Have a Coke and a Player

This might come as a bit of a relief to fans of Germany. It seems that coach Juergen Klinsmann isn’t in charge of selecting your team’s players for the World Cup. Coca-Cola is. The soft drink maker announced today a list of 16 players whose faces will appear on its cans beginning at the end of this month. “We compiled a list of players we expected to be in the national squad and presented it to (team manager Oliver) Bierhoff. He said ‘this is correct’,” said Claudia Fasse, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola in Berlin. “According to Bierhoff, these 16 will definitely be part of the World Cup squad.”

While it is interesting to see that Coca-Cola has selected Kevin Kuranyi for the German team, the real question we have is who would want to drink from anything that has the likeness of Oliver Kahn on it? Brilliant keeper, but he doesn’t necessarily have a face that makes your stomach feel so good, if you know what we mean.

Here is Coca-Cola’s Germany team roster:

Goalkeepers: Oliver Kahn (Bayern Munich), Jens Lehmann (Arsenal, England)

Defenders: Christoph Metzelder (Borussia Dortmund), Arne Friedrich (Hertha Berlin), Per Mertesacker (Hanover 96), Patrick Owomoyela (Werder Bremen), Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich)

Midfielders: Michael Ballack (Bayern Munich), Torsten Frings (Werder Bremen), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich), Bernd Schneider (Bayer Leverkusen), Tim Borowski (Werder Bremen), Sebastian Deisler (Bayern Munich)

Forwards: Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen), Lukas Podolski (Cologne), Kevin Kuranyi (Schalke 04)