Now, more than ever ladies, your country needs you!



 Do you recognise this man? Ok, he may have less clothes on than usual, but the goatee is a giveaway isn't it? Shame on you if you don't! Call yourself a patriotic woman?!

It's none other than the beautiful Lucas Neill - captain of the Socceroos. On Tuesday night he will be on display once again leading our team onto the park to do battle with Iraq in order to win a spot in the Soccer World Cup in Brazil next year.

I am a fan of watching good looking men display skill and athleticism on a soccer field and I'm not ashamed to say it. There's something about their youthfulness, their boyish charm that makes me look forward to getting up at 2am to watch them pass the ball with precision, drive for a goal, then roll on the ground in mock pain. The opposition that is, not our boys. Our boys are as tough as they are good looking.

Even the panel disecting the game have a certain worldly good looks. (Does any man do silver hair better than Craig Foster?). And the calling of the game ain't bad either. Last world cup I developed a late night relationship with Simon Hill - commentator extraordinaire. Here's what I thought then:

No one else can do it like Simon. To listen to Simon call the soccer is the high, without the drugs; the buzz, without the side effects. When he says electric, I feel it. When he calls it a blistering start, I blister. He tells it like it is, and he knows I want to hear it.

He’s witty and he’s clever and that accent is all class (when he says class it rhymes with ass). Listen for the way he wraps his tongue around those foreign names. He never falters, and I like a man who knows his Saviola from his Guardado (those kind of sweet nothings can drive a woman wild!). When he talks of the fulcrum of the Argentine team, I know exactly where it is. And don’t dare think he’d say Argenteen like the rest of those Philistines- its Argentine (rhymes with nine).

I might have been suffering from a few late nights when I wrote that, but the point is still the same: Your country needs you. Now is the time to rise up and declare that you are interested in watching good looking men run around in shorts (look out for a glistening bare chest now and then too!). Or you can just say you have a sudden passion for soccer. Either way is fine. Tuesday SBS 7.30pm.

lucasneill.com

Lucas says thank you. :)
SM