Sunderland defender and Ghana star JOHN MENSAH isn’t at all worried about facing the Aussies on June 19.

It’s the Socceroos vs New Zealand match, and a bunch of my sports media colleagues are gathered at Fox Sports HQ in Sydney. Normally, most of us would be at the ground, but tonight, we’re 1000 km from the MCG so we can feel “closer” to the game. Isn’t modern…

It was unbearably tense. It all nearly went so terribly wrong. On June 12, 2006, Australia played Japan in the Socceroos’ first World Cup game in 32 years. The future of football in this country was on the line. Now those at the heart of that match tell it how…

With the FIFA World Cup looming, we’re starting to be bombarded with the usual tired old messages about the world coming together in harmony, yada yada yada. But in reality, only half of humanity is coming together.  Who’s missing? Women, of course.

As one of its New Year’s resolutions, alongside “get off the sofa occasionally’” and “do something about the situation in Afghanistan”, the Bucket sucked his pencil and wrote down “less sarcasm”. Because, as he’s found out to bitter cost in arguments with Mrs Bucket, sarcasm can be cruel. And, really,…

Alpha’s Tom Woodgate writes… A Socceroos team made up of mostly domestic A-League players battled to a very credible 2-2 draw in Kuwait last night, all but assuring safe passage to next year’s Asian Cup in Dubai. Whether any of them have put themselves in Pim’s thoughts for a plane…

The population of the earth awoke this morning to discover that the entire globe had fallen off its axis and that French footballer Thierry Henry had become the greatest villain in the history of humanity and symptom of every single thing that is wrong with modern sport today. Up to…

OK, right, I’ve read this top to bottom, then turned it sideways and read it like that. Then I had it punched into Braille and got a blind man to read it, only he was too busy putting up blinds to pay much attention. Either way, neither of us could…

If you haven’t seen Fiorentina player Adrian Mutu around lately – you know, not been out to play, mum won’t let you in – it’s because he’s been out doing paper rounds, sweeping yards and selling cookies door to door. And THAT’s because poor old Adrian Mutu has been told…