Portugal and Argentina continue to struggle, Peter Crouch maintains his record

Five stats about this week’s internationals

1. Peter Crouch wasn’t too impressive last night but maintained his incredible international goal-to-start record, with 14 goals in his last 14 starts.

2. England’s 21-point haul from their first seven qualifiers is a drastic improvement on 14 from their first seven in the Euro 2008 campaign, although they did have 19 at this stage under Sven-Goran Eriksson in qualification for the last World Cup.

3. Anyone who thought Portugal had turned the corner with their last-gasp 2-1 win over Albania was proved wrong last night when they drew 0-0 away to Estonia in a friendly. That result was particularly worrying as they were actually performing fairly well in friendlies prior to that, winning four of their previous five.

Posted: June 11th, 2009 by Michael Lintorn | Add Comment

Crouch’s goal ratio, Ireland’s San Nicola success and more

Five stats about the midweek World Cup qualifiers

1. Peter Crouch has an incredible goal-to-start ratio for England and has scored thirteen goals in the last thirteen games that he has started.

2. Italy had won all eight of their previous games in Bari before being held to a 1-1 draw by the Republic of Ireland last night at the Stadio San Nicola.

3. Northern Ireland have won eight and drawn one of their last nine competitive matches at Windsor Park, compensating for the fact they have taken just four points from their last seven away games.

Posted: April 2nd, 2009 by Michael Lintorn | Add Comment

Miss World 2008: The Leading Contenders

Beautiful women battle to be crowned the best in the world

On December 13th, beauty pageant fans will focus their attention on Johannesburg, where some of the world’s finest ladies will fight to become the fairest of them all. Here are the leading contenders, according to Paddy Power, along with the British contenders, all of whom are outsiders:

Click here to place your bets

Miss Ukraine 6/1
Irina Zhuravskaya
18, 176cm
One may think that this chestnut-haired beauty would have enough on her plate as a model, TV weather girl and student, but the eighteen year old is hot favourite to take the Miss World throne too. Unfortunately, she lost the home advantage that helped 2007’s Chinese winner Zhang Zilin when the event was moved to South Africa for security reasons.

Miss Ecuador 10/1
Marjorie Cevallos
22, 183cm
With good looks, the ambition to be a diligent journalist and a shitzu named after a Chinese dictator, Marjorie Cevallos has all the qualities of a Miss World. However, South Americans have only claimed the prize nine times in the competition’s fifty-seven year history, and an Ecuadorian has never won. That said, five of the last ten winners have hailed from a country that had never previously boasted a winner.

Miss Spain 10/1
Patricia Rodríguez
18, 179 cm
After the 2008 success of Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon and the Spanish football team at Euro 2008, the entire hopes of the Spanish nation are now pinned on Miss Rodriguez.  Her ambition to combine modeling with a business career in fashion may be aided by her near-perfect vertical measurements - Miss World form aficionados will know already that the average height of the winner over the past four years is 178.5 cm. At 179cm, Patrica Rodriguez is in the sweet spot.

Tags: Anagabriela Espinoza, Coetzee, Ecuador, england, Gabrielle Walcott, Ireland, Irina Zhuravskaya, Johannesburg, Laura Coleman, Marjorie Cevallos, Mexico, Miss World, Paddy Power, Patricia Rodríguez, Scotland, Sinéad Noonan, south africa, Spain, Stephanie Willemse, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine

Posted: November 23rd, 2008 by Michael Lintorn | 2 Comments