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Listening to the ever-excellent Football Weekly podcast from Guardian Unlimited the other day, we stumbled across the story of the Tibetan "national" team playing against Padania this week in Milan. If you're thinking "how can Tibet have a national team?" or "what the hell is a Padania?" then you've clearly never heard of the Viva World Cup. Frankly, you probably wouldn't be the only one.
The Viva World Cup is a football (or soccer, if you speak American) competition, organised by the New Federation Board, for nations that don't technically exist. The inaugural competition was held in 2006 in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the idea is that it will take place every two years. This year's finals will be held in the Swedish town of Gällivare in Sápmi (or Lapland as it's more commonly known), the "nation" that triumphed at the last Viva World Cup finals.
Tibet's qualifier will see them play Padania, a region of northern Italy, in an old Roman amphitheatre with hopes of reaching the finals in Sápmi, where games will be played under the "midnight sun" in July. Things don't look too good for the Tibetans however, last time the two teams met Padania won 13-2. We'd love to bring you more information and form guides etc. but, unfortunately, details about the tournament and the teams are scarce at best. Oh, and if that last Padania-Tibet score has you wondering exactly how competitive a tournament this is, we can tell you that Sápmi lifted the 'Nelson Mandela Trophy' in 2006 after beating Monaco 21-1 in the final. Yep, 21-1.
More info
Viva World Cup official site (not the most informative site on the interweb)
Wikipedia: Viva World Cup
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Ha Ha - real soccer is 0-0, with the decision based on the referee making some kind of ruling error with the kickout.
hi guys,
here a description of what the hell is Padania...
it is some kind of italian politicians invention, to justify the difference between North (Padania) and South Italy (“terroni”, in their speeches). Since about 1989 a Party, called “Lega Nord”, promoted either secession or larger autonomy for Padania, and it went as far as to define its potential flag and potential national anthem. They use to meet in Pontida, every year, to swear by Padania's flag, dressed up with ancient and ridicolous clothes. It seem something of laughable, but alas it's real.
They are in the Italian Government now, with their, because he's not “mine” new...Prime Minister Berlusconi. One of the leader of Lega Nord Party is, starting from yesterday, our Home Office Minister. The LN's leader is our Reform Minister...
Their rallying cry is (literary translation): our dick is very hard (im nok kidding u...).
Their political purpose is to realize the federalism, because they think that North part of Italy is the “hard workers” side and the South is only yobs and mafias...They are against immigrates, Italy's south citizens and everything they consider “different”. Racist, roughs, they are the real winner of the last Italy's political election. So u can uderstand our (italian) political situation: Berlusconi, Lega Nord, and fascists. Long story short: they rules now...:-(
(from my blog: http://beirut.noblogs.org)
bye
b.