Easter is a time for reflection, and I'd like to think that I have spent many of my past hours and romances reflecting on the things that have got me into this crazy life. I mean, what's it all coming too? I wake up every morning and the main thing I worry about is will I get through the day scarred or not. And sometimes I think about the scars in the hands of the saviour, and wonder if I too will know even a fraction of the pain of the world.

Anyway, Timo Hildebrand has very different problems. He has worked his way up through the youth training system of Stuttgart football club, and now here he is, all freshly scrubbed and well rested, poised maybe even to take his place as Germany's third goalkeeper at the World Cup. If he does, it is very unlikely that he will play a single game, and he knows that, but he wants to be there on the bench, working as a wheel in the engine room of the team, as it were, shovelling in the coal, and in four years time, when the two current duffers have either killed each other or themselves, perhaps, who knows, he will carry the balls onto the pitch?

I only believe in luck.