World Cup Review

Sushi Blues

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I HOPE WE CAN STAY AWAKE ON SUNDAY.
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

When we got knocked out by the mediocre Drum Bangers I immediately went outside and kicked every dog and cat I could get on the end of my toe cap. Feeling marginally better, I returned to watch the Krauts take on the Yanks.

It was a good open match, a much better spectacle than ours. I mean nothing unbiased when I say the Yanks were robbed and were the better team by a long way. Ollie Khan (with a name like that you've got to wonder what happened to the master race) was inspired and made loads of good saves. The Yanks missed loads of good chances. The Yanks were denied a blatant penalty. The Yanks were very unlucky. The Yanks should have won. Glumly, I got an uneasy feeling the Krauts' name might be written on the trophy. Which of course would be a disaster for the advancement of the game. Let's not beat about the bush here: the Krauts are shite, and we all know they are, and so does Franz Beckenbauer. Judging from their sparse support, so do their own fans. The prospect of them actually winning the World Cup made me feel unwell.

The boy Donovan looked hot 'n' handy for the Yanks and so did a few others from the self-styled, misnamed Land of The Free. In keeping with their self-delusion of a classless Yank society where anybody can become anything they want, it turns out their coach Bruce Arena (talking of names, what about THAT one? Sounds like the name of a new Ozzie stadium. Presumably a female one would be named Sheila Arena) used to teach lacrosse before he decided he was better at football. With a bit of forethought he could have handed one of those net thingies to David Seaman and given him some instruction on how to catch a high ball. Yes, yes, I know………………cheap shot both ways. Buuut, what the hell, the Yanks and us got knocked out on the same day. Might as well take the piss out of everybody. What can you do when your wellies let in?

There's no reason either why the Drum Bangers should escape this diatribe, especially since some of the TV commentators are so far up themselves they're scratching their ear on the subject of Brazilian footy. Fact is, Roberto Carlos excepted, I wouldn't ask the present lot of 'Bangers to serve pies at GP. No, really. Example: when Rivaldo scored that first goal against the Junior Cheeseheads, the Manc Tyldesley couldn't wait to get out his carefully rehearsed, "It's riveting, it's ruthless, it's Rivaldo" tabloid TV strap line. Oh it was a good goal alright, but it wasn't riveting, or anything near it, not with the time and space given him by the Belgies. So I wanted to place Tyldesley's head in a vise and turn the key until the wax came out of his untalented nose. I figured that if Goofy got into his stride Tyldesley wouldn't be able to cope with his own bladder or bowels. Yeuk.

To my immense surprise the English media handled our exit reasonably well. I expected more of the sort of hysterical muck for which they are notorious. Instead, it was mostly sensible. Perhaps it's another sign everyone is growing up, harhar. Footy is only a game. Properly handled, it is a healthy and harmless escapist emotional outlet, and is not and never has been a tribal matter of life and death or anything remotely near it, whatever has been said by those who should know better. Which is why Korean naïve enthusiasm is so attractive on and off the pitch. You dread the day they become more "professional."

On Saturday I had other things to do and missed the Korea-Spain match except for the closing five minutes and Penalties Decider. Of course the Lee penalty save was completely illegal and should never have been allowed. From taped replays it looked like the Spaniards previously had their chances and blew them or had bad luck………………the standard Spanish footy story over the years, but still no excuse for their post-match behaviour. Still, the result meant the Koreans had disposed of Portugal, Poland, Italy and Spain. You have to ask if England could have done the same.

Later on the Turks saw off the Sengs on yet more Golden Goal bollocks. It wasn't much of a game and the Turks should have had it well won long before the end of normal time. Pity, I had hoped Senegal would give a better account of themselves. Sadly, they were well out of their depth by the end of the game. The Turks have built a good strong combination and have an outstanding all-round player in Hasan Sas.

By this time, waiting for the semis, we had pause enough once again to consider what a load of cack the Golden Goal and Penalties Deciders are. In recent tournaments we even had the final itself decided by this artificial crap. Time to consider what to do about it. Time to introduce a measure which keeps us away from a parody of Yank grid-iron, something which helps restore the spectacle of The Beautiful Game on the world stage. In league football the simple formula of three points for a win and one point for a draw helped enormously to rid the game of widespread defensive football. Now we need to consider something with similar affect in knock-out competitions. I have previously promoted restoration of extra time and then replays for as long as it takes. I stand by that method, maybe with some kind of variation. Whatever, we have to be rid of the bollocks lottery which has crept into important games over the years. The appalling final of USA '94 finally convinced me that enough was enough. The best player of that tournament, The Divine Pony Tail, was left with a terrible memory for the rest of his life while yet another shite Brazilian team walked off with the title.

Talk of excreta brings me to the Krauts. Again. You just can't avoid them. It is said of us scousers that we're like sand, we get everywhere. It's like that with the fucking Krauts and the World Cup. They won't go away. They're like a Hammer horror movie. If we skewered them with pointed wooden stakes, festooned the coffin with garlic, buried them under a crossroads at midnight and stuck a cross over the site the fuckers would STILL come out of the ground grinning through bloodied canine teeth and pursue your youngest and most nubile daughter while you were tied up. We did all of this when we won 5-1 at Castle Dracule AND THEY ARE STILL ALIVE.

All these dreadful and appalling thoughts glumly crossed my mind as I watched them dispose of Korea in the semis with, erm, cold efficiency. Right from the kick off you knew it was going to happen of course. It was like a pantomime. You wanted to shout, "Behind you!" to the Koreans but you knew they wouldn't pay any attention. They were too busy playing to the gallery. After the game, Uncle Bobby Robson said, "It was a great football match." Oh REALLY!? We must all fervently hope dear Bobby translates this kind of observation into practice at Toon. If he does, we'll get six easy points off them next season. As I watched Bobby I realised he has become a reincarnation of one of Kenneth Williams' greatest radio comedy characters, Rambling Sid Rumpo. In the background, that disgusting spiv Venables sniggered as Bobby stumbled from one phonetic disaster to another. None of which will bother Bobby one iota, since he has one huge advantage over said spiv: he's as honest as the day is long.

Look, I don't want to be a party pooper but there's no question the Korea-Kraut semi was a pile of mundane poo, however much noise and colour the Koreans provided. Naturally I wanted the Koreans to win. Every neutral did. And as usual they ran until they almost expired. Interesting, that, because they've finally managed to make the difficult leap into footy match fitness………………………something long lacking in the Asian game. It got to be hilarious at one point because a Kraut could hardly go near the ball without finding himself surrounded by a posse of eager, snapping Koreans. For a quite brief period it even looked as though it might work. But in the end the Koreans were limited to the occasional near-lethal breakout and though they missed a couple of really good chances they had the life choked out of them. Afterwards, Ollie Khan said they studied match tapes and decided on, erm, "containment." Yes, quite so. Tells us all we need to know. Ollie certainly did his part with an absolutely magnificent early diving save low down to his right, one worthy of the great Banksy at top form. Aaaaargh! The damned Jerries are in the final again.

That being the case, the damned Drum Bangers were bound to get there too. And eventually they did. But not before we had to endure a smidgeon of classic media Brazil craphype from John Motson on the BBC. It is now beyond parody. This time the dickhead surpassed anything Private Eye could come up with in "Coleman Balls." Brazil's goal came when Ronaldo made a pretty utilitarian turn left side of the penalty area, beat one man, made a couple of strides and got it home past the excellent Turkish keeper. It looked odd so I waited patiently for the slomo. But I was stuck with Motson's, "Extraordinary! What a GOAL! The technique was PHENOMENAL!" lot of nonsense in the meantime. When it was replayed, the shot was a complete mishit which was toe ended and had the fortune to go in the right direction. Anybody who has played the game will no how much of a lottery that makes the goal. There was nothing phenomenal about the shot at all, it was a sheer fluke. But there was no telling that to Motty, poor bastard. He was almost leaking into his trousers. Even the slomo didn't cause him to skip a beat in the crap he was talking. There were other examples.

(Still, I'll give him full marks for at least trying to get Turkish name pronunciation right. You might have thought even someone as parochial as an English TV commentator might have twigged the reason for a cedilla on the letter "s" [typically, not available in my version of Word] means it is pronounced "sh." Thus, Hashan Shash. But I digress………………it's not like me to strike at the roots of your linguistic inferiority. The English are generally useless at languages and probably will remain so.)

The match itself looked as though it might have developed into an exciting game at one point. No such luck. The Turks fought well but lacked skill. Brazil deserved it in the end and that's about as much as you can say about them.

So the final is Germany V Brazil. At one time this would have been a wonderful thought. But with the present teams it's going to take a truly remarkable game to correct the perception that I'd be better off catching up with the DIY. To his credit, the Drum Bangers' coach Scolari has conceded they aren't a great team, a worthwhile observation which simply hasn't got onto the radar screen of most of the media. Der Kaiser has already put on record his disdain for the Jerries.

Let's hope the final is a great game. If we get to half time and it's as much a load of cack as too many of the other games, I'm going to get on with the DIY.