You may not have been, but I bet Twisty and ruadh have by now 
not yet m’dear, stuck in the office until later, but by christ am I going to make up for it!
MON IRELAND!
Congrats, Paddies! My rooting must have helped. 
OK, when the announcers are giving the statistics for a player, they give goals and caps. What is a cap?
Each game that you play in is one cap - I think the nomwnclature started in Cricket, where you were given a “team cap” when you were picked to represent your country.
Simply put, it is the number of times you have played for the team.
Grim
Thanks grimpixie!
Just to be sure: “caps” refers to matches for a national team only. If someone plays 200 matches for Manchester United, they’re just “games” or “matches”, not “caps”.
Though given that Manchester United’s first team could probably beat more than half the teams in the World Cup perhaps they should be 
Not any more (ha) – Barthez? Silvestre? Neville & Neville? Blanc? Veron?
Not that I’m a bitter, bitter United-hater, of course.
You have a good point, Crusoe, but rumours suggest that the less talented Neville may be moving on and I have a suspicion that Veron may soon be helping to finance Ferdinand, Nesta or Thuram.
Er, I’m not being funny, but I can only guess at who the less-talented Neville is.
Bitch
Eh?
No matter. I was referring to the one who was never even considered for the England team.
Don’t forget to include Beckham in the “Waste of Space” category.
I hate him so very, very much.
Love him or hate him, he IS top class.
Yeah, I can see how a lot of people dislike Man U, what with their TV rights and their multi-billion mechandise franchising. One would almost forget it’s a football team at times. Still, they have an awesome selection. Hell, their average bench could probably defeat a lot of top notch European squads.
If it were simple envy, I would agree with you Coldy.
If he couldnt cross a ball, he wouldnt be in a team. He disappears way too often in games.
I really think they’re overrated at the moment. There’s no denying the class that they have – van Nistelrooy, Giggs, Keane (when he’s bothered) etc – but an awful lot of their players are vastly overrated. The Nevilles are average at best, and would only make squad players at (say) Real Madrid. Butt has been playing very well lately, but is generally a fairly unexceptional player. Silvestre is too inconsistent to be a real star. Their bench isn’t that good either; sure, it’d make a decent Premier side, but nothing to win the European Cup (Carroll? Forlan? Fortune? Chadwick? Maybe, but little beyond that).
I’m happy to admit that United are a great team to watch, and I don’t have an irrational loathing for all things red, but I think they got found out this year and will do next year unless Ferguson spends wisely.
You know, I get the impression you don’t like him, Twisty.
I think he’s the best all-round striker of a dead ball in the world. Even Roberto Carlos is living off the reputation of one good free-kick. Unfortunately, Beckham can’t do much more than that. He’s an average dribbler with average pace and average goalscoring ability from open play.
However, last season he looked a class act at international level purely because of his dead ball skills and his workrate. He made a good captain and motivated England well, which counts for an awful lot.
The Arsenal world cup team would have been a good 'un.