Ah – welcome Thursday… With your blustery face and rain-streaked appearance, it’s time to brighten you with our random-round-up: Here goes…

Firstly, all is not well in the Austrian training camp, according to the insightful types over at World Cup Blog, and as Coach Hickersberger dismays Emanuel Pogatetz and the gang by sending them through an exhausting series of demoralising wind-sprints and conditioning drills – word is out that he may be making a terrible mistake.

You see, according to aforementioned blog, “it is far too late for general conditioning work to have a positive impact on elite-level athletes. Actually at this time, including a two day break next week, it will actually have a detrimental effect at a surprising error at this level.” Crumbs! At this stage it should be done within highly specialized and tactical work. Time to chalk Austria permanently off the possible winners list then (if you hadn’t already)!

Next we’re jetting across to Spain for news of ‘La Furia Roja’s’ talismanic midfielder Cesc Fabregas and his hopes for next season, which seem to revolve pretty much purely around the handsome David Villa. The Spaniard was asked at the filming of ‘The Cesc Fabregas Show: Nike Live’ which player he would most like to see at Arsenal this summer and he answered without hesitation. Banter amongst the potential heroes of Spain sounds like it’s at quite a high then.

Oh – and while we’re on the subject of great footballing individuals – all sorts of props to Chris from epltalk.com, who has been referencing some recommended sites on his blog. “But for those of you who can’t wait for Euro 2008 to begin, be sure to bookmark the Euro2008statistics.com site, which features a blog, statistics, matchtrackers and more” he says – and who am I to disagree!

Fourthly – and (mercifully) briefly – everyone knows that Slaven Bilic is recording ‘Fiery Madness’ as the Croatian national team’s anthem (didn’t you), but have you seen the video? What an anthem! Check it out below, or visit the band’s MySpace to hear ‘red hot’ hit ‘Tejkitize’. Or follow this link if you want to sing along!