Shake the Green Field

For the last few months, FIFA has been running a competition inviting fans to submit a slogan to adorn the team bus of their nation during the World Cup. They have announced the winning entries, and there are some absolute stormers.
The full list is available here. Many teams have gone predictably for a passionate, motivational message presumably designed to fire up their team:
Argentina: Last stop: Glory!
Ivory Coast: Elephants, let’s fight for victory!
Slovenia: With eleven brave hearts to the end!

There is a fine line however between sending out a determined message and sounding like you are slightly unhinged…
THE SAMURAI SPIRIT NEVER DIES! VICTORY JAPAN!
Easy lads. No-one needs to die.

Perhaps they should have taken the lead from some other nations who have taken a far softer approach:
‘All you need is a Danish team and a dream’; ‘Italian Azzurro under African Sky’; ‘Ghana – The hope of Africa’ (bless).

England’s understated ‘Playing with Pride and Glory’ doesn’t really do it for me, but at least it basically fulfills the brief. One country in particular seem to have mistaken this competition as ‘describe your national chat up technique:’
‘Play with the heart, lead with a smile!’ (Go on you cheeky Serbians). Continuing the bar theme, albeit this time describing the vibe in a gay bar, is the host nations effort: ‘One nation, proudly united under one rainbow’. I know it’s the rainbow nation but I surely can’t be the only one who just thinks….’bit gay’.

I can’t decide on my favourite, but there are two that stand head and shoulders above the rest for me. I’ll leave it to you to pick the best, but clearly these are brilliant:
‘Shake the green field: Go Slovakia!’
And then the simple but masterful:
‘Kickin’ it, Kiwi style.’

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The Guardian today posted a list of some of the best goals to be scored across Europe this year, and I’d strongly recommend it as a good way to kill 5/10 minutes (having initially turned to this fine publication of course). I had not seen a few of these and there are some screamers, notably from the Bundesliga and the Austrian League, as well as some Le Tissier-esque skill from Maicon, who it turns out is actually called Douglas Maicon. Not quite so glamorous now are ya, Doug.

Enjoy