Pasty like me, but with tatts

The tickets are green and yellow, which I've taken as a sign that FIFA is supporting the Socceroos. The only other explanations are (1) that FIFA is supporting nobody and it's coincidence, or (2) that FIFA is supporting Brazil. I've taken it as a sign. The organisers have shown their hand. It won't surprise me if the linesman is wearing a signed Marco Bresciano top.

Actually holding the tickets is an intoxicating experience. I watched a bloke called Ted who was standing next to me in the ticket pick up queue at the Sheraton open his magic envelope, pull out the stips of green, and break into an involuntary Gollum-like smile. We will keeps them for ourselves, the precious. They even have our names on them, and how important that will be at the turnstile is a matter of much heated debate on the streets. At the moment, the word is that name and passport checking is going somewhere between none and not much, but nobody wants to be the poor chump who's first to get done.

Frankfurt has been a sea of red and white, the red being English sunburn and the white being a pasty, untanned skin tone, with plenty of back-tatt. Most of the back tatts I saw said 'England', which sorted out any lingering issues of allegiance. But they did sing, long, loud and brilliantly, and gave the Aussies at the live sites a taste of what repertoire and beer baratone can do to 'Guantanamera' in its myriad of incarnations. We of course know it as the 'One Tonne Rodeo' ad, which is a lyric we might try on the Japanese tomorrow, just to confuse them with car ads. They might hit back with a Mitsubishi commercial, which will mean it will be on, and given they gave the world both Daewoo and 'not so squeezy', I'mm not totally confident we will end up in front.

In the real stuff, I'm not totally confident either. Tonight Alex Tobin, Robbie Slater and Frank Farina addressed about 2000 Aussie fans, and piublicly at least, they can see know reason why we can't beat Japan, and surprise Brazil.

The crowd roared at that, and then an old bloke called Joe yelled out that Brazil didn't even finish top in qualifying, and lost at home in Brazil! The crowd roared again. 'We'll take 'em' somebody shouted on my table, and then all of us laughed, and Frank and Robbie and Alex were laughing too.

As the Marco Bresciano posters say, 'We're not just happy to be here,' but having said that, we are pretty bloody happy.