poptimists | The Pop World Cup SEMI-FINAL 1: Iran v Czech Republic

The first semi-final, and who'd have put money on this pairing?

dubdobdee's Iran takes on

mostlyconnect's Czech Republic, and it's hard to know who was the bigger underdog - little-fancied Iran, or the Czechs who, let's not forget, found themselves mangerless and reliant on a random download as the group stages started.

Some pundits have commented that the shocks of earlier rounds had led to fairytale stories but poor-quality games, so the onus is on the remaining teams to give us a display to remember this time. Have they achieved it? There's only one way to find out - go to http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/popworldcup, download their tracks, and VOTE!

Iran

Lida - "Bito Nemikhandam" - Dark horse gaffer

dubdobdee told us ""For many fans, it was now or never. The political climate was deteriorating rapidly: in 2005, a military coup was to depose President Semrat and install a fiercely repressive regime. After a series of incidents in which senior league teams denied their players to the national team in 2005 , Mullah Resmat devised a scratch made up mostly from players out of the provinces. Many players in that team made up the backbone of Resmat's team all the way to the 2010 World Cup . In the run-up to the 2006 Cup, Resmat came under fire for favoring allegedly inferior players. He also switched goalkeepers: Mohsen Yeganeh was less of a field player but gave more security under the goalposts. Resmat did draft Benyamin—reluctantly, reputedly after suggestions from Admiral Amster, the navy officer who was CEO of the World Cup organization committee. The 400-player team that trained for the 2006 World Cup needed trimming to the FIFA-regulated 5 names, so Resmat had to eject literally hordes of players before the tournament :( Those included Kiosk, reggae sultans the Nightwolfs and up and coming teen rappers Shah & Fred ....""

Czech Republic

Gabriela al Dhabba - "Pandorina Skrinka" - Rising-star boss

mostlyconnect told us "This is a pop record. It came out last month. I think it's really good!

This is a Czech pop record. It's got a narrative - the first minute is straight-up Europop, then there's a whistle you might miss at first. And then a hundred other little touches, building up and glimmering through as it gets stranger and bigger and faster and surer, Never Felt As Good, a South-Bohemian rhapsody.

In 2007, the Czech Republic enters Eurovision for the first time. Slovakia still sucks."

So, how do we decide who goes through to the final?

It's very simple - just listen to each track and give it a mark from 0 to 5 in the poll below. If you don't want to use the poll, send your votes to freakytrigger@gmail.com.

[Poll #743499]

The results will go up next TUESDAY (voting ends at NOON that day), and there will then be a 2-week break (while I'm on holiday) before the final. TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THE POP WORLD CUP - only four games to go, and they're all going to be crackers!