Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Marco Materazzi for Italy (v France), 9 July 2006

Help!

As part of my actual job these days, I have to come up with literally dozens of ideas of articles I can write about the 2010 World Cup.

Not for June, but to write them now.

Examples:

Why Spain Won't Win The World Cup
Will There Be A South American Winner?
Top England Goalscorer
England Stage of Elimination

and so on, and so on. The more ideas I come up with, the more articles I can write and the more I will be paid.

I'd really appreciate any ideas that anyone has - editorial or otherwise - on as limited or wide a topic as possible. Bear in mind that the list on my desk now includes things like 'Australia's Top World Cup Goalscorer' and you can see how desperate I am.

Thanks, my lovely CUAS reader(s).

5 comments:

swisslet said...

Speaking of Marco Materazzi, did you see this story about him this week:

"Italian defender Marco Materazzi, who scored in the 2006 World Cup final before being headbutted by Zinedine Zidane, will not watch this year’s tournament after deciding to go on a touring holiday. The 36-year-old has no chance of making Marcello Lippi’s squad for South Africa and is not interested in seeing his compatriots try to defend their title. “I know where I’ll be on June 11, the first game of the World Cup — in my motor home, traveling around America. I won’t watch the tournament, the timings won’t work out,” he told La Repubblica. "

Brilliant. He'll be in his winnebago.

swisslet said...

The commercial side of a world cup - who pays what for what (i.e. how much are coke and mcd's and gillette paying? What do they get out of it? What rules are there around sponsorship of players / kit etc?

Costs/Benefits of being the host. long term impacts etc.

What's happened to the golden boots of previous tournaments? What happened after and where are they now?

Stories about the managers of this year's teams. We'll see plenty on the players, but what about the brains?

Venues at this world cup. Distances between them. Climate (it's being played in the southern winter, remember). Any at altitude?

We know Ireland were unlucky, but who else ought to be there and had a hard luck story in the qualifiers?

Great players who will be there.
Great players who have missed out.

The history of the trophy itself. Where is it now? Do the holders get to hang onto it for 4 years? Why haven't brazil got to keep it yet?

How are tickets sales broken down? How many african fans will there be, or have richer european nations hogged the tickets? How many will be corporate?

Oldest / Youngest players in WC history

Performance of winners of other tournaments (European championships, South American champs, African nations winners) in world cups. Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Ditto for world / european players of the year

Commentators around the world. We know about Motson. Who's the big man for Germany? France? What are their catchphrases? Who is the dutch Garth Crooks and the Ivorian Chris Kamara?

The fans. the dutch will be in orange, but what are the characteristics to look out for in the fans of other nations??

Um.
More?

LB said...

hmm. I should have been clearer, really.

They have to have some sort of betting angle, you see. Whilst the Slovakian Motty might make a great article, I haven't access to odds on how many octaves his voice can cover in commentary.

I need topics that punters can read. I could do a piece on the hosts, for example, and host country's records in tournaments, for sure.

I also quite like the one about reigning European/Asian/South American/African champions at World Cups. Might try that (except Egypt are the reigning African champions...)

Adem said...

You could go for:
Oldest goalscorers (Historically and also potentially)

Youngest goalscorers (Historically and also potentially)

Tallest players (i.e Peter Crouch - 6'7", Nikola Zigic - 6'8")

Shortest players (i.e Messi - 5'7", Arthur Boka - 5'5")

Stuff like that. Fairly easy going things with the focus on those teams and relevant players.

Don't know if that's much help.

Paul said...

number of red & yellow cards in tournaments past/final itself?

Total goals scored?

Number of goals needed to win golden boot?

Average number of hat-tricks scored?

Times of goals - e.g. fastest, latest, etc?