Skip to main content

A competition breaks out

By

My post this evening comes from, unsurprisingly, in front of the telly. I'm watching football. Whilst that is not entirely surprising, I have actually had a bit of a struggle with it today. I had an office-day. The horror unfolded as I went into a 90 minute meeting with Argentina leading 1-0 and seemingly coasting to victory. They'd got their goal and were cutting through the Saudis with ease, having one or two [correctly] disallowed for offside. I gave myself the pep-talk - "it's fine Birchy, work is work and this is a foregone conclusion anyway. Watch the highlights and grow up a bit". The rest, as they say is history. I saw the drama unfolding with a couple of phone checks, and returned from the meeting to the barrage of WhatsApps, declaring it a fantastic match, a true spectacle and probably one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history. 

I'm fine about it. Really. 

More meetings interrupted the Denmark v Tunisia game - which looked better than the nil-nil score-line suggested so as I rushed home for the Mexico v Poland game I was truly determined to absorb the precious football this Tuesday had denied me. And what a game it was. Atmosphere broke out, with the Mexicans truly bringing it. With Mexico '86 being my first World Cup Panini album and first proper indulgence in the tournament; I've always been fond of them. Again, a really competitive game - which is what I'd been craving at this point yesterday. The draw is both a blessing and a curse for those two teams, as we surely expect the Argies to come back strong, and the Saudi will be bouncing. Its not inconceivable that this point is both teams' last. Lewandowski must feel like Djokovic did when Nadal and Federer were dominant - only without the benefit of winning everything once the other two declined. This is surely his last World Cup and he's yet to hit the net in one. 

So that's 3 well contested games today, to add to Wales and USA last night, which was gripping as well. I thoroughly enjoyed it, from the novelty of realising that Timothy Weah was George's son - the kind of "god I feel old" moment that is now much easier to handle having watched more than a decade of Kasper Schmeichel's career - to the thrill of seeing Bale's equaliser late on, and the blood filled faces of Wales' excellent fans. What that all adds to is an up in tempo for the whole tournament and the promise of meaningful games later on in the group stages.

Footnote - looks like tonight's game is going to re-fill the goals quote for the day! I wonder if France will get past England's total?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am numb

By
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...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Lalas factor

By
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...
Post a Comment
Read more

I missed a game!

By
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...
Post a Comment
Read more