June 16
Ivory Coast players used their day off to spend a staggering £14,000 on computer games, DVDs and CDs in a electrical shop near Cologne. (Sun)
Holland's gay community have elected Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo as the World Cup's "most beautiful, attractive and sexiest" footballer. (Mirror)
Trinidad & Tobago defender Brent Sancho got his local TV newsreader to ask his girlfriend to marry him live on air during the 2-0 defeat to England. (Mirror)
Holland boss Marco van Basten has promised his players a night at a pop concert if they reach the World Cup final - so they can repeat the Dutch team's visit to a Whitney Houston gig before winning the 1988 European Championship. (Sun)
England's players have been issued with earplugs to help them sleep through the din outside their city-centre hotel created by partying fans. (Guardian)
Meanwhile, proud father Greg Boyd had more reason than most to cheer when Aaron Lennon came on as a second half substitute for England against Trinidad & Tobago. Greg's week-old son, Lennon, was named after the Spurs winger - and arrived just in time for his dad to watch the World Cup. Greg was panicking that he may have to miss some of the opening matches due to the small matter of attending his first-born's birth but 8.6lbs Lennon arrived a day early and was allowed home just in time for the opening ceremony. "It was perfect timing," Greg, of Clifton in Bristol told BBC Sport. "Lennon did us proud - and at 52cm, he's almost as tall as his namesake!"
Tesco said sales of Caribbean food and drink had soared north of the border as Scots prepared to cheer on Trinidad & Tobago. Buyer Simon Dunn said: "We've seen huge increases in the sale of rum in Scotland by nearly 15% and the sale of mangoes has increased by a staggering 47% in the past two weeks alone."
A television set was ordered for the British delegation room at a Brussels summit on the future direction of the European Union so Prime Minister Tony Blair could keep his eye on the match.
June 19
England WAGs (wives and girlfriends) are taunted by locals in a nightclub that Germany are going to win the World Cup. (Sun, Express, Mail)
A schoolboy in Hertfordshire has invented a new football language called "socceranto". (Star)
Pope Benedict XVI is watching the World Cup on an old black and white television. (Mirror)
Wayne Rooney topped a poll of celebrities, ahead of Robbie Williams, that people would like to preserve for the future. (Star)
June 20
German coach Jurgen Klinsmann has asked the media to stop gathering at his family's bakery in Stuttgart - takings are down because of the perpetual media scrum for a chat with Klinsi's mum. (Daily Mirror)
Mexico coach Ricardo Ka Volpe, ordered by Fifa to stop smoking on the touchline during games, has turned to prayer instead - his nerves are now soothed by offering up words to the Virgin of Guadeloupe. (The Times)
German tabloid Bild has published a league table of spending in Baden-Baden by the wives and girlfriends of England's players. Wayne Rooney's fiancee Coleen McLoughlin tops the cash-splashers, apparently. (The Guardian)
German TV licencing officials are tracking down non-payers by trawling the streets and swooping on addresses without a licence when they hear cheers and hollering during Germany's matches. (The Times)
Lost in translation? Italy coach Marcello Lippi apparently had this to say about Daniele De Rossi's sending off for elbowing the USA's Brian McBride:
"I have left him to boil in his own soup. He's a fantastic guy, but he must change his computer chip." (Daily Mail)
June 21
Gold mines in Ghana were told to temporarily cut their power usage when a World Cup-inspired surge in TV viewing threatened a blackout. (The Independent)
City officials in Cologne, where England played Sweden, ordered 175,000 litres of beer for their bars, estimating the average Three Lions fan would down five litres in the course of the day. (Daily Telegraph)
Former Spurs star Steve Perryman is doing well out of Sweden's army of fans in Germany - his sports travel company is one of Scandinavia's largest. (The Guardian)
Spurs striker Jermain Defoe may have been left crying into his beer after his omission from England's squad, but at least he still features alongside David Beckham, Joe Cole and Steven Gerrard on promotional packs of Carlsberg Export. (Daily Mail)
Spanish daily 20 Minutos claims Nostradamus tipped Spain to win the World Cup. It quotes one of his prophecies as follows: "In the sixth month of 2006 the King of Spain will cross the Pyrenees with his troops. The legions of Beelzebub will battle him in central Europe and suffer doom and destruction. The Holy Grail will then come to Spain." (Press Association)
