In the good old days, they used to play with snow on the ground. In the good old days, when a player was tacked he'd stand up, brush himself off and continue playing. In the good old days football was a contact sport and you were allowed to tackle and make contact and if you did get hurt, there existed a magic sponge that could take away all known pains.

Sadly, not any more. Players are not allowed to touch other players, in case the player they are making contact with falls over, or dives and the referee awards a free kick.

Today, if a player does go down, he stays down and waits for the physio to come on so he can get a mouthful of an energy drink and if he was actually tackled, like they used to do it in the good old days, he will wait for the stretcher and take an extra minute.

Football has changed. Players are soft. It used to be if you got a kick you would run it off, not be subbed and miss the next game. It used to be if you had a cold, you still played, but not these days and it appears it isn't just the footballers, because Denmark coach Morten Olsen has a cold and his assistant, Peter Bonde, has taken training today.

We know what those colds are like, especially a Cape Town cold in the middle of winter, so we hope he gets better and while we are having a little joke, it was probably advisable he didn't take training, just in case he passed it on to any of the players and just in case it really does turn out to be a virus, which is what some are saying.

Good news for Denmark

There was good news today; striker Nicklas Bendtner and defender Simon Kjaer resumed training today. We like Nicklas Bendtner and we will be looking out for him over the next couple of weeks because we think he will score one or two.

Denmark are in Group E, up against the Netherlands, Japan and Cameroon. This is a tough group to call so I won't make a joke about it, instead I will just wish Mr Olsen a speedy recovery.