THE POP WORLD CUP: Ivory Coast vs Portugal

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The third round of 16 match sees an intriguing clash of approaches - an armoury of tricks from the Ivory Coast up against some raw attacking verve from a controversial Portugese selection. The winner of this game will face England in the quarter-finals: who gets through? It's up to you.

All Pop World Cup tracks can be found here - email me if you have any problem downloading or playing them.


Ivory Coast

Aboutou Roots - "Ninie": Manager poptasticuk says: "I've found that some of these Ivory Coast songs are a bit repetitive (one I downloaded turned out to be the same drum beat with no other instruments for nearly 8 minutes) but I picked this one because it has lots of different silly bits. It's about as close as African music gets to electro-pop, I reckon, and the members are 4 blokes who wear matching dungarees, which is probably the Ivory Coast equivalent of a boyband!"

Portugal

Fonzie - "Elitist Girl": Gaffer thebopkids filled us in: "Well, it’s a long time from the group stages to the knockouts, and we’ve been having a torrid time. My Portuguese kids never had the strongest squad on paper, and things haven’t been going smoothly behind the scenes. There has been a series of injuries and many players have declared themselves unavailable. Rumours of intra-squad hatred are true, and some of our players have expressed their dislike for my managerial regime, which I proudly admit is disciplinarian.

Let me make it perfectly clear: I would rather have players who will give 100% for the love of the team and the game, who will play honestly and passionately for the shirt, than I would have overpaid and uncommitted prima donnas. Harking back to the halcyon days of the fado, or the talent and style which backwashed our way as a result of our close relationship with Brazil, is no good to anyone. Time, my friends, has moved on.

So maybe this entry doesn’t have the silky skills of some of the other teams’. Maybe the players aren’t quite up with the thinking of the leading pop tacticians, maybe their use of the English style seems a bit strained on the world stage. But what you have here is a high-tempo pressing game, a blast of fresh air. Get it up long to the Big Lad, who’ll be jumping around like a madman."

So how is the match decided?


The knockout rounds work very much like the group stages, except now you get TEN points to divide between the two teams, and you don't have to give a team a point if you don't want to.

(PLEASE vote according to the relative strengths of the entries, though, not just pick the one you want to win and give it 10 automatically!)

The voting will be done by text poll - this is to keep the results secret. Please enter your scores as follows

"Ivory Coast - 5. Portugal - 5"

Except with the "5"s replaced by your scores. If you want to vote but can't use the LJ poll, please email your scores to freakytrigger@gmail.com.

[Poll #705838]


Again, you have until TUESDAY to vote. Voting was well down last time, so please do promote the PWC elsewhere online or in yr own LJ if you've been entertained by it!

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This would appear to be the Portugese Busted. Well done all concerned (except the band frankly).

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

have these been uploaded? when i select the track i just get a 1k download of NOWT

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Working on my (work) machine :(

Anyone else?

[cis.livejournal.com]

fine for me, the both of them.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

sorry yes, was a problem my end. carry ong

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

there is some mention of bad religion in the lyrics as well i think, but yes, busted were who i thought of about 30 seconds in...

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I am going to have to vote for Fonzie purely because THEY ARE CALLED FONZIE! Also their route-one hoofing it up to the fat sk8er boy may not be pretty, but it's but at least its getting the ball in the back of the net.

That Cote D'Ivoire song fannies around on the wing for half an hour and then falls over in the penalty box clutching its face.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

yes, i think you've got it there. i couldn't even get to the end of the cote d'ivoire one...

[i should point out that i've been doing a bit of scouting for portugal since i was relieved of my duties by the (frankly short-sighted in my opinion) argentinian PFA]

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Voting well down last week due to starting it on a Friday, non?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

That may also be the case, but Friday polls don't actually do any worse than Thursday ones. I think we had a bit of an overload last Fri tho.

[juror8.livejournal.com]

Portugal appear to be represented by the cast of a Channel 4 sitcom.

[thebopkids.livejournal.com]

Of the various members of Fonzie (they're called FONZIE! DUDES!) the blond, slightly bulbous looking one is clearly the best.

The fellow on the right of the picture is a surprise re-appearance of the fellow who plays the gothy supporting role in Big Wolf On Campus (NB he is also playing in the World Cup and I have got him as a swapsie but that is another story entirely).

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i have voted. but not really keen on either of these. BORE DRAW.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I've DLed it twice, but the Portugese one keeps coming out as invalid media format and won't play.

can't play, won't play

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Same here for me. Windows Media immediately says "invalid input". Re-encode pl?

(The Ivory Coast song is great, even if it is nindie, I mean Ninie)

Re: can't play, won't play

[thebopkids.livejournal.com]

I can't help with the encoding but if you're having problems with hearing "Elitist Girl" you can catch a large enough chunk of it at Fonzie's myspace page to get the general idea: http://www.myspace.com/fonzie

Only trying to help, like.

Re: can't play, won't play

[thebopkids.livejournal.com]

I have a strange feeling that "myspace page" is not a formulation the hep young cats would use, and I have marked myself out as out of touch and aged, like my Dad going on about punkers in 1979.

obogado por o add!!!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Thnaks, Tim. I think I ended up hearing two of their songs simultaneously on that page (tho it was hard to tell since they sounded somewhat alike).

Re: can't play, won't play

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I didn't see this until this morning and I won't be at a PC to fiddle with it today either. You'll have to rely on the myspace page!

[(Anonymous)]

I will say that the Portuguese are playing a style that I have been currently trying to "come to terms with." In other words if the Veronicas or Aly & AJ were to do something somewhat similar I would find a way to like it, whereas my first reaction is to hate this. What's the difference? The Veronicas and Aly & AJ don't sound like dorky bratboys, that's the difference. Anyway, I will admit to liking the harmonies, and the rhythm, and the melody, and such. "Brat-boy dork rock doesn't get better than this. Unfortunately."--Floorcovering Weekly. The Ivory Coastals are smooth and perfect and all, and bright and candybeaned and all, but wouldn't it be a kick if the brat-boys were to beat them? Stay tuned.

Boys Suck Spice