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Showing posts from 2010

and Lows

The final The 'Golden Generation' of English football The ending of Robert Green's international career My only winning world cup bet..... 0-0 Correct Score vs Algeria Portugal's desire to beat the opposition 0-0 (unless they were called N Korea) Brazil's implosion after conceding a goal against the Dutch. Now regretting we were deprived a Brazil - Spain match Yakubu's miss from 1.2 yards in the final group game. One of the best ever A whole bunch of over-hyped players failing to shine Jubilani / Goalkeeping. One of them is to blame.... we may never know which The final (sorry, I just can't shake the disappointment and anger at the Dutch assault.... )

Highs

10 great things about SA 2010: Shabalala's opening goal of the tournament Blanco storming the pitch for Mexico at the grand age of 73 (or something like that) Messi in the opening group games, setting up almost all of his team's goals France's incredible implosion and footage captured all on tv Landon Donovan's last minute winner for the US. One of the teams to actually bring drama to this world cup. The best free kicks coming from Japan, in the same game... vs Denmark German destruction of England and Argentina Ridiculous late drama from Gyan's missed penalty My world cup beard... it lasted the whole tournament... reached impressive levels Alexi Lalas

Empty

So there it is.... they think it's all over... it is now... Back to life, impending parenthood and the like. Back to talking to the wife about more than the passing carousel. A pointless game turned out to be one of the games of the tournament, very entertaining, and in Diego Forlan , you have no complaints about the man winning the golden ball. His endless energy and creative impact just not quite enough to get past the Germans, who did admittedly approach the game a little bit like a kick about, but after the war of attrition over the last month, 2 teams not bothering to really try to defend properly, was quite refreshing. Probably most telling in his clinching of the player of the tournament award was the fact Forlan was not involved in one of the worst finals of all time. I feel cheated. What was supposed to be the greatest show on earth turned out to be on a par with Leeds v Millwall . Clearly, I'm not delusional enough to expect a 5-4 ageless classic, but what I didn'

One left

The reality of life without World Cup is dawning upon me. As I sat enjoying the Spain v Germany semi final I realised that the three day break until the final would then develop into a full 2 year gap until the next major tournament. The structure of my evenings will take on a new form. I will presumably have to step up and take the responsibilities of a normal husband, rather than those of a cocooned oaf, who gets home, fiddles with the telly and settles for a 4-6 hour festival of vuvuzela fun. There's one last hurrah, a final between the two strongest and most resilient teams in the tournament. Spain are like a boa constrictor. With their passing they slowly, and deceptively paralyse their prey, passing, passing, passing, ever tightening their grip on the game before finally delivering the killer blow. Holland likewise have looked strong if not completely convincing. They have enough flair players to pose a threat. I expect Spain will do the business and confirm themselves

Paul has spoken....

No need to watch the game tomorrow. In a rather pessimistic move, Paul, the psychic octupus has turned on his team. He reckons the Germans will lose. I think that Paul is starting to play mind games with the Spanish.... I'm going to go against the concensus from the aquatic footie experts, acknowledge the fact that Spain look suspect at the back, and Germany have destroyed both England and Argentina, also safe in the knowledge that if it goes to pens, there's only one winner. Germany v Holland final, making it much clearer for me as to which team to cheer for on Sunday... Yup Yup!

Semi excited

Writing after the Dutch semi-final... Birchy, hats off to your predo at the outset of the tournament.... would have got a decent price at that pt for a NL v ESP final. Many random thoughts from another engaging game.... - Had taken the day off (and tomorrow) to devote to the games... only to be met with a NYC heatwave. 103 degrees meant I did not leave my air conditioned man cave, but suspect it was nuts (and sweaty) in the Dutch bars in town - There's another party in Ruud's hotel room tonight - Did all of the goalkeepers review "Diego Forlan, the Man Utd years" when researching their Uruguayan opponents? This is the only explanation for every goal he has scored this summer being the result of goalies thinking.... "ahh, he's not going to score from there......sshiiiittt!" Kudus though for being the only player to really tame the Jubalani - The Dutch starting to actually look like the Dutch for 20 mins in the second half, with Van de Vaart in the te

Extra time

Think you're right Birchy , fatigue is starting to set in on the blogosphere ... which by no means correlates to my enjoyment of the world cup - far from it. I thought the quarters were all great: Holland v Brazil: A frantic match and amazing eye opener as the greatest team on earth imploded the minute they conceded a freak goal. They say dogs look like their owners, and this Brazil team quickly mimicked their emotional jack in a box coach, completely lost the plot and lost their place in the tournament. Someone made Robinho wear a Man City shirt under his Brazil jersey in the second half also. Uruguay v Ghana: There's not a single player who would have not done exactly what Suarez did in this game. However, I'm just glad the media didn't pick up on the fact that my hard earned cash was on Uruguay being eliminated at the quarter final stage (yes, I had thought it would be England beating them at this stage.... hmm ), as this clearly was the final burden for Ghana tha

And then there were four

So we're down to the final four and I think Stevey and I are as weary as some of the players. Posting on blogs takes its toll too. So to keep it short and sweet. Expect a Spain vs Holland final - see 'predictions' post from 11 June :o)) I expect Uruguay to bow out, missing their volleyball expert Suarez; and the Germans to come up against a strong Spain side that even when not firing on all cylinders; are still a fearsome prospect.

Money and mouth

Rising to stevey's challenge here are my quarter final tips. My money has also been placed where my mouth is, so I could be a bit poorer by Saturday night. Holland v Brazil: I predict and upset, Holland to go through thanks to Sneijder's magnificence. Uruguay v Ghana: I think Ghana look Strong. Athletic. Talented. Hungry. That's enough buzzwords to guarantee a win. Spain v Paraguay: nearest thing that there could ever be to a "by" to the next round. Spain. So easy that even Torres might score. Germany v Argentina: Shock horror, this will see all four South American teams crashing out. Germany, with Deutsche Bundesbahn style efficiency will make England fans feel that little bit better by defeating Argentina.

Prediction time

Ok, so the quarter finals look like this: Uruguay v Ghana: A romantic start to the quarters, Ghana sneaking through to a semi-final appearance... although it won't be pretty... 0-0 and through on pens Brazil v Holland: Everyone is expecting a great game here, but this game is probably the best two defences in the tournament, so I think it will be tight. Provided they keep Robben under wraps, I'm going for Brazil 1-0 (Fabiano of course). Spain v Paraguay: The breakout game for Spain. An early goal ruining the Paraguayan game plan, and in their joy at merely being in a quarter final, they ship two further goals. 3-0 to Spain. Germany v Argentina: Ok, everyone's looking at the Brazil game - but this is the goal fest. Call me psychic, but for some reason I think Mascherano will do a better job than Barry did containing the attacking German midfielders. But he can't do it on his own, and not with a dodgy defence behind him. I'm going 2-2, Argentina to win 3-2 in Extra

Withdrawal...........

Holy crap. There's no football to watch today...... Thankfully, due to the disgrace of Sunday's performance, I have cocooned myself into the foetal position for the last couple of days, only slowly coming out of my shell by sterling performances from mostly South American teams and also the Spaniards last night. So I have some catching up to do again... Birchy, you have done the character assassination fairly well there, a career in the British press awaits, although you need to work on your ability to exaggerate the players' abilities and build them up immensely before any tournament also - just makes the fall all the more spectacular.. (and sells papers). I don't feel the need to build too much on top of that... I would stick up for Stevie G laa a little bit. He's clearly played out of position and he did seem to try.. No, shambolic defending, an inability to retain possession for longer than 2.6 seconds and our "star" player lacking in any kind of form

Beer and champagne

Last night David Pleat surprised me. now that sounds a bit wrong, but it is true. Normally renowned for kerbside antics and mispronounciation on his commentary, he actually wowed me with the best summing up of a team performance that I've heard all tournament. In describing Brazil's initially workmanlike and then flair-ridden demolition of Chile he described the performance as "like drinking a pint of beer and then a bottle of champagne". Lovely. Brazil march through and look strong. Holland do likewise, settting up a mouthwatering quarter final. The excitement of today is focussed mainly on Portugal vs Spain, where generous bookies are offering 29/1 against Ronaldo getting sent off. My 50p investment now means that I will not only get the general satisfaction of seeing cheats brought to justice, but I will also net £15 if it happens.

Put tail between legs, board plane, head home

And so England's torrid battle with the 2010 World Cup has finally had the 'Dignitas' treatment and been put firmly to sleep. Although I thought we might raise our game and win the match, I am left feeling unsurprised by the outcome - there were just too many shortcomings in our team. I think this calls for a player-by-player rundown to get to the bottom of things: 1) James: played superbly after coming in for Rob Green. Excellent handling, good communication. Slightly at fault for Germany's second goal, but he was left woefully exposed. 2) Johnson: reasonable going forward, but a defensive liability. He is sadly going the same way as Jay-Lloyd Samuel, formerly of Villa, becoming ever more relaxed on the pitch to the point he plays at a Blanco-esque snails pace. He has the positional sense of Chernobyl village. 3) Ashley Cole: if I hear his name in the same sentence as Maicon again as 'one of the world's best full-backs' I think I will throw my televis

I'm growing a beard

What can a man on crutches do, but grow his very own World Cup beard. Started off with mostly a Rooney type appearance, but has now progressed to an almost Cesc Febregas..... still some way to the ultimate goal of an Olaf Mellberg, but the quest continues...

Radio silence

Limited activity on the blogosphere in recent days. A combination of smugness from finally a resolute English performance, an ill advised return to work and a deep coma induced by watching Portugal v Brazil, means I have a lot to catch up on while I watch Uruguay take on the South Koreans..... Firstly, the roar of the three lions! Good performance all round, with no one really standing out for me, just a very good team performance, although we look so much more of a threat with Defoe up front than poor Emile. Not that he did a huge amount, but he got one chance and took it, and that's going to be key in the later stages... No real comedy moments to recall, the game was too tense, although what seems like a recurring theme for the remainder of the tournament, the pitches are all starting to look like the Springboks have been sneaking under cover of darkness to play a couple of games of egg chasing. Mark my words, if it hasn't happened yet, there will be multiple commentary momen

Staring down the barrel

Thanks Stevey for saving me having to do any big rundown of the last 2 days' games. I think you captured all of the highlights bar one. This was Alberto Parreira's post match interview after the glorious (but inconsequential) win against France. I watched, hoping that he was going to unleash a Roberto Carlos-esque powerful volley (of vitriol) about Domenech's spoilt child antics, but instead he praised the achievements and spirit of his South African team. At the end of the interview he did leave a little teaser though, failing to pronounce the final syllable of this sentence: "Everyone can be really proud of this country". Was he making a clever linguistic-bluff reference to Domenech? If so, clever stuff. And so onto today. My office has declared early closing to facilitate football watching, and whilst I'd have appreciated a 12:30pm finish every day for the past 10, I'll take anything I can get. And so will begin my ultimate score avoidance efforts to

It's a knockout!

The weekend had started so promisingly - the father in law had come up for the weekend to take care of all of the jobs my current limping state could not complete (and the wife would argue wouldn't get done even absent the crutches). However, in a clear effort to bond with his son in law, he arrived early, so enabling him to sit down and watch the England game with me. And there the wheels came off quicker than a French training session..... Too much has been lamented since Friday, so I will not dwell on a disasterous game. John Terry continues to demonstrate what a classless individual he really is, while Capello, without a hint of irony (not sure they have that in Italy), runs to the media to lambast Terry for err, running to the media. As a result of the dour Cape Town fare, it was difficult for me to explain I needed to ignore the father in law for the rest of the weekend because Ghana v Australia "may be a humdinger of a game".... and thus I caught nothing but highli

I am numb

The England match left me numbed. Unimpressive, uninspired, lacklustre – however the bottle of champagne I enjoyed with the game certainly took the edge off things. It seems that we, along with France and Italy are suffering some horrendous ‘anti-football’ affliction. If the game was less global then we could put it down to ‘a long hard season in the Premier league’ or ‘the difficulty of being motivated for national team games when the premier league pays so well’; but neither is valid. Neither is this jibulabulani ball business. The teams who pass to each other seem not to suffer. Poor selections and poor play has blighted us, and whilst lots of vitriol heads in the direction of Heskey, we’d do well to remember that the main culprits on Friday were Gerrard and Rooney for having zero patience on the ball and terrible control. Lampard wasn’t much better. At least Barry gave us some sort of stable platform to build from. I expect the introductions of Joe Cole and Jermain Defoe or Peter

Lalas factor - update #3

"It's just amazing that these guys are great for their club sides, but put the white shirt of England on, and they just don't perform" ( Steve McManaman) "ok, these guys may be rich and well paid, but maybe they're just not that good" (Alexi) Alexi, I have no smart comeback at this time. You're dangerously on the money (no pun intended). Please can someone tell 'Macca' that there are still English people watching him. The irony of that statement needs no words.... That is all I can say right now... it's just too depressing. I will likely not get round to posting on the other games today, so as an executive summary of those efforts, I would like to wish everybody Happy Incompetent Referees Day!! Ok, back to the medication...........

Au revoir

I need to get this post in quick and gloat over a fine Mexican performance and an absolutely terrible display from the French before David James spills a corner and England lose 1-0 to the plucky Algerians in about an hour. I have been fairly good with my predictions so far this world cup, but none so more than my desire for the second round games to get going for the action to really start..... Before that, credit to the Swiss. Where many (MANY) teams have tried to play defensively and on the break against better teams, they actually executed this perfectly against the Spanish. I don't know yet how I feel about a potential Spain - Brazil second round game. Obviously, great game, but should it be happening so soon in the tournament?? Anyway, moving on - and the second round of group games: Uruguay - SA France - Mexico Order has been restored here. The weak SA team (and none more disappointing than Pienaar) are where they need to be - they're just simply too limited, and certain

Gallas

The world cup finally caught fire last night in a spectacular day of football. I was refreshed from my self imposed ‘night-off’ (reduction to watching only 1.5 games of the 3) the previous night and sat down to watch my trio of games with much relish last night. First up was Argentina vs South Korea, in my opinion the verification of the top two places in that group. Argentina looked majectic again, going forward, and Higuain scored what will be the easiest hat-trick of his life. The office worker equivalent would be a bloke sat with his feet on the desk all day, sipping a beer, and then taking credit for his team’s achievements at the end of the day. Messi, Tevez and Di Maria did all the legwork and put goals on a plate for him. The match further confirmed my belief though, that like last time, Argentina will ook like world beaters, smashing some teams into oblivion, but will struggle against a team who can themselves attack. Still the fullbacks look woeful and they threw in some cent

I missed a game!

Due to growing fatigue and the relentless tedium of the first round games I made the executive decision to skip Chili v Honduras and the most part of Spain v Switzerland. Not sure if that is a function of me growing up (something to do with marital responsibility? Not sure whether the wife would agree that me only watching one and a bit games in an evening is really "stepping up to the plate"), or just a result of this being the lowest scoring opening round of matches. I had thought that this decision, combined with sod's law would spark an absolute goal-feast, but the Everton-esque 1-0 results continued. As Steve says, roll on the second round of matches. Sadly the South Africans lived down to expectations and were soundly thrashed by Uruguay. Although a shame, I personally don't like to see a weak host team progress to the knockout stages, because it always ends up being effectively a gimme match for someone in the latter stages. The match to watch today will be M

Next round please barman!

Not quite sure what I have been doing with my days, but I need to catch up on a few games... Holland v Denmark Japan v Cameroon Italy v Paraguay NZ v Slovakia Ivory Coast v Ronaldo Brazil v Kim Jong-il Firstly, tomorrow marks the first of the second group games and THANK GOD. I've had my fill of tight "too afraid to make a mistake" cagey low scoring nonsense... I'm ready for the show to really start.... The Dutch did enough in their toughest group game, but didn't overly impress and got lucky with one of the finer examples of "twenty pence head" by Poulsen for Denmark for the opening own goal. Denmark could be a sleeper team - they have a strong defence and just need Bendtner to have one of his one every twenty games amazing performances and they could surprise. Stat of the day: Japan became the first team for a lot of years to win a world cup game without winning a corner kick. Not sure what is more depressing, the actual fact or that someone actually

Lalas factor - update

Great insight again from the ginger bearded one today.... "so stupid of the guy to take his shirt off like that, he's got a yellow card and for a defender he just can't do that" The reaction to New Zealand's Winston Reid removing his shirt in his goal celebration.... For the record, Winston, who plies his trade for FC Midtjylland (?!?!), was making only his FOURTH start for New Zealand, scored his FIRST international goal, which came in the 93RD MINUTE and secured NZ's FIRST EVER point at a World Cup finals, which the manager later described as the country's finest result...EVER Hmm, one can only imagine Alexi similarly berates the wife after coital exercises if she ever lets her enjoyment eat into her time allocated for evening dinner preparation.....

I learned 2 things today

The world cup has been an educational experience for me. In the last 24 hours I learned two valuable things: 1) I can play the vuvuzela! Yes, I am now in possession of a green 2ft long vuvuzela and to the annoyance of neighbours and wife have been joining in the incessant droning from the comfort of my lounge. They actually seem to have a much depper tone individually than it seems on the telly (unless I have a bass version, or a particular Barry White style) 2) I can now boot up my V+ Box in 'engineers mode' and fix terminal errors, a lesson born out of necessaity when the box fatally crashed at 7:30pm last night, thus leaving me in total meltdown in terms of watching back Japan vs Cameroon and simultaneously recording Italy vs Paraguay. Forty three minutes of furious rebooting, huffing, rebooting again before finally looking up hacks on the internet and rebooting with mystery button-holds and presses to launch engineers mode and resolve the faults. The wife was impressed/

Car crash telly

So it looks like the car crash I saw prior to the England match was a  symbol of what was to follow. First, the uk coverage managed to make the ultimate cock up, accidently cutting to adverts whilst England were scoring their goal. It cut back in time for the end of the celebration. Little did I know that my vitriolic outburst would be dwarfed later on by the reaction to Rob Green's efforts at stopping Donovan's not-deceptive 'slow ball' delivery. Mexico's legend of yesteryear Rene Higuita would probably have caught  that shot between his toes, but not our Rob. According to opta he was the most mistake-prone keeper in the premier league last year. Nice. I actually don't begrudge the selection too much, unlike Ledley King, who spends his life injured, and is now injured again - waste of a plane ticket if ever there was one. On a more positive note, how good were Germany? They stand out with Argentina as the first real contenders so far. Also pleased that Pod

Day 3 thoughts

Not much time here so we're going to have to go with a quick fire round today: Continued my poor run of watching the 7:30am games. Best decision EVER. sounds like a stinker of a game, but a potentially horrible result.... last game frustration as the Slovenians park the bus awaits! Algeria game on Friday promises to be a goalkeeping masterclass.... could be a basketball score... Looks like Ghana for 2nd in Group B, were not spectacular but thought they played well enough sans Essien. Serbia's Nikola Zigic - oh dear. Looks like the love child of Gareth Barry and Peter Crouch, and plays like the latter. Great defensive clearance when it seemed easier to score... Somebody get Alex McLeish a stiff drink Well crap. We just saw the best team in the tournament and its the Germans.... Birchy, I wish I could report more on the reaction of the locals to the 1-1 draw, but I have been confined to the house. Mr Lalas was suitably pleased though, and I have seen many facebook posts about a

Oh baby....

Day 2 of the greatest show on Earth.... started uneventfully for yours truly, a poor start to my commitment to watching all of the 7:30 am kick offs this summer, as I turned on the TV midway through the second half.... "but it is only Greece v Sth Korea" I told myself... , it'll be a different story for Algeria v Slovenia tomorrow... As it proved, the Korean goal after 6 minutes really confused the Greeks who thought they could just defend like their 2004 heroes, and surely that will work.... alas not. A speedy exit awaits, but not before they play 14 men behind the ball against Argentina.... Speaking of which, an intriguing game of 'attack vs defence' followed with Argentina taking on Nigeria, with the former seemingly able to attack at will, while Nigeria seemed to not really want to be the team having to playing defence (judging by the poor effort of the art they demonstrated for much of the game). Great debut from Manager Diego though. Pulled out all of the

Day 2

Today has been a mirror image of yesterday, with the first game looking like a 3rd/4th place playoff, and then the next match being the main event. First, South Korea got off to a flying start against an abject Greece. The Greek coach was obviously inspired by Blanco's fat appearance for Mexico yesterday, and decided to field eleven players in the same mould. An entire team of scrum-halves, chunky but small and no good at football. Argentina srcaped their way home (though could have won by five) against an otherwise impressive Nigeria. Their forward line is pretty mesmeric, but clearly there is the capacity to concede on a fairly large scale. In Heinze and Guttierrez they possibly have the worst pair of fullbacks their proud nation has ever fielded. Shock of the day was watching ITVs coverage of one of the mascots stood in the tunnel before kickoff, openly holding his penis. The cameraman lingered on the shot for far too long, put me off my lunch. Thanks to a genius bit of TV

Tshalabalalalala

Martin Tyler had some kind of seizure this afternoon Stateside as he disappointingly tried to spring into a song as he announced one of the more memorable opening goals of a world cup finals....... I agree Birchy, not quite Cameroon v Argentina, but lets not burden the lowest ranked hosts ever with such lofty standards...... It does seem that we've both been watching the same games today, and I'm in agreement with a lot of your observations... South Africa: The most nervous and apprehensive start to a football game since Graham told Carlton not to do that Brilliant opening goal Less than sublime offside trap and the appearance that they had never defended a set piece in their lives Khune the goalie - I can't make my mind up. He treated the football as if it was made of molten lava, yet his hasty distribution would turn out to be the best defence splitting pass of the day Stevie P very quiet. Maybe that puts him closer to signing that Everton contract. Mexico: A very dodgy k

Underwhelming but brilliant

So, it has all started at last and its safe to say that Group A has officially underwhelmed. I'm still waiting for an opening match to beat the Cameroon vs Argentina match in 1990. The BBC in its bizarrely inane and misguided commentary efforts (rarely are they made to look inferior to ITV) said that the teams all looked evenly matched! Not so. It looked pretty plain to me that even vuvuzelas won't save South Africa. Sure their goal was great, a fitting start to any World Cup, but they offered very little. They are athletic but lack talent (Pienaar aside Stevey). Mexico should have slaughtered them, and in not doing so have essentially consigned themselves to an early exit. And so to France v Uruguay, both former winners. Though it turned out to be pretty tedious, it was clear these two teams were a cut above. Uruguay sharp in their passing and potentially threatening, and France with their wealth of talent just waiting to come to life. The draw for these two teams was a go

Just like home

Martin Tyler and Efan Ekoku are my commentators for the opening game on ESPN.... not that I can hear them over the vevuzelas I'm getting carried away now, but Stevie Pienaar looks like a man on a mission (and I'm hoping that mission is beating Mexico single-handedly and not just engineering a big money move away from Everton this summer....)

Here's my predictions

A rather predictable Brazil - Spain final with Brazil winning England getting to the semis Uruguay as my surprise team to go late in the tournament Holland to look like world beaters early on, scoring goals for fun, but losing to Brazil in the quarters...

Predictions

I filled in my World Cup wallchart this morning (which I have been banned form putting on the wall, so I have to fold it up and put it away after each furtive update). My chart has a section for predictions and in a bit of a hurry I completed it. The results I came up with were as follows: Winners: Spain Runners Up: Holland England get as far as: QF Total goals: [a bumper] 201 Total Red cards: only 7 (I reckon at least 3 of these will be in games involving North Korea)   In other news: My work colleagues are already calling me sad because of my 'radio-silence' email I am seriously considering buying a vuvuzela  (but it has, like the wallchart, been veto'd - I gotta pick my battles) I am beside myself about the imminent start of 'the greatest show on Earth

Misplaced story of the day

News that the Brazilian referee in charge for USA v England has been schooled in the top 20 English swear words which may cause problems for Wayne Rooney..... .... it appears that no one has stopped to think that Wazza hasn't really learnt to speak English yet...... so as long as the list hasn't been compiled by Jim Royle, we should be fine.

Stat of the day

Japan have scored more goals for England than Emile Heskey has in the past 12 months. As a Villa fan, I find the stat less hilarious than most. However I think he did our defence a favour by injuring Ferdinand, and can only exceed expectations this tournament.

Birchy: "Real life needn’t get in the way".

As ever I am beside myself with excitement about the forthcoming World Cup; and those that know me will be aware of my tendency to 'not do things by halves'. Since 1994, a happy combination of suitable time zones, total obsession and lenient annual leave arrangements has enabled me to pretty much watch every minute of every World Cup match throughout my entire adult life. South Africa 2010 provides three massive challenges to this established norm: • With South Africa and the UK effectively sharing the same time zone, matches are played during the afternoon and evening, thus ruling out the possibility to just sacrifice sleep for a month and watch during a night-shift – something which makes America's-hosted tournaments a cinch. • I have just got married, and a month in front of the television is not a traditional honeymoon period for the wife. • My current employer does not give me so much annual leave that I am able to take the necessary amount of time off and still h

The Lalas factor

Famous for having a very ginger goatee in 1994. He also managed LA Galaxy, (yes THE galaxy), before getting fired after winning errrm, nothing. A fine CV in which to impart his wisdom. Welcome to ESPN's premier 'soccer' analyst for the next month here in the US. However, I am particularly excited by this development - a stroke of genius by the programming masterminds - in the space of about an hour, he has given me a month's worth of material..... "well, when you think about it, Bob Bradley has done as much as Fabio Capello in his career" "US to win 2-1 on Saturday, I see England getting out of their group but not sure after that" "but what kind of defensive message does this send to the players - I can't agree" (in response to a scarily great tactical suggestion by John Harkes - yes of Sheff Wed fame - to play Landon Donovan, the US' best player, behind the striker to exploit the fact that neither Lampard or Gerrard will ultimately

In the beginning

32 teams, one dream, one winner and one bored man sidelined to the sofa for the next 6 weeks after knee surgery, gives you the birth of the 789,975th world cup blog in existence. Nil points for originality maybe, but with the aid of Birchy residing back in Blighty and myself ensconsed in enemy territory in NYC, we do have somewhat of a unique coverage of the at times hysterical punditry both sides of the atlantic as the tournament involves. Huge thanks to Birchy for getting this thing set up and his genuine excitement at actually doing this! And away we go......................