Skip to main content

Car crash telly

By
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 Podolski netted me a few bob with the first goal, as did Koren for
Slovenia earlier in the day.I'm in delayed-play heaven now, watching the first of today's three
games.

Comments

  1. Stevie C16 June, 2010 03:02

    ITV have form for this kind of stuff.....

    http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/ITV-miss-goal-but-Everton-hero-Dan-Gosling-doesn-t-article32097.html

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Azteca

By
 Well, this one has crept up on me hard! I've barely had time to recover from Villa's Europa League win a fortnight ago; distracted all the while with SkySports trying to sell off our squad to The Big Six and reading stories of the thunderstorms and the visa complexities facing fans, players and referees of countries that Trump doesn't like today - and yet now here we are, listening to Gary Neville self reflecting on his own career as a scene setter for the World Cup. This one is a weird one. The expanded format and cruel time-zone scheduling mean that I go into it with no ambitions to 'watch it all'. The group stages are, on paper, almost devoid of any real jeopardy. The bloating of the tournament means there are now more groups than realistic winners, and with that, of course, no groups of death. And to cater for the stupid total number of teams which has to be 8,16,32 or even 64 dammit - just no other actual number; we have the awful spectacle of most  3rd place ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Geography lessons

By
 I'm writing this as Cape Verdi's masterplan is 9 minutes in, versus the mighty (but missing some players) Spain. They are the second nation (after Curaçao) that I didn't even know was a nation - and I have a degree in geography. So, let me share my learning. Curaçao, a Caribbean island has been a country in its own right since 2010. Prior to that, its the usual depressing story of European colonisation, abandonment (when the Europeans realised it wasn't stacked full of precious metals), reinvigorated interest (slave trade) and finally a degree of independence.  Cape Verdi on the other hand is a country (Island nation off the west coast of Senegal) that is older than I am, so I feel I should know better in their case. Again it has history of being a European colony and is another epicentre of the slave trade.  With this in mind, the needle matches to look out for later in the tourney are Curaçao vs Netherlands and Cape Verdi vs Portugal. After Curaçao's outing last...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pacing

By
 The teams that win this thing tend to pace themselves, or so the narrative goes. By that logic, France will burn fast and burn bright but ultimately fall short. Anyone watching their front four might disagree. My group chat were discussing the relative merits of Henry vs Mbappe last night, with the score at 0-0 vs Sweden. I declared for Henry and then over the course of 30 minutes he proved me emphatically wrong. He is so fast, hits the ball so cleanly, and a new thing at this tournament, actually seems to gel with team-mates. Whether you can do anything but gel with Olise remains to be seen. They certainly seem massively equipped to go all the way. Proper full backs, a dependable goalie, solid CD and CM options and the crazy front four with the likes of Doue and Cherki in reserve.  Another team surely doomed by being too good too soon are Mexico, who are playing with that lovely abandon that hosts usually do. They've been fun and I'm annoyed that all their games have been at...
Post a Comment
Read more