WAGs of 2006

During the 2006 World Cup the press gave increasing coverage to the socialising and shopping activities of the English WAGs, who were based in the German town of Baden Baden. It was frequently suggested that England's exit from the tournament in the quarterfinals was a result of such distractions.

Prominent WAGs of that year included Victoria Beckham, wife of former England captain David Beckham, whom the New Yorker described as "Queen of the wags" and the Sunday Times as "the original Wag"; Cheryl Cole, née Tweedy, of the group Girls Aloud, who married Ashley Cole in July 2006 ("Wag weds"); Coleen Rooney, née Mcloughlin, who married Wayne Rooney in June 2008 and who was variously described as a "chavette", dubbed by the tabloid newspaper The Sun a "super WAG" and, by the end of the year, listed by the Times as a "national treasure" ; and Carly Zucker, partner of Joe Cole, who was a fitness instructor, described by Susie Whally in the Sunday Times as a "new WAG on the block [who] has set the tone for the season's most wanted muscles". In 2007 the Times referred to Steven Gerrard's fiancée and subsequent wife Alex Curran as an "über- WAG" ("tussling over the remote with his über- WAG fiancée" ). Another WAG engendered considerable interest due to her relative youth - she was A-level student Melanie Slade, the girlfriend of Theo Walcott, who, at seventeen, was himself the youngest member of the England squad.And Frank Lampard fiancee Elen Rives, a Spanish model.

Nancy Dell'Olio, an Italian property lawyer who was the girlfriend of the then England coach Sven-Göran Eriksson, enjoyed quite a high public profile of her own, partly as a result of long-running press interest in aspects of Eriksson's private life.

Newly-appointed national team coach Fabio Capello laid down strict rules concerning the WAGs, forbidding them to attend national team matches.