'Lucky' England drawn in same World Cup group as the Village People

England manager Thomas Tuchel has rebuffed claims that his side is lucky after being drawn in the same 2026 World Cup group as American 70s disco outfit Village People.

The band brought Friday’s World Cup draw to a close performing their smash hit ‘YMCA’ moments after unexpectedly been drawn to face England in group L next summer. The group is completed by the South-West Region Lidl works team, and the winner of the play-off between Easter Island and the Harlem Globetrotters.

‘There are no easy games in the World Cup’ says Tuchel. ‘Village People may be past their best, but they have a very good youth system, and are always encouraging young players to come along and hang out with all the boys.

‘And, of course, the Lidl works team won the South-West Region League by 4 points. As long as they can keep their star striker ‘Fat Morph’ fit, by which I mean sober, then they could be dangerous. After all, Lidl are a German company, and you know the old saying in football – ‘never write off the Germans, or their discount supermarkets’.'

Meanwhile, Scotland have been drawn in the same group as Brazil, and will face the 5-time winners 3 times over 10 days, with only the group winners going through to the knock-out stages.

‘It's a tough draw’ says Scotland manager Steve Clarke. ‘We had been expecting to be drawn in a group with 3 other teams, but to be in a group with just Brazil, and to have to play them 3 times in 10 days in the soaring heat, is going to be difficult.

‘Before the draw we had hoped we might sneak into the last 32 by being one of the best placed 3rd placed teams, but as there are only 2 teams in the group, that’s going to be quite tricky’.

‘Still stranger things have happened in international football, like Donald Trump being awarded a peace prize by FIFA. What’s next? Is Benjamin Netanyahu going to be presented with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry before the draw for the fourth round of the Carabao Cup?’

Image credit: perchance.org

The best sunscreen is the players' dressing room

‘Shaun of the Dead’ sequel ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ hailed as a classic

Simon Pegg’s 2004 zombie spoof ‘Shaun of the Dead’ was an instant hit, but has been criticised for its treatment of zombies as one-dimensional characters with no autonomy, intellect or artistic sensibilities.

His sequel, Operation Raise the Colours, features an even more devastating mass infection event with a twist: the zombies hoist flags on lampposts to mark their territory.

‘We wanted to show zombies as real characters, you know, with hopes and dreams and ladders and flags’, Pegg allegedly told reporters. ‘These zombies can sort of speak – they can string a few words together, it’s gibberish, but it’s their gibberish. Obviously, they’re brain-dead, but they can still function a bit. And tie flags to lampposts.'

The zombie leaders are particularly abhorrent. The one they call ‘Nigel’ leaves a trail of ash and roubles everywhere he walks, and can make women vomit just by speaking to them. The rival zombie leader, ‘Tommy’, is a midget with a pronounced tic, as if he’s done too much coke. In the final climactic scene the two zombie leaders fight to the death, and are buried with full military honours, draped in flags – Nigel in a Russian flag, Tommy in a Union Jack handkerchief.

Image credit: perchance.org