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It’s Monday, it’s Iggy Pop. Just because.

An interview with Gary Neville

[The Observer]

Celebrate goals the Sergio Ramos way

[Dirty Tackle]

Chelsea eye up Adebayor

[Pies]

Football microscopes under the, um, microscope

[The Telegraph]

France players love their yoghurt

[Kickette]

The Red Knights - discussed

[Daily Mail]

Zizou tonks Materazzi with his skull

After such a magnificent - or, if you want to get all French about it, magnifique - career as a footballer, no one will ever forget the time that Zinedine Zidane decided to impersonate a Scotsman saying hello to a giant, by landing one right in Marco Materazzi’s chest during the World Cup final.

It earned the great man a red card that day, but in a recent interview with El Pais, Zidane insists that he will never apologise to Materazzi for the inconvenience. In fact, he’d probably rather die:

Also appearing on a computer near you

Warm up for the weekend’s drinking with Supermax!

Ten English players essential for the World Cup

[Daily Mail]

Carling Cup final preview

[The Telegraph]

Great League Cup finals of old

[The Guardian]

Friday funny stuff from George Carlin (Not Safe for Work)

[Interestment Comedy]

French World Cup costumes revealed!

[Caught Offside]

Weekend betting tips from Andy Gray

[Betfair Football]

Get the Iker Casillas look!

[Kickette]

Good left back related news for Capello!

[Football Fancast]

Click here to claim a free £25 bet with Paddy Power

Today’s bet is fairly simple. Back South Africa at 15/8 to get through World Cup Group A - where they are joined by disjointed France, aging Mexico and so-bad-they-were-outclassed-by-Maradona’s-Argentina Uruguay.

The main reason to fancy them is that no World Cup host has ever failed to get

Too soon to get excited about England?

Sporadically over the next few months, The Spoiler shall be running a poll to see who YOU think is going to run away with this year’s World Cup. A hunch suggests that the closer the nation comes to the competition, the more swollen the support of England will become.

Spain look strong, and whoever makes it out of this year’s Group of Death (Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal) will surely be in with a shout. Plus you can never count out the likes of Germany, Italy and France.

But who would YOU throw your money on, were the tournament kicking off tomorrow? Let us know with a vote and a comment after the jump.

Adidas, in conjunction with France, under the supervision of FIFA? We’re through the looking glass here, people…

The fallout from that night in Paris continues.While some have accepted it as one of football’s great injustices (and the ensuing drama/debate as part of the reason we all love sport so much), others have chosen to self-medicate in the warm, comforting arms of conspiracy theory.

Damien Duff is part of the latter camp. Talking to reporters from a shadowy car-park alcove, the Fulham winger revealed the World Cup 2010 playoffs have been orchestrated by a higher power, made up of German sportswear giant Adidas, the French Football Federation and Michel Platini:

Do I think it’s a conspiracy? Definitely. FIFA want the big teams in the World Cup, they want France in the World Cup, and it may sound silly but they want teams sponsored by adidas. Adidas sponsor the World Cup, they sponsor France. Michel Platini has a lot of influence as well.

Maybe we’d have had a better chance of going to the World Cup if it was sponsored by Umbro.

Hilariously, The Sun point out, in his rage Duff seems to have forgotten, as well as his weekly pay packet from Fulham, he gets paid a £100,000 a year to wear football boots made by … Adidas.

Now with added “c**t”

Click image for full size version.

Photoshop goons have been working through the night…

The Mail has got up a gallery of the internet’s image-based response to that incident. Quite a few are rubbish, frankly, but you can see the best of the rest after the jump …