Argentina
Star man: Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
Odds: 9-1
Biggest local supermarket: Coto
Fascinating food and drink facts: As well as prodigiously gifted footballing dwarves, Argentina's main export is beef. Their protein-heavy diets see each adult chomp through 70kg of cow a year on average although goat is eaten more often in Patagonia. Vegetarians are as popular on the Pampas as Diego Maradona is in England.


Greece
Star man: Otto Rehhagel (manager)
Odds: 66-1
Biggest local supermarket: Carrefour-Marinopoulos
Fascinating food and drink facts: The first-ever cook book emerged in ancient Greece in 320 BC. Archestratus' faintly scandalous poem 'Life of Luxury' gave advice on the best Mediterranean food. Now staples such as moussaka and Feta cheese are as at home on middle-class dinner tables as Delia's recipes.


Nigeria
Star man: Jon Obi Mikel (Chelsea)
Odds: 80-1
Biggest local supermarket: Shoprite
Fascinating food and drink facts: Spam should be the national dish of Nigeria, so synonymous is the country with dodgy emails, but Naija cooking is more about yams than spam, using the mashed-up vegetable in pastes given fire by chillies and spice. Beef, chicken and pigeon are all popular meats in a country where the retail sector is still largely unstructured.


South Korea
Star man: Park Ji-Sung (Manchester Utd)
Odds: 125-1
Biggest local supermarket: E-Mart
Fascinating food and drink facts: Local cuisine is based on lots of banchan, or side dishes, with short-grain rice. Kimchi pickled vegetables is so popular it was sent to the first Korean astronaut in space and is said by photographers like we would say "Cheese!" Dog meat was banned from sale in 1984 but that's not always strictly enforced.

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