Between being named the honorary friend of a Spanish town which holds an annual octopus festival and Russian betting syndicates attempting to purchase his special powers, Paul’s plate is getting rather full. Not just of mollusks, but of opportunities the most limelight-hungry celebrity could only dream of.
So clearly he doesn’t have time right now [...]

Tell us if you’ve heard this story before: a ball which clearly crosses the line against Germany is not given as a goal as the Germans run out 4-1 winners in the end.
No? Didn’t think so.
This completely original plotline occurred in yesterday’s u20 Women’s World Cup – being held in Germany – match between France [...]

In some strange turn of fate, Swedish channel SVT1 decided in early 2009 that it would behoove their nation to get a glimpse into Martin Hansson’s run up to the World Cup just finished. One year under the camera’s glare for a look into the life of Sweden’s best referee. You’ll know, of course, of [...]

The World Cup is very much over. Which means the complaints about vuvuzelas are also very much over. Or at least they should be. So who better to have the last World Cup Blog word on the whole topic than plastic horn inventor Jeff Vuvuzela, appearing at the ESPY Awards last week. Enjoy.

In one of his pre-World Cup posts, Chris provided the average ages of all the teams and listed them youngest to oldest.  In hindsight- the list is even more fascinating to me.  After revisiting this list, I think its fair to say some of the most exciting teams to watch at the World Cup were [...]

I think its safe to say that the German team that exited the World Cup managed to win not only a few games but also the hearts of a lot of fans-including mine.  And, trust me, no one is more surprised about this than me.  For a variety of reasons, I was definitely in the [...]

You might remember just before the World Cup, England manager Fabio Capello unveiled his plan for the Capello Index, ranking the players at the World Cup out of 100, the operation was quickly pulled for fears it would undermine the England squad during the World Cup.
It seems Fabio was marking the players anyway, as [...]

I officially heart this. Because the only personal honour better then receiving the World Cup Golden Ball for best player – as Uruguay’s Diego Forlan did – is having a cartoon/song combo made to immortalize your achievement. According to The Spoiler, the celebratory song is by The Golden Vuvuzelas and features the line “his hair [...]

A reporter asked for the same treatment Iker gave Sara Carbonero in their post-World Cup victory celebrations. Only she’s less reporter and more former Argentine beauty queen, which promptly puts her in the ‘kissable’ category (one needs meaningless awards to be peck-worthy, I guess). But Joan wasn’t impressed and, according to Google Translate and the [...]

What, you thought he was done? Never. Paul is in demand; hell, Paul is demand.
In a move befitting their footballing counterparts, the Madrid zoo has inquired about Paul’s services and launched a transfer saga of Jules Verne-esque proportions. Florentino Perez was reportedly overheard yelling “we must have that octopus!” during the final celebrations, and fired [...]