WIN A £2,000 TV
This week and for the next three weeks The Knowledge will propose a different Arts World Cup clash. Vote for your favourite teams, and we’ll put you in the running to win a brand-new 42in Toshiba 42WLT66.
Part of Toshiba’s stylish new Regza range of High Definition LCD TVs, it boasts full HD 1080 resolution and two HDMI inputs for connecting an HD box and/or DVD player.
HOME TEAM - ENGLAND
Picked by Michael Caton-Jones
Football taught me everything in life — everything I needed to know about support, organisation and team work. And glory, joy, improvisation, and often despair at times.
You can imagine that, being Scottish, I have great fun at the expense of the English. They can’t understand why I would support anybody playing England during the World Cup. So I made my England team of actors and directors British, and a celebration of mavericks. In the British film industry there is a lot of insanity around. There is incredible craft, doggedness and determination that is also full-on barking bonkers. You have to have that, and I wanted my team to have it.
GOALKEEPER Ricky Gervais
On the assumption that my team is going to play like Brazil, it doesn’t matter who plays in goal. Plus you need a laugh.
LEFT BACK Ray Winstone (captain)
I’d like to see any team try to get past Winstone. He’s your reliable hard man; nothing will get round him.
CENTRE BACK Sophie Okonedo
Because she has the height, she’s very athletic and she would play in a no- nonsense style. She’s an image of multicultural Britain.
CENTRE BACK Charlotte Rampling
She is all elegance, understated and completely unflappable. She has silky skills and would be a ball player in the centre
RIGHT BACK Keith Allen
The Welsh terrier. He is as hard as they get and the only gay in the team. Only joking.
LEFT WING Peter Mullan
A throwback to the good old days of Scottish football. He always looks as if he has just come from a heavy night in a club.
CENTRAL MIDFIELD Peter Greenaway
A maverick. His understanding of angles and obscure plays means he can see what the ordinary man can’t.
CENTRAL MIDFIELD Martin Compston (actor, Sweet 16)
He’s the only footballer who ever acted brilliantly. He’s my Theo Walcott. I feel like a gamble.
RIGHT WING Tim Roth
He’s small, mobile and very nasty in a tackle. He is utterly relentless and very scary. You couldn’t turn your back on him.
STRIKER Michael Caton-Jones
I’m afraid I’d have to play that part myself. You have to have a diamond in every ring and that would be me.
MANAGER Samantha Morton
She’s as nuts as they come — and full-on. The only way to control a team of nutters is to have one in charge.
AWAY TEAM: FRANCE
Picked by James Christopher
When they’re on song there are few teams in the world who can beat the peerless French. They invented the beautiful game and have been reinventing it ever since. Manager Jean-Luc Godard is a wily old renard and one of the greatest tacticians the art has ever seen. Football for Godard is neither an occupation nor a vocation. It is existence itself. His finest hour as a player was the 1959 cup final, À Bout de Souffle. But at the age of
76 he is still an inspirational force, whose half-time talks are legendary: Godard has been known to rattle on for three angry hours without drawing breath. If the French have a weakness it is their reliance on gifted individuals, who can become fickle and high- minded. The burning issue of whether to use subs or sub-titles has also dogged French football. Their strip, incidentally, was invented by Krzysztof Kieslowski, whose Three Colours: Blue, White, and Red were famously modelled by Juliette Binoche and Julie Delpy.
GOALKEEPER Dominik “the Lemming” Moll
The Fabien Barthez of keepers is known for his suicidal leaps. But he pulls off the most amazing twists.
LEFT BACK Isabelle “The Piano Player” Huppert
Has a tendency to self-destruct when things get tense, but gives little away. Can be exhausting to watch.
CENTRE BACK Claude Chabrol
Never goes into a game without a smoking gun and a dead body. The veteran director is the scourge of petit bourgeois strikers.
CENTRE BACK Daniel Auteuil (captain)
The Zinedine Zidane of play- makers and the architect of several French goals, including Michael Haneke’s Caché.
RIGHT BACK Gérard Depardieu
A reliable bruiser who puts the fear of God into flighty dramas. Loves tackling big romantic forwards such as Cyrano de Bergerac.
LEFT WING Gaspar Noé
His appetite for shocking tackles (Irréversible) has earned the young director a red card in almost every match he has played in.
CENTRAL MIDFIELD Jean Reno
Tall, poetic thug who loves nutting balls into the back of the net — and anyone else who gets in the way.
CENTRAL MIDFIELD Luc Besson
Addicted to hair- styles and cultish American tricks. But young fans like his slick, pulpy thrillers (Nikita).
RIGHT WING Brigitte Bardot
One of Godard’s secret weapons: she brings new meaning to “strip”. Not a great footballing brain, but a fabulous distraction.
STRIKER Audrey Tautou
A feisty pint-sized beauty who has captured the hearts of fans with her shimmering dummies in Amélie and The Da Vinci Code.
STRIKER François Ozon
The Thierry Henry of the team. His nimble, mazy scripts for Criminal Lovers and 8 Women have unzipped the most stubborn defences.
MANAGER Jean-Luc Godard
His team selection is bizarre to say the least, but he has packed the side with plenty of Gallic flair.
HOW TO ENTER
To enter this week, tell us which film nation would win: France or England?
Please include the words France or England in the e-mail subject line.
Send the answer, your name, address, e-mail address and daytime telephone number to entertainment@timesonline.co.uk.
Terms and Conditions
- Competition closes at midday UK time on Friday, June 23, 2006.
- Competition open to those aged 18 and over and resident in the UK.
- One winner will be drawn at random from all correct entries received.
- The prize is as specified.
- The winners will be contacted by e-mail.
- Only one entry per person per week.
- Times Newspapers Limited (TNL) will not be liable for technical, hardware, or software failures of any kind or lost or unavailable network connections which may limit or prohibit an eligible entrant's ability to participate.
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- Competition not open to employees of News International or Toshiba, their families, agents or any other person connected with the competition's administration. TNL reserves the right to disqualify any entries which it deems, at its sole discretion, to contravene the spirit of the promotion.
- TNL reserve the right at any time to cancel, modify or supersede the competition (including altering prizes) if, in our sole discretion, a competition is not capable of being conducted as specified.
- Winner must agree to their name and general location being used for publicity purposes by The Times and Sunday Times newspapers in any and all media.
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- For a list of winners, please send a stamped addressed envelope to Times Newspapers Limited Competitions Department, 1 Virginia Street, London E98 1RL, stating for which competition you would like winners details.
- Entry is conditional on acceptance of these terms and conditions.
