Zizou to Loftus Road?

Reports coming from that most reliable source, the Sunday People, suggest that Flavio Briatore is trying to persuade Zinidine Zidane to become QPR's new manager. These revelations come on the heels of a schizophrenic season, with QPR flirting with relegation early on, before pulling some decent results out and finishing in the relative comfort of lower mid table mediocrity. Rangers could lay claim to the title of richest club in the world at the moment, enjoying the backing of Lakshmi Mittal and his whopping $45 billion fortune and the board are looking to attract Premiership level talent to mount a serious promotion charge next year.

Zidane could make a new home in West London with ease, as the town's most fashionable address, Batman Close is within spitting distance of the stadium. Shepherd's Bush Green is the last bastion of the West to remain untouched by gentrification and he could buy knock-off smokes down the market, while hanging out and drinking cans of spesh by the swings. He may also do a bit of football management while he's between vices.

In more realistic news, it appears that Tottenham's Radek Cerny may be QPR bound, having not completely displaced Paul Robinson as number one. He would replace roly-poly funman and fan's favourite Lee Camp and is said to be looking at a two year deal.

Vatreno Ludilo

Here at STT we love Slaven Bilic for so many reasons, not just because he has a cool name, speaks a hundred languages, and smokes. If you ever needed convincing though, look no further than his preparations for guiding his Croatia side into Euro 2008. While plenty of other coaches are wasting their time scouting other teams and drawing up complex tactical playbooks that their players won’t ever understand, Bilic has been in the studio with his rock band Rawbau recording a new anthem for the Croatians to walk out to at this summer’s Championships.

“Bilic told us in January that he had a song that sounded good. The song is very catchy, a classic rock tune and I believe that fans will like it and that it will become their hymn,” Vlatka Bartulovic, a spokeswoman for song-producers Zagreb brewery, said today.

Unfortunately the track, geniusly titled Fiery Madness, will not be officially premiered until next month, but check out this ropey youtube clip of a recent live performance here, or alternatively peep Rawbau’s Myspace site for a tantilising glimpse of what the anthem might sound like properly mastered. Bilic himself is the writer and lead guitarist, drawing influences from a wide range of talent such as the Foo Fighters, the Rolling Stones and Finnish hard-rock monsters, Lordi. He claims the song captures the true spirit for Croatia, but just from the above live clip, STT would go even further and say that it simply captures the spirit of ‘awesomeness.’

When asked by Sky whether he has plans to release the song as a single outside of his native country, Bilic modestly shook his head saying "we are not U2." I know which group i'd rather have play at my house party though; a load of Eastern Europeans who like booze and tattoos, or five has-beens who'd turn the music down and encourage me to recycle my shoes. Tough choice.

“Chins without beards deserve no honour” – Spanish Proverb

It seems strange that 20 or 30 years ago almost every footballer had a beard; it was a status symbol, and chicks used to dig it. Why though now has it taken STT two weeks of fervent list-making to compile enough Premier League footballers with beards to even justify this article? We wanted to show that some guys around at the moment still have that hippie swagger, casting out the razor in favour of a handy place to store undigested foodstuffs.

Is it that generally the beard is no longer is fashion? Perhaps; the so-called ‘metrosexual’ society in which we live encourages men to embrace their feminine side more and more, thus body hair in general is frowned upon by all the cool cats in China White. STT can’t help but feel though that this trend originally came from most of those pre-pubescent posers not actually being able to grow beards in the first place due to lack of testosterone. Ask any woman and trust me, chicks dig the beard no less than ever before, and will practically beg you to go twos-up with their best friend or sister at the mere sight of any chest hair.

Just ask Hollywood if you don’t believe me. The biggest hunks of the last ten years or so have at some stage all proudly rocked the chin-warmer; Leonardo di Caprio, Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, George Clooney, Jonny Depp, Jake Gyllenhaal…even David Beckham was seen representing almost as soon as he joined the LA Galaxy, and he knows style!

So who can we give a shout out to for keeping it masculine and hairy in the Premier League at the moment? Well many reliable stalwarts such as David James, Mido, Wayne Rooney and Jermaine Pennant are currently pretty clean shaven, so they’re out. This is gonna sound ridiculously racist, but looking at photos of many of the black players we’d noted, it’s actually pretty hard to tell! Sulley Muntari, Kolo Toure, Chris Samba and Michael Essien kind of do, I think, but it’s too difficult to call week-to-week. Ryan Giggs gets a commendable mention for being literally the swarthiest man I’ve ever seen, and rumours of him having to actually shave at half time some weeks to stop from being overcome by fur by the final whistle have never been denied to my complete satisfaction.

So it’s a very sorry state of affairs then. Just three consistant beards as far as I can see, and even the greatest of them all, Mellberg, dabbled with smooth-chin-ness only a couple of years ago! What is to be done people?!

STT can do nothing but direct you towards some of the great footballing beards, past and present, in the hope that maybe you’ll be convinced enough to take the plunge yourself…

Contemporary:

Djibril Cisse ‘dragon’

Gennaro Gattuso ‘wife beater’

Abel Xavier ‘tribal’

Old school:

Jimmy Hill ‘rapist in a mackintosh’

Ricky Villa ‘pimp daddy’

George Best 'the name says it all’

Socrates ‘seriously relaxed’

Alexi lalas ‘america’

Roberto baggio ‘evil wizard’

A Non-Smoking Sport?

These days, smoking and football are much less closely related activities. While it was common practice for both the players and fans to have the odd Woodbine at games in the early 20th century, players have been made aware of the damage the tabs do to your lungs and general fitness. Fans have also been affected, as the new smoking laws introduced last summer mean it's impossible to have a crafty fag from the minute you enter the ground until the moment you leave the establishment. Admittedly, many fans refute these rules, but a super sneaky illegal few drags by the bogs isn't quite as satisfying as a leisurely smokey joe. Some players take up this fan's mentality of pursuing their damaging habit, during their playing careers and into their later life. Here are a few of them:

Chelsea assistant coach Henk Ten Cate's liberal Dutch attitudes mean that he doesn't give a monkey's about having the occasional cancer stick. He's creating a right fuggy cloud here, showing the difficult inhale-through-the-mouth-and-exhale-through-the-nose-simultaneously technique. Other Nederlanders who have a penchant for the evil weed include Johan Cruyff, who cut it out of his life before he had a heart bypass in 1991 while managing Barcelona. He got around his craving by famously chain-sucking lollipops on the sidelines instead.

The master of cool and the architect of England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008,Slaven Bilic (not Steve McLaren) has been known to have the odd ciggie. He's allowed, though. He's got an earring and players in a band, so it kind of comes with the territory. If you don't believe me, just ask Slash! Another smokey Croat is Robert Prosinecki, who chewed his way through 40 Lambert and Butler a day during his time at Portsmouth and apparently coughed up a docker's omelette the size of a dinner plate while Harry Redknapp was giving a team talk.

Here's the money shot. It's not clear when this picture was taken, but it quite clearly shows Zizou having a puff and it can be follicular dated to within the last 3 years. If the most skillful player of the last generation could have the odd smoke while he was still playing, isn't there hope for us all? Maybe Materazzi just asked him for a coffin nail during the 2006 World Cup Final to wind him up, rather than reveal his sexual attraction for Zidane's family. Lastly, the French have notoriously nasty smokes, such as the filterless Gitanes and have been known to make people feel a bit queasy........