Euro Quarters - Penalties again: no way to win, no way to lose
By
Mickey Blue Eyes

First a correction to my last Euro memo. In our win over Croatia I reported a Scholes pass to Owen, then an onward ball to The Duke, who scored his second. Wrong. I have been correctly and properly rebuked by Tim Mac. It was of course a duet between Rooney and the Hawarden Terror after the former collected the ball in midfield. I can only plead over excitement and excess alcohol that blurred even my usually utterly biased late night reportage – not of course that I could give a shit what you think. You don’t like it, go write your own stuff. Of course this makes The Duke’s goal even better. Therefore I am happy to make the correction. “The Duke” – you know, the more I hear that nickname the more I like it, really like it………………I think I’ll stick with it.

Whatever, everyone with blood in their veins looked forward to the Euro quarter finals knock-outs. The group games were mostly their usual sterile disappointment and we relished the chance of some edge of seat excitement.

So all England looked forward with huge anticipation to the clash with Portugal. Anybody who wasn’t up for this one shouldn’t be watching football. As Michael Owen rightly said pre-match, this is why you get involved in the first place. If you have any footy feelings at all it’s what you want. Big games, big occasions, the glow of healthy footy glory. Only a dyed in the wool misery-arse or a plastic celt would want it otherwise. But since I never mix with that claque of predictably turgid tosspots I was as agog as the next thoroughly subjective footy fan. I felt confident without any sense of certainty that we’d get a good result. I have been watching the game too long to over-indulge in wild optimism. Whatever will be, will be.

Early evening we repaired to the Walkabout in Concert Square for a steak sandwich and necessary preliminary footy chat. I figured we were for once in prime position to win not only the game but the tournament. The England team has a good mix of experience and promising youth though we still lack skill in some key positions. Portugal on the other hand had their Golden Generation ever so slightly beyond their peak. It was an opportunity unlikely to repeat itself. I could barely contain my enthusiasm and had difficulty digesting the steak sarnie properly. One of our group claimed his tasted like “fuckin’ kangaroo meat.” Which comment fell like a lead zeppelin on the head of the antipodean student waiter but drew broad grins from everybody in the vicinity. I thought it desperately unfair. On such occasions ANYTHING is hard to get down your system without tasting like an unnecessary obstruction to the main event. The waiter gave as good as he got though. You expect nothing less from an Oz with a genuine sense of humour. Good on yer, mite.

Gradually the place filled up with flag-waving, banner-carrying, face-painted England fans from all parts of the country. Harmless fun. By comparison I looked like a Sunday school teacher. The best big screen in the city came down and showed a rerun of England winning 5-1 in Germany. A DJ played loony England football songs incessantly until the place rocked to singing the nonsense to the echo. It built up nicely, no sense of nastiness, only outright commitment and enjoyment. By the time the teams came out in Iberia everyone was fired up and full of the occasion. It never ceases to amaze me how human beings respond to a projected stream of electrons thousands of miles from a real sports event. They shout and make gestures at the screen as though it can be heard by the targets. You would have thought everyone was actually at the match. Of course it was terrific.

Pandemonium within three minutes of the kick off when Calam took a long kick and a Portuguese defender misheaded the ball backwards outside the box and Owen chased it running sideways, then backwards, ‘keeper advancing, and then sort of flick-hooked it right footed on over his shoulder and IN, his own special brand of genius. Ground floor and gallery, the bar exploded in a mass of waving arms, cascading beer, spilled mobile phones and sheer huggy hysteria. It’s odd isn’t it when you score early. Rationally, you can never make up your mind if it’s happened TOO early. But what the fuck does rationale have to do with raw human emotions? Better that than the cold misery of curmudgeons. The goal was duly celebrated.

The game then lapsed into two phases. Initially England gave as good as they got. Eventually it gave way to gradual, then incessant Portuguese pressure. Our midfield began to wilt until an equaliser began to look certain as better individual skills took their toll of willing but wearying England legs. Most noticeably Steven Gerrard wasn’t his normal outstanding self. Maybe, you mused, all this transfer talk has got to him. The fact is, when he plays well, England usually play well. You can’t not miss a truly great player. None of the rest of midfield could really get going, though I don’t want to short sell the Portuguese effort. Collectively they were classy and determined in a way our current midfield could never be. Then came the late second half moment when Wayne Rooney chased a halfy-halfy ball slightly to the left of the keeper near the goal line inside the penalty area. A mild case of argy bargey had his boot come off and then him on the floor feeling his foot. He came off and with him went our last best chance of a highly mobile world class twin strike threat. Shit. Darius Vassell gave his all as he always does for England but he’s no Duke and no Hawarden Terror. Still, the defence was playing well. We might still do it.

As the second half wore on the impression began to increase that we might just do it. Somehow the Portuguese, threatening as they were, fortunately just weren’t getting the kind of clear opportunities to make exit definite. Our defence was overworked but coping at full stretch. Then Gerrard went off with about ten minutes left and I felt my heart sink. Relatively below par as he was he was still the main midfield bulwark against a flood tide. I shook my head. Nothing short of a death threat should have brought him off in my totally absorbed and biased eyes. A few minutes later Portugal equalised. We were without The Duke AND Gerrard. It looked bleak.

All the more surprising when a super human last ditch effort got us a “goal” in the last minute. A Yodeller ref with a sour looking mouth disallowed it for some reason which doubtless escaped the rest of the planet as much as it did me. I was largely pissed by this time anyway. But that’s the way it goes. I couldn’t see our depleted team winning through despite the great courage and commitment they showed. Sure enough, the Portuguese went in front in extra time (the next one to say “overtime” gets a kick in the balls) and it really did look like curtains. But wait. This is footy, not yet an accountancy exercise. Lampard banged in an equaliser and the place went crazy again. Penalties.

Now if there’s one thing I absolutely utterly detest it’s settling a game through penalties. It’s no way to win, no way to lose. It is a cheap lottery, a senseless reduction of great effort and spectacle. It is the lowest common denominator. It is not sport, it is Yank style cheapo thrill making of the worst kind. I leaned against the nearest table awash in sluicing beer, unable to feel anything other than mere twitching of my footy instincts. I wanted to win of course. Just not this way, still less LOSE it this way. Sure enough we lost the lottery again. We were out just as news came through of a suspected broken bone in The Duke’s foot. Double shit. It never rains but it pours.

Outside, the night air was good and clear but filled with sad faces, droopy flags, runny face-paint and English loyalty through and through. The team had done their best. We simply didn’t have enough world class players in the right place at the right time. Next time, maybe. C’est la vie, c’est la guerre.

Next night a Vieira-less France got soundly mullered by an efficient team of Plate Smashers for the greatest result in the latter’s history. Funnily enough, the Gauls let a header in from roughly the same position Lampard did them in our opening match. This time though nobody at all was marking the scorer. Even a fat computer programmer could have waddled into the air and headed home. So the French went out the way they lost to Senegal in the last WC, pitifully. Oh well.

The next quarters match between The Cheeseheads ( © French chauvinism) and the Swedes was so bad I went out to dinner after twenty disinterested minutes and wasn’t in the least surprised to hear much later it too went goal-less to penalties. Does it matter the Dutch won? Only to the Dutch. The dinner was great. Good food, good companions, loads of laughter and chat. Penalties? Phooey.

Finally, the excellent Czech team – sadly I had missed their stirring group game fight back to beat Holland 3-2 after losing 2-0 – ran the stolid Danes to a 3-0 beating highlighted by the pinky Baros with two brilliant opportunist goals within a couple of minutes early in the second half. Frustrated, The Gravedigger had one of his flashes of neural lightning and tried to boot a Czech straight up in the air for no reason more apparent than they were both reasonably close to the ball. Well done, Tommy, you arsehead.

So the semis line up Portugal, Greece, Holland and the Czechs. We coulda, shoulda, been a CONTENDER, Charlie. But we’re not anymore. That’s knock-out footy. Death or glory.

Let’s hope the semi-finals burst out into the kind of spectacle we all want to see. So far the best you can say is that it has been okay at best. And only then if you leave your natural bias aside. (30/06/04)

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