The day before

The nerves are starting to jangle. Just a day before the great feast of the round ball kicks off.

I've made up labels to put on the missus and Little Oz Kanka so I don't forget their names and I've been involved in "reprogramming" two-year's worth of learning of Little Oz Kanka's brain. I'm pretty happy with myself as when he sees the remote control he now says "daddy's", rather than "mummy's". You must realise that this is akin to teaching a toddler that the family dog is actually a cat.

But back to the football itself and it is obviously not just me who is getting nervous, the Aussies are too, only managing a 3-1 win over Liechtenstein in their last warm-up match.

For some reason Turkish TV stations didn't clear their schedules to show the match live and so of course I can't give any insights, except to say that at least plenty of players were rested for the match.

Hopefully they will get their composure back next week for the first match against Japan.

In other results: Spain 2, Croatia 1.

With just a day to go I feel like a kiddie who is anxiously waiting for his birthday... Today just can't go fast enough for me.

Ah yes, before it is too late. Flying Dutchman Kanka Carlo has made up a wonderful interactive wall chart with all the dates and times of matches and which you can put in the scores of the matches and it will automatically update the group scores, who goes through etc etc. Download Wallchart.