for England.

U.S. coach Bob Bradley has no such worries.

“It is a different situation with England than anyone else,” USA defender Jay DeMerit said. “They have created this WAG culture and it comes with added pressure.

“If it is not handled in the right way, then it can be a distraction and could definitely be a positive for us.”

Hard-line England coach Fabio Capello described the WAG culture as a “virus.” Though his true meaning may have gotten lost amid his broken English, many would agree with that assessment.

In 2006, the WAGs donned their high heels and designer outfits and swept into Baden Baden, a picturesque little German town that had never seen anything like it. Within a couple of days, the news of their attempts to turn shopping and champagne drinking into Olympic sports filtered back to England. At one boutique, a posse of WAGs spent more than $80,000 – in less than an hour.

Then there was the drinking. Tens of thousands of dollars were lavished on top-of-the-range champagne, leading to dancing on tables into the not-so-early hours.

WAG behavior became front-page news and a salivating English public tuned in each day to see what this unstoppable group of aesthetically pleasing females was going to get into next. Meanwhile, their significant others were trying to go about the small matter of attempting to win the World Cup.

If Capello had his way, the nearest the team’s partners would get to South Africa would be a television set. Some, including the wives of Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney, have decided to stay at home.

David Beckham’s wife, Victoria, widely acclaimed as the queen of the WAGs, has opted for a low-key luxury villa in Cape Town for herself and the couple’s three sons while her injured husband acts as coach and scout for Capello.

However, despite Capello’s insistence that no wives and girlfriends are to be allowed anywhere near England’s training camp, reports have emerged that several of them have booked the $6,000-per-night penthouse suites at a resort just 15 minutes from the national team’s base in Rustenburg.

Given that Capello recently threw a fit of fury upon discovering that squad member Emile Heskey had broken a team rule by bringing a cell phone to dinner last year, you can only imagine what the response would be to an unapproved visit from a loved one.

In the USA camp, there are issues to sort out regarding the wives and girlfriends, but they are of a dramatically different nature. It would be unfair to taint the American ladies with the WAG brush. In general, they are an intelligent, unobtrusive and anonymous bunch, and few are widely known, although Clint Dempsey’s wife Bethany did pose for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

The biggest dilemma for the Americans was how to get the women to South Africa and how to pay for it. The U.S.’s wives and girlfriends are situated more than an hour’s drive from the team base in Pretoria at a classy hotel in the well-to-do Johannesburg suburb of Sandton.

“We run a program to help the families get out there to the tournament,” U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati said. “Obviously there are different challenges this time around and South Africa is not a cheap and easy place to get to.

“However, we understand the benefit in having them here and the positive influence they have on the players.”

Nekhrun wrote:Well, it was one hell of an exciting day today...Two TIES!!! Yes!

Freakzilla wrote:England vs. USA... only a mere 18 hours away...