Football fever grips G-8 leaders

HUNTSVILLE - Football fever gripped European members of the Group of Eight (G-8) most powerful developed nations Friday as they met for a summit in Canada.

England and Germany are to face off in a winner-takes-all World Cup football match Sunday, and the two countries’ leaders are hoping to take at least a few moments out from high-powered politics to watch the game.

“There is an idea we might try and watch it together,” Britain’s new prime minister, David Cameron, said ahead of the summit opening, referring to Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

England and Germany have been World Cup rivals since England beat Germany in the final in 1966 - thanks, according to German opinion, to an illegal goal allowed by a Yugoslav linesman.

More recently, the experience of losing to Germany on penalties in both World and European Cups has scarred the English national consciousness.

“I will try not to wrestle (Merkel) to the ground during penalties, but we will have to see,” Cameron said in an interview with British TV station ITV.

The two leaders’ rivalry has already begun to draw in other states. Cameron said that Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi had agreed to support England, since the team is coached by an Italian.

Officials at the summit speculated that French President Nicolas Sarkozy, meanwhile, could support Germany, his country’s traditional ally in Europe. England is seen as France’s traditional sporting foe.