As the final ball was kicked in our pre-season friendly last night (nope I didn't watch it either) all of our thoughts can now be focused on our rather treacherous looking opening 6 games of the season. It's been a long time since we had such a difficult opening and, as with most seasons, it's even more difficult to pick how we might fare in all or any of them. I'm back for the Portsmouth game (the so-called easy game) and have also booked all my flights back up until Christmas (so I've managed to get back for Spurs this year). The only problem, from a personal perspective as well as a football one, is the Celtic game. Lose that and we suffer huge confidence problems as well as players not appearing in the CL and moaning to agents but, more importantly, we end up playing on Thursday nights and Sundays, buggering up my pre booked trips home! So for no other reason than that I expect nothing less than 100% in the Anglo-Scottish games. Today is the big game in Basel, the home team playing its arch rivals FC Zurich (3 years ago there was actually a riot after a FCB-FCZ game!) and I'll keep an eye on that, an eye on the Charity Shield and more eyes on my beer whilst down the pub.. Cheers!

For those of you who follow the "big" European clubs it's sometimes hard to realise that July is when the qualification process really begins. Last night the first qualification round was completed and my local club, Basel, now know their opponents in the second round. They will play (on 30/7 & 06/08) against the Swedish club, Gothenburg, for the right to meet one of the big boys in the third qualification round - maybe even Arsenal!! Apparently the draw for the third round takes place between the two legs of the second qualification round, on August 1st.

In the local Swiss League, three teams have 100% records after the second round of matches. Unlikely leaders, Aarau, joined Basel and FC Zurich with a 2-0 win over FC Vaduz last night. Interestingly, FC Vaduz actually come from Liechtenstein but play in the Swiss League.

L'Equipe mentions the earth shattering news that Philip Neville will be renewing his contract at Everton until 2012. He's obviously big news in France - perhaps he has a fan club there, where they have ritual burning of voodoo dolls of his brother. Doesn't sound too bad that, in fact. Also in L'Equipe is the story of Phillippe Mexes being approached at gunpoint and having his car taken (with his 2 year old daughter in it) - luckily they abandoned the car later and his daughter was safe, sound and asleep!

I've just been stung by a wasp whilst sitting on my apartment balcony and since this is the second sting within a month I'm reconsidering my "Wasps aren't that bad" stance! My wife hates wasps but I've never had to much to detest them for - until this last month, at least today's sting wasn't whilst I was riding a bike as the last one was. Not only did that one really hurt but it probably looked very strange to car drivers as I performed the dance of "get the f##k off me wasp, oh shite that f##king hurts" before nearly careering into a lamp post...

Anyway on the subject of annoying buzzing things that don't seem to go away, Adebayor has decided he'll stay or Arseblog reporting the Sun says he'll stay. Wonder if he'll get a similar ovation to Gareth Barry when he first plays. I'm off to Stuttgart next week to watch the friendly so maybe I can confirm first hand...

The French Press, in the shape of L'Equipe, when not talking about the great stage to Alpe D'Huez in the tour, are muttering a lot about the transfer from Paris to Liverpool of David Ngog - which will cause great pronunciation problems I'm sure.

In Switzerland there were 3 games last night and both Basel & FC Zurich kept up their 100% records with Zurich playing behind closed doors (and their second home game) due to crowd problems last year.