The Three Dads World Cup Wonderland

I'm sat watching the world's most meaningless football match, the World Cup 3rd place playoff - two teams who just want to go home, forced instead to play out a dead rubber. Even the Community Shield had more meaning. This time around, however, we have the morbid excitement and voyeurism of watching Brazil's very public meltdown. They are an object lesson in falling apart once things start to go against them, like the Newcastle of international football. As things stand they are two goals down and there's no chance I'm switching off as they could easily fold and become a laughing stock, just as they could suddenly find form and claw things back. Tomorrow sees the final and a surprising amount of people rooting for Germany, probably because they look the best team by some margin. I'm gunning for Argentina (a) because I'd win £50 if they win (b) because I predicted on this blog that they'd win and (c) because I want to see Messi lift that trophy. He's ...

As the cameraman panned through the Brazilian crowd picking out the shocked and the grieving during their 7-1 defeat to Germany, I was shedding tears of my own, for different reasons. (And this explains the blog tailing off in the past few days). Yesterday I saw my baby daughter, Evie Hope, still born. Sorry for the shock, those of you reading for a bit of light-hearted punditry probably didn't sign up for that. You may be thinking "why the f*ck is he posting on his blog the day after that"; and the answer is that life really must go on. I was sat yesterday in the hospital, after everything had unfolded with my day, and I found myself put in a room, with a telly, at 8:30pm. I had a choice. Sit there and be sad, or wham on the footy and watch what was the most shocking semi-final in living memory. Incredible game and Brazil, as I and many feared might happen, were found out against organised opposition. Germany were just brilliant, playing disciplined and simple footba...

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