We can empathise, Zinedene...

[via Senor Gif]

We've all felt, at some stage or another, that our favourite team has been cheated out of a win - almost as though the powers that be, whether they are referees, the sporting body, or the broadcaster, had complete control of the match. And not just when you watch WWE wrestling.

This next clip takes that premise, applies it to the Superbowl, and runs with it.

NFL Writers Room: Super Bowl XLIV

The Football World Cup finals are being drawn this weekend. The seedings have been done and the four "pots" confirmed.

1. South Africa (group A), Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain
2. Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Honduras, Mexico, USA, New Zealand
3. Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay
4. Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland

One team will taken from each pot to make the eight groups of four teams. Simple.

For New Zeland that means that there are 512 possible combinations of opponents. But what's the best one? Based strictly on current world rankings it would be in Group A with South Africa (86), Ghana (37), and Slovakia (34).

The worst would be Spain (1), Cameroon (11), and Portugal (5).

Please Charlise, be nice to us!

Obviously it's impossible to know who we are going to end up playing but we can guess at the strength of the opposition.

The average ranking of Pot 1 is roughly 15, which is like playing Mexico. The problem is that South Africa is the lowest ranked team in the competition which drags down the average. Really Pot 1 is all the best teams (except Portugal and France). A better average is about 6 to 8 (Germany, France, Argentina).

The average ranking of Pot 2 is 43 which is like playing Japan (who happen to be in Pot 2). This is the losers pot and hence the All Whites are also in it. Which is a shame because we might have beaten North Korea.

The average ranking of Pot 3 is roughly 23 which is like playing the Czech Republic. Except the Czech aren't at the Cup and Pot 3 is filled with African and South American nations. So let's say it's more like playing Nigeria.

The average ranking of Pot 4 is roughly 19 which is like playing Uruguay. Uruguay is one of the countries in Pot 3 so let's round up to 20 which is Serbia.

So, my crazy prediction is that one of the groups will be Argentina, Japan, Nigeria, and Serbia. And if I'm right you all owe me a beer.

NZDK - Following Ireland's calls to be admitted to the 2010 Fifa World Cup yesterday, the All Black coaching panel of Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith have requested that the IRB allow their side to automatically play in the final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup as a third team.

Look I think it's fairly obvious, we lost that World Cup due to a forward pass, which is the rugby equivalent of a hand ball essentially. If Ireland can ask to be an extra team at their World Cup, we should be allowed to do the same.

Referee Wayne Barnes was criticised, mainly in New Zealand, for his performance in the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter-final match between the All Blacks and France where he did not award a single penalty toward the All Blacks in the second half, and allegedly missed a forward pass which led to the game-winning try for the French. Responding to claims the public should just move on, Steve Hansen had this to say:

mmmmumble mmmumble murmurmurmurgoing forward. Rhubarbrhubardmurmur step up. Whisperwhispermumble. Who wants a Milo?

The calls may come as a shock for some people who felt the All Blacks should be focusing on this week's match against the Barbarians XV in London, and after the team appeared to be in a buoyant mood after their emphatic win over France on the weekend, but Henry had the last word for the watching media.

Look, you can say we're harping on, you can say that we're whingers, but if you're going to contemplate giving the fucking Irish a free pass, why not us?

If I went to college in the States it'd be highly unlikely I'd have a chance of getting into any sport team. Maybe a rugby team, just because I know how to play, but I'd be too small and not have enough experience to play. Hell, even if I'd been raised in the US I'd probably not have a shot since it's all so competitive over there.

If that were the case, I'd probably have joined a marching band. They get a rough time in movies [except that one movie that was all about marching bands, I forget what it was] but hearing a song like Apache played by a big band is AWESOME. And they get to do stuff like this routine my college football side's band did a month ago:

Not a single person in New Zealand could have gone today without finding out the score in last night's match. For sure, across the country there are people celebrating an achievement which has never occured in my lifetime - a NZ senior men's football team has made it to the pool stages of a FIFA World Cup.

I played football for almost 16 years, and was reasonably good at age-grade level, but gave it up because there was no base for it in New Zealand. Back then, there was Chatham Cup or the Auckland Kingz - and you had more chance at keeping some semblance of respect if you entered the former. But there was no organisational structure trying to keep teenagers in the game. For sure Football NZ pushed to get kids into the sport - but so did Tennis, Rugby, League, Cricket and Hockey. I got thrown in to football because my mother's partner was football mad, being an Englishman, and could give us help - indeed, one year the only reason our club fielded a 12-year-old team was because he and his best friend offered to coach them

But at high school level it all fell away. It wasn't enough to just go out once a week and play anymore, and train on Wednesdays for two hours doing passing drills. When you're in the central North Island your league includes teams from Levin, Palmerston North, Fielding, Masterton, Napier and once, Taranaki. Trainings were two or three times a week and sometimes you'd have to billet or stay at a motel in these places. But it was at this age that encouragement for our sport died. The inter-school rivalry remained but we played in different leagues, so that came once a year. There was no 'meaningful competition' [rugby's catchphrase of the year to replace 'going forward'] for us. In my final year of high school we didn't even have a team.

Even in Wellington I had encountered this same problem. There's nothing to aim for. A 10-0 loss [the result of my first ever high school game, against Scot's College] is exactly the same as a 1-0 loss. There's a competition, sure, but what relevance does it have?

Now there is something to aim for. One of my old schoolmates has just signed with a new team in the Chatham Cup, while his little brother is in the Wellington Phoenix. There appears to be a career path developing for young kiwi footballers, but the secondary schools still remain lost in the wilderness. Why is there not a national secondary schools competition? I know we have regional secondary matches, but why can I not see Avondale College play St Bedes in the national final, like with rugby, hockey, cricket, etc? Why can't Ricki Herbert? Chatham Cup starts too late in the year for people to get their big break - the same reason players like the fantastic Benny Anthony haven't broken through from the NBL to the ANBL yet. If football really wants to become a contendor it needs to remember its teenagers because anecdotally, the amount of kids who turn away in high school is huge.

On another point, when I played football the big emphasis was always on gamesmanship [and still is, with the new-ish-fair play initiative. So why the fuck are people saying things like this? NZ has moved on since the 80s, football is on an equal stage with rugby [well, it gets more on television] and when's the last time you had the cliche old man down at the pub telling you football's a game for pussies? That tweet, while obviously well-intentioned, is just poor gamesmanship and I've been embarassed at the amount of it I've seen and heard since the game. The All Blacks even issued a press release congratulating the team, but apparently this is condescending even though when Valerie Vili won gold last year shortly before the All Blacks played the 'Boks in Cape Town, a number of the team commented on it and congratulated her no criticism was raised.

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This year I have had the privilege to review two of the best sports games I have ever played.

The first was The Bigs 2, though unlike Naly I play it on the Wii where pitch curve and speed and batting timing and upstroke are controlled by actually pitching and swinging.

The other is FIFA 10. I have never played a football game that looks this good, plays this good and is equally joyous and frustrating to play.

Players who have played previous titles will quickly pick up the controls and the nuanced shooting system (you really just want to tap that shot button). And after watching the vague tutorial videos you’ll be juggling the ball and taunting your opponents in no time.

But the best part of FIFA isn’t the gameplay. The load times are a complete non-issue as the game lets you play a one-on-one with the goalkeeper while the game loads around you. And the soundtrack is fantastic dub/reggae dance hall tracks mixed with nouveau new wave tracks like Peter, Bjorn and John. So good in fact that I went to iTunes and bought some of the songs.

And while we're talking sound, the game comes with sound tracks from a bunch of different languages. So when you're bored with the whinging British commentators you can switch to the much more entertaining Spanish, French, Portuguese or Germans. It's always a barrel of laughs to hear "Goooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllalalalalalalallllaaaaaaa!!"

Like many EA games this season (including the terrible NBA and NHL titles) FIFA has a season mode that is live updated with real stats and like those other games you have to pay for it (though my NBA game came with a free redeem code, so maybe you don’t have to pay for that one).

If you have one of those new fandangled HD TVs you’ll be quite impressed with FIFA, or maybe you won’t because you’re a smarmy git. I don’t know.

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