“With the 2010 FIFA World Cup now just four weeks away, you should by now be able to visualise those wretched pull-out ‘Come On England’ St. George’s flags which come free with The Sun, slowly yellowing at the edges in living room windows up and down the land until mid-September. Nevertheless, we at Twohundredpercent will instead continue to focus on the football. With that in mind, we sent Dotmund on another fact-finding mission with little else than a media badge from the 2006 World Club Championship in his pocket and a dream. Today, he looks at the colourful and exciting Group E.” (twohundredpercent)

“Does soccer have an impact on suicide rates? What strategy should a goalie use during penalty-kick situations? Which country has the most passionate soccer fans? Using robust data and insightful analysis, Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper and leading sports economist Stefan Szymanski provide answers to such questions in their highly entertaining book, ‘Soccernomics’.” (BNET)

“Fast Forward is our most ambitious project to date and it has taken over a year to come to fruition. The premise was simple; we asked some of our favourite bands to write about one of the 32 countries participating in South Africa 2010, the only stipulation being that the song be themed on their chosen country and if possible be football related. As you can imagine this definition was interpreted in about 32 different ways but the results are as colourful, imaginative and exciting as the event they will be used to showcase.” (Fast Forward)

“The E stands for eclectic. The group has a colorful set of teams that span from North to South and East to West and range from attack-minded to more defensively oriented. There’s a clear favorite in the Netherlands and a team clearly expected to bring up the rear in Japan, with Denmark and Cameroon expected to fight for advancement.” (ESPN)

“The World Cup is not being hosted by ‘Africa’ but by a country in southern Africa, the Republic of South Africa. Nigeria is not hosting this year’s World Cup, but late last year it hosted FIFA Under-17 World Cup. I watched the Under-17 matches in Lagos with my family. Enthusiasm was slow in building, but once Nigeria progressed in the tournament, people got into it, and you began to see clusters of young men around television sets in cafes and canteens.” (Vanity Fair)

“Loan spells tend to go one of two ways. More often than not they are merely anecdotal footnotes in a player’s career, such as David Beckham’s five-game stint at Preston North End in 1995 or Jermain Defoe’s record-breaking achievements at Bournemouth, but occasionally, as with Joe Hart’s time at Birmingham City this season, they can be the making of a player. Miroslav Stoch’s move to FC Twente unquestionably falls in the latter category.” (Football Further)

“Why do we care? Why will hundreds of millions of fans watch the World Cup this summer and hinge their lives around game results? Why does it matter whether the millionaire players, coaches, and owners of Inter Milan beat the millionaire players, coaches, and owners of Bayern Munich in the Champions League final? Why does anybody, no matter how few, bother going to watch FC Dallas play?” (Pitch Invasion)

“ESPN’s 2010 World Cup Guide is now in stores nationwide and provides a great collection of articles, statistics and more to become your reference guide throughout the tournament.” (EPL Talk)

“This is the city the soccer ball built, a global manufacturing hub in a nation starved for foreign capital and mired in terrorist violence. Nike Inc., the official soccer-ball supplier to Britain’s Premier League, gets soccer balls here. So does Denmark’s Select Sport A/S, which sells to the Danish national league and clubs across Europe. The city exports 30 million balls a year, or about 70% of the global output of hand-stitched soccer balls, and an estimated 40% of the total market. This summer’s World Cup is Sialkot’s latest win. Germany’s Adidas Group, licensed by soccer’s governing body to sell the official World Cup ball, has contracted with a company here to produce the entire supply of mass-market hand-stitched replicas of the ‘Jabulani” World Cup ball.” (WSJ)

“Accra, Ghana – In a lot of African cities the divide between rich and poor is hard to miss. Shanty towns are squished between the majestic monuments and manicured lawns. This week I ventured into one such area, Jamestown, with Ghanaian journalist Isaac Kpelle. From a cinematic perspective Jamestown is absolutely gorgeous – crumbling colonial buildings, a tattered lighthouse, crowded alleyways and brightly coloured wooden fishing boats. Originally settled by the coastal Ga people, it was turned into a British fort (James Fort) in the 17th Century. Today it’s a hardened shanty area with a working port and home to many of Ghana’s best boxers (You can see more about the boxing here).” (ESPN)(Must Read Soccer)

“The 19th FIFA World Cup kicks off in nine weeks today, and as such Dotmund continues his almost-in-depth look ahead to this summer’s festivities. Today is the beginning of his preview of each of the eight groups, having been sent foraging for facts on the internet with only his trusty huge mackerel baguette for company. Predictably enough, we start with Group A.” (twohundredpercent)

“British intelligence officials have been alerted after the North African group, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, issued a statement warning that suicide bombers using ‘undetectable’ explosives would target the England versus United States match in Rustenburg in June. The group have been behind a string of kidnaps of Westerners, and last year were condemned for the ‘barbaric’ execution of a British hostage.” (Telegraph)

“There are still noises about Mario Balotelli but it is more than a long shot to expect Ghana will be able to persuade the Internazionale talent to throw in his lot with their team before the World Cup. But the Black Stars, and fellow African finalists Algeria, are moving to strengthen their squad with other players before the trip to South Africa. This despite both countries performing better than anticipated at January’s African Nations Cup finals in Angola.” (World Soccer)

“Oscar Wilde would have summed up most succinctly the loss of Wayne Rooney and Cesc Fabregas in the space of 24 hours this week. It is as he said of departed parents: losing one, unfortunate; mislaying two, carelessness. Isn’t this the story of how football increasingly puts the need for non-stop cashflow above the care of its most precious assets, players who have the capacity to illuminate every game they play, right up to the point they break down?” (Independent)