a new slant on the history of the roman empire

Fri, Nov 16, 2007

I’m not a sports fan, other than snooker and cycling and certainly not football but this is just brill! I do appreciate a top level game and especially one where new experiences depend on the outcome. Thus it is with Scotland. Not content with riding a wave of footballing success, they stuff it up against some unheard of team (for me anyway) just to make it that bit harder to beat one of the best teams in the world and get through to Europe (I thought we were already in Europe. Must be a footballing thing). Normally Scottish football fans are expert statisticians. Every 4 years the tartan army get out their calculators and slide rules to plot the critical path to world cup qualification.

“Now if the Faroes lose to Iceland and France beat Belgium by 4 goals while Germany draw with Italy, or even better, lose by more than 3 goals, then that means all we have to do is beat Iceland at home and scrape a draw with Italy and we’re through!”

This time it’s not the world cup, it’s some other cup (not sure what) and there is no need to power up the adding machines of the nation. The sporting actuaries are silent. The team, young and motivated, have one mission. To beat Italy. And here’s how they’ll do it: