Round-up before a week away

Well, the World Cup is over for another four years and the Euro Championships are two years away, so everyone can stop getting agitated over their national team. Well done to the Italians, but the less about the final the better. It should be forgotten and buried. Point of note that Newcastle man Jean-Alain Boumsong who can't even get a start now at St. James Park did better than the entire England team put together, despite not playing a minute for France, by picking up a silver medal. It's all about the squad.
But the biggest match was Lillestrom of Norway taking on Iceland's IBK Keflavik. The Norwegians had administered a beating to Keflavik at their base near Oslo, 4-1, but could only draw 2-2 in the return leg. Still, it was enough to see them through to play Newcastle. Two other teams of interest to me were in action at the weekend. Tampere United managing a manly draw against Swedish grunts Kalmar (with added spice of Finns detesting all things Swedish) away from home, but they had lost the home leg, so they're out. FC Tiraspol is the biggest club side in Moldova but its stadium and assets are on the territory of a diplomatically-unrecognised but de facto country, Transdniestr. If ever there was a Ruritania, this is it. They beat the Polish side, Lech, twice to end 3-1 on aggregate. That would be fun if Newcastle got to play them since it's illegal to take photographs of the stadium among other bizarre things.