No Holy Water for Italy, More H2O for England

For all of you putting your money down on Italy to win the World Cup you’ll want to factor this into the equation: the team will not have holy water on its bench. In 2002, Italy coach Giovanni Trapattoni kept holy water in plastic bottles on the bench. This time coach Marcello Lippi is more likely to have vino next to him.

“I haven’t brought holy water,” Lippi said on Sunday.

“A friend gave me some wine as a good-luck gift and told me to take it with me to the World Cup but I haven’t brought it. I’ve already drunk a good part of it.”

He’s a good man, that Lippi.

The talk is also about water for England. Their players would like to have more of it – holy, bottled or even tap water. Following their win against Paraguay on Saturday England’s players complained that they weren’t allowed to chug-a-lug enough during the match, which was played in the tropical German heat.

Ashley Cole provided the excuse that isn’t an excuse of this young tournament. You’ll note the fact he says twice that it isn’t an excuse, a sure sign that it is one.

“Without sounding like we’re making excuses — we won the game — but I think the conditions played a massive part,” Cole said. “You talk to the lads and any of them would say the throat was dry. We’re not used to that, playing in those conditions, but we’re going to have to get used to that. We’re not going to use it as an excuse — it’s the same for every other team we play.”

Someone call Giovanni Trapattoni and tell him to get some holy water to England’s training camp pronto.