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finally - the big day is HERE ! kick off in less than 10 hours. all line-ups are posted, everyone's ready ... get that white&black shirt from 2006 out ;-0) thanks to our game, I feel that I'm part of something B I G ;-) great football every day for the next two weeks - yay and even my Panini sticker album is full already and the basement is full of Bavarian beer These are the moments, when life is really worth living for LET'S PLAY BALL olé olé

Same name as his uncle('s former), Fiamalu Penitani (17, 191cm, 143 kg, American football) wants to enter sumo. "I want to become a better rikishi than uncle Maru. I want to do powerful sumo, sumo with technique." He will stay at Fujishima-beya to learn the basics and aims at the shin-deshi exam for the Aki-basho. Furiwake-oyakata (former Musashimaru):"I want him to exceed me as a rikishi." He wants him to do forward going sumo because at the moment there are few rikishi of that type. "The basic is pushing. I want to become a rikishi who pushes till the end." Since Kyushu 2003 with the intai of Musashimaru there was no Hawaian rikishi. So far no heya as a final destination is determined. From Chunichi

Hakuho with finance minister Jun Azumi, promoting state bonds for individuals, to be used for reconstructing the disaster stricken areas. The minister remarked "the Natsu basho was not that good". Hakuho replied "On Shonichi I hurt my left forefinger, but its better now" and stretched out his hand.

Incidentally, Going to be the only time in the round-robin rounds, if we exclude the trivial case of England and Sweden being in the same group while being each other's opposites. Three other double pairings could have happened but their tournament schedules do not align (match day in brackets): (1) Russia-Czech Rep. <-> Ukraine-France (2) (3) Germany-Denmark <-> Ireland-Spain (2) (2) Portugal-Denmark <-> Croatia-Spain (3)