Optimistic All Whites fan: "Back at the World Cup for the first time in 28 years, my friend. Here come the men in white."
Pessimistic All Whites fan: "Ah, yeah, there's a reason we haven't been to the World Cup in 28 years."
Op: "We sailed through Oceania qualifying and then showed uncommon grit to beat Bahrain over two legs."
Pess: "Combined, our opponents in qualifying had an average world ranking of 124."
Op: "Italy - ageing. Paraguay - flighty. Slovakia - severely limited. Can you spell S-E-C-O-N-D R-O-UN-D?"
Pess: "Italy - defending world champion. Paraguay - fast. Slovakia - topped a European qualifying group. I think we can all spell E-A-R-L-Y E-X-I-T."
Op: "Nelly! Smeltzy! Siggy!"
Pess: "Cannavaro! Santa Cruz! Skrtel!"
Op: "We should do the haka. That'd be great."
Pess: "No. No, we shouldn't."
Op: "We're the unknown quantity, the dark horse, the underdog. We can sneak up on these teams."
Pess: "Ah, yeah, there's a reason the TAB is offering the following odds on the All Whites: to fail to qualify from their group ($1.04), to make the final ($500) and to win the tournament ($1000).
Op: "I'm keeping the faith."
Pess: "Bugger it, so am I."
The shirt off his back
There is a young fellow at Balmacewen Intermediate who will be proudly wearing a signed All Whites shirt when he gets up to watch their games at the World Cup.
Jackson Miller (12), who plays for the Mosgiel 14th grade side, has had the shirt passed on to him by his grandfather, Blair Davidson.
Davidson, the patron of Footballsouth, has kept in touch with Alex Chiet, the former Dunedin Technical defender who now works for New Zealand Football as high performance manager.
Davidson went to Melbourne for the New Zealand-Australia game last month and was sad to miss an opportunity to catch up with Chiet.
But shortly after Davidson returned to his Mosgiel home, a surprise package turned up.
Nice touch from a former Otago man.
Opportunity lost
Speaking of shirts, a local fan reports his disappointment at not being able to buy a junior All Whites top anywhere in Dunedin.
He checked out three sports stores and each came up empty.
One said it would have merchandise at the end of July - you know, once the World Cup is over.
New Zealand Football is advertising mugs, key rings, lunchboxes and adult shirts on its website, but says junior shirts ($120 - ouch) will not arrive until July 1.
This was the time for football in this country to cash in on the massive spike in interest in the sport, and it should have flooded the market with every possible piece of merchandise.
I've also been disappointed by the complete lack of communication from New Zealand Football in recent weeks.
We've been sent no emails, no media guides, no shirts to give away in a competition, nothing.
Complacency kills, and it will be a great shame if this All Whites adventure fizzles out through a lack of engagement with the public.
The master traveller
Well-travelled Otago Daily Times sports reporter Alistair McMurran has been to 25 of the 32 nations competing in the World Cup.
Can you beat that?
Dunedin link to jersey
Continuing the upper bodywear theme, it's fitting to recognise the work done by a (soon to be former) Dunedin man on the centenary New Zealand Maori jersey.
Designer, rugby fan and Kaikorai Valley College old boy Dave Burke designed the jersey with New Zealand Rugby Union Maori liaison officer Tiki Edwards, New Zealand Maori kaumatua Whetu Tipiwai and Luke Crawford.
Te Ao Hou (The New Dawn) features traditional Maori artwork drawn from the team's haka, Timitanga, with the korowai (cloak) and wharenui (meeting house) also providing inspiration.
New Zealand Maori play the New Zealand Barbarians tonight and also have games against Ireland and England.
RIP, Coach Wooden
It's so long, at the great age of 99, to the most revered coach in the history of American sport.
John Wooden, the first man to make the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and as a coach, died in Los Angeles last week.
Wooden is most famous for winning 10 national college basketball titles in the space of 12 years, when superstars such as Gail Goodrich, Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton played for him at UCLA.
His teams had four perfect 30-0 seasons, and once had an 88-game winning streak.
But there was so much more to the man than basketball Xs and Os.
He preached hard work, respect, values, teamwork, discipline.
He developed a "pyramid of success" containing such foundations as "loyalty", "intentness" and "competitive greatness".
Wooden's players loved him and were fiercely devoted to him, even when his old-fashioned values clashed with their revolutionary Californian lifestyle.
This was famously illustrated by sportswriter Rick Reilly when he related a clash between Wooden, who loathed facial and long hair, and Walton.
"One day, Walton showed up with a full beard. `It's my right' he insisted.
Wooden asked if he believed that strongly.
Walton said he did. `That's good, Bill,' Coach said. `I admire people who have strong beliefs and stick by them, I really do.
We're going to miss you.' Walton shaved it right then and there."
Wooden might have had old-fashioned ways but he was very much the sensitive type when it came to affairs of the heart.
His wife, Nellie, died on March 21, 1985.
On the 21st day of each month after that, Wooden would write a letter to his wife, fold it into an envelope, and add it to a stack.
