Skip to main content

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 group finishers qualifying for the round of 32. What this means, in order for a shock is a decent team to finish below 2 rubbish teams and somehow get unlucky with the worst 3rd place team thing.

What this means, in my mind, is that the tournament proper starts in the round of 32. Which is excellent news, because, to my horror, I am off on a camping trip this weekend. Something I would simply never had signed off on, unless I'd been out of touch with the football calendar. So obsessed was I with the premier league's final weekend, and the conclusion of European competitions, that I failed to consider the greatest show in the world.

Now, I sound nonplussed about it all, but I can assure you, I am just late to the hype party. All it is going to take is one kick at the Azteca and I'll be at fever pitch. I love love love the World Cup - and games that look shit on paper are my bread and butter. Truly, I will be devastated as I'm eating half cooked burgers and telling my kids to pipe down (for the 1000th  time) on Saturday night as Qatar and Switzerland kick off. Germany v Curacao when I get back? Yes please. The result is of course already assured, but the 0.000000001% chance of an upset vs a team I didn't even know was a country - yes please!

So this time around, expect a building narrative of the watching experience, rather than a complete game by game breakdown, but rest assured I am here for it.

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

Day 3 thoughts

By
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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more