What We Learned From Group A Eliminators


South Africa 2 – 1 France

Oh my how South Africa will rue a moment of defensive madness. Not the moment when they allowed Ribery to get goal side of his defensive marker and set up Malouda for the goal that totally deflated Bfana Bfana, but the moment in that first match when they played not one, not two, not three, but four Mexicans onside for the tap-in that allowed Mexico back into the game and dropped two vital points for South Africa. How different things would have been had South Africa won that as they really should. They might have gone into the Uruguay match on a high with a bit of momentum and got some kind of result. As it is they are down and out having just beaten the losing finalists from 2006 and in some style until the last 20 minutes when they began to tire and the French scored. It’s sad, they could have had an easier Group (with say North Korea, Nigeria, and Honduras for instance), but the truth is that they were a poor side who survived on enthusiasm and optimism rather than skill and whose top man, Pienaar, never found the form that made him so effective for Everton. Only the supercool Tshabalala really impressed and he missed a number of opportunities to increase South Africa’s lead.

France, meanwhile, go out on something of a high, they have done marginally better than they did in 2002. Sure they finished bottom of their group, which included Uruguay, they played three, lost two and drew one, and they had a goal difference of -2, but this time at least they scored a goal. And quite a nice one it was and Malouda will want to keep that in his scrapbook. They also outdid themselves in the uniquely Gallic sulking stakes. Whereas in Japan in 2002 they were merely grumpy, stroppy, miserable tossers, this time they’ve added a whole new contemptuous angle to their behaviour. The players it seems prefer their bling and sloppy-mouthed gangsta verbidge to actually training or playing or anything. They seem to have no shame. Henry performed another blatant handball takedown, hoping maybe for that to become his signature move in the luscious advertising filled world he will now inhabit now he has renounced football for socca. Dominatrix, meanwhile, showed that he genuinely has no class whatsoever by refusing to shake the South African manager’s hand after the match. So, winners in their own special way, the French have elevated being sporting c**ts to something of an art form. They cheated to get to South Africa and were miserable, unpleasant tossers the entire time they were there. Thank f**k they’re leaving on a jet plane this evening.

Uruguay 1 – 0 Mexico

Who’d a-thunk it? Two teams who only required a draw for both to go through produce a result with honest to goodness shots and goals and the like. Having spent the time watching the South Africa vs France match, I’ve no idea who started it but it seems like one of those playground arguments that got seriously out of hand – “Miss, Miss, he’s tooken my ruler”, “No I didunt”, “Cheater”, “Liar” etc – before the nuclear option of “Your Mum” is played by one of the little brats and things go massively downhill. Given that Uruguay would have topped the group if things stayed at 0 – 0 and thus avoided Argentina in the next round (which has to be the reason for this no draw score),  you have to think that it was Mexico who first employed the playground tactic of actually having a shot on target, after which the Uruguayans must have immediately dished out the “Your Mum” response and gone for goal. I can particularly see Diego Forlorn as the messy-haired belligerent toddler ever anxious to take offence an given his performance so far he’s a dangerous man to upset.

So Bye-Bye South Africa And France

Two teams who fundamentally weren’t good enough to get out of what was a eminently winnable Group. South Africa just weren’t given the breaks they needed by FIFA, France were just shocking.

34 Down 30 To Go 27 Teams Remaining


Extra Extra What We Learned At The Halfway Point


The Competition Has Kicked Off

Yes, the Second Round of Group matches were certainly better than the First Round. Most teams understood that they couldn’t simply defend all the time and play for a draw, even the Swiss, whose adoption of an almost ‘Neutral Country’ option has seen them regularly top both the Haven’t Conceded and the Haven’t Scored tables, realised that at some point they’d have to come out and have a shot, although to be fair they did have something that vaguely resembled a shot in the First Round and it paid off handsomely. The games got faster and more meaningful as we saw Matches That Mattered and teams realised that there was a very real danger of their World Cup ending later this week.

The Goals Are Coming

As teams threw off the shackles of defensive cowardice and started attacking we began to see more goals. Few teams were content to sit on a one goal lead and continued to press their opponents. Some goals were even good, although few of them were up to the Tshabalala standard. However, I distinctly remember exclaiming, “What a goal” more than once during Round 2.

The Cheating Has Started

Grab and Dive, with or without pirouette, is the order of the day. Compulsive penalty box wrestling at every set piece. Not that much deliberate diving, but plenty of subtle blocking and writhing around. All in an attempt to cheat your way to a free kick or some colour of card for the opposition, or both. Not good. I think if it continues, we will see some kind of tv replay system introduced on the fly, if only because the whole world is watching.

Lots of Empty Seats

Now that it’s getting serious I suspect we won’t be seeing too many empty stadiums, but I’d lay money that there will be empty seats at the Uruguay Mexico match, where both teams need only to draw to go through (0 – 0 anyone?). However, too many venues have been conspicuously less than capacity.

Who Has Been Naughty?

It’s goodbye to South Africa, France (very naughty), Nigeria, Greece (very bad),  Algeria,  Oztralia (awful), Serbia (painful). Cameroon, New Zealand (rubbish), Slovakia (tedious), Ivory Coast (unlucky to get Group of Death for the second World Cup in a row), North Korea, and Honduras. You are all officially too crap for the World Cup. Book your flights now.

Who Has Been Nice?

And it’s hello to Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, South Korea, Ghana, Germany, Holland, Paraguay, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, and Chile. Nicely done South America.

And Who Is Bricking It?

Group C is totally up for grabs with two of Engerland, USA and Slovenia, the permutations are excruciating, but basically all teams have to win to be sure that they will qualify. In Group E Japan and Denmark will duke it out, a draw being enough to take the Japanese through. Group H is so complicated that Spain, Chile and Switzerland could all end up with 6 points and theoretically identical goal differences and goals scored, in which case as Spain will have beaten Chile, who have beaten Switzerland, who have beaten Spain lots would have to be drawn.  Makes penalty shoot outs seem tame by comparison.

And Who Is Really Bricking It Most?

Has to be ever-optimistic no-hopers Engerland, who just seem utterly unable to cope with the pressure of having to play a few matches away from home in front of large television audiences. Basking in unwarrented media acclaim and with performances getting more inadequate by the day, Engerland are a disaster waiting to happen. And while the French are imploding with a farcical degree of hilarity, Engerland can’t even manage an effective internal coup d’etat. One thing is clear, Wednesday could be the most excruciating game of football ever played.


What We Learned From Italy vs New Zealand (1-1)


Laugh, We Nearly Cried

Now it’s palpably obvious that New Zealand are a rubbish team, whose inclusion in the World Cup is simply part of a plot by Sepp Blatter to bring in all one million of the Pacific Islands into the ‘Football Family’ thereby gaining him enough votes to be President for life. However, it is clear that as they have now scored more goals and have the same number of points as Engerland, they are a world force to be reckoned with, an obviously welcome addition to the international football fabric. How we laughed when New Zealand, who have a superior FIFA ranking to the cheeky North Koreans it must be said, scored against the haughty Italians in the first few minutes.

Same Old, Same Old

Now the limitations of New Zealand are the limitations of a classic Sam Allerdyce team, like Blackburn Rovers, whose clumpy defender Ryan Nelson stars for the All Whites (alongside former Halifax Town luminary Shane Smeltz), namely sub-Mourinho Discipline defending, two banks of four cloggers who think that physical intimidation and hard tackling are any substitute for skill or class. However, the reality is that teams who want to be great have to find ways of getting around this dour defensive mindset. Italy, like Engerland are crammed full of old favourites, the only difference being that the Italian old boys have a nice pile of medals from the tournaments they have won. However, like Engerland, they don’t seem to have any idea of how to overcome this kind of robust, nay tedious football, and found themselves utterly perplexed at the unsympathetic Kiwis and their thoroughly unsporting behaviour. Last match they managed to respond to the physical game that Paraguay brought, albeit to come from behind and secure a draw, and, yes, the same tactics (bring on Calamari-boy, get some extra zip and drive into the game) did deliver similar results (coming from behind to secure a draw), but you really have to expect more from the reigning World Champions. With Paraguay winning and Italy facing the mighty Slovakia, who will have to win to have any chance of going forward, the future for Italy looks anything but secure.

Meanwhile, The First Team To Implode Is…

We stated in our initial World Cup piece that there were two key questions we needed answers to, Would the French do worse than in 2002 and which team would be the first to implode. Now our predictions for the second was either Cameroon or France. Following the fallout from their rubbish performance against Mexico, the French have, officially, become the first team to fully implode, what with lovely Nicholas Anelka being sent home for calling his coach a bit of a ‘c**t’. It’s hard to know what is the most difficult element to bear, the squad’s refusal to train as a gesture of support, or their forcing Domenech to read their statement criticising the French Football Association to the press. In any case it’s the funniest footballing implosion since the Engerland squad threatened to go on strike following Dopey Rio’s failure to attend a dope test. France take on hosts South Africa on Tuesday and you have to wonder how bothered they are going to be.

28 Down 36 To Go 31 Teams Remaining


What We Learned From Mexico vs France (2-0)


Suddenly Everything Matters

After the blatant tedium of the first Round, it’s clear that everyone has woken up. Hey, they say as they greet the morning, It’s the fucking World Cup and in some cases they appear actually quite interested in being there as opposed to fartarsing around on a beach (or in some alleged cases a variety of international class brothels). Not so the French. Shrugging their shoulders as only the truly French can, they take a spectacular puff on their Gitanes and mutter some gibberish about sardines and how they really need to propose to that good looking girl over there before some filthy Eenglish peeg gets to work. Given their total paucity of ambition, their spectacular lack of tactical nous and their awesome ambivalence, you kind of wonder why the French even wanted to be here and why Henry set himself up for such opprobrium by cheating his country into the World Cup. The Irish you sense would actually quite like to have been here, indeed you suspect they might actually have made an effort to, you know, attack, or score, or heaven help us actually win a match. You would have thought that the French, with the cultural memory of Japan 2002, where they played three, scored none and went home on the first available plane, might actually give a shit this time. You might have thought that on the 70th anniversary of Marshall Petan’s surrender to the Nazis, when the very existence of the French state was in doubt, Les Bleus might, you know, move themselves to play the beautiful game. But apparently not.

Apologies To The Mexicans

Now, previous posts like this and this might have led people to believe that I thought the Mexicans were a team of lightweight losers who pretty passed the ball around to no great effect and fell over a lot, who were led by a bunch of makeweight kids from Tottingham and Arsenal and who had no chance of ever getting out of the Group unless the French or the Uruguayans fucked the pooch. Thankfully for the Mexicans the French well and truly fucked the pooch, doing all the things I said prevented the Mexicans from beating South Africa. The French held a high line without the pace to defend it, allowing the lightweight Mexicans to skin them time and time again. Mexico, by contrast, kept a tight deep back line that prevented the French from running at them and then compounded this by dominating in midfield.

Who Wants Some?

Not apparently Ribery, the first of the ‘soccer stars’ to go home; not apparently Anelka, Malouda, Touloulan, or any of the other French players. And definitely not Domenech, who looks like he can’t wait to get home to the many lurid headlines that will greet him. One player who did look like he wanted some was Mexican Old Boy Cuauhtemoc Blanco, who is all of 37 million years old, came on as a sub, didn’t so much run as amble about before scoring the second goal from the penalty spot. Given his enthusiasm, as well as Mexico’s position in the ConCaf Group, which basically ensures qualification, there’s every chance that he’ll be at World Cup 2014 in Brazil. Which is more than can be said for any of this spastically useless French team. They truly lived up to the Rumsfeld description of them as Cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys.

Not So Much Adios As Au Revoir

A bientot Frenchies. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

20 Down 44 To Go


What We Learned From Engerland vs USA (1-1)


Engerland Don’t Have The Love

In Brazil, where they play real football, they have a saying, “The first touch is to love the ball, then you can do what you like with it”. The implication is that the first touch transforms the ball from an inanimate thing into an object of desire. Now watching masters of this technique you begin to see how it all happens. Watching Messi earlier today you saw the ball seemingly attached mesmerically to his feet. Engerland, however, don’t hold to this seductive philosophy. Instead, for the Engerlish, the ball is something to be feared, hated and disposed of as soon as possible. How else do you explain our negligent approach to possession. We don’t so much cherish the ball as distain it, seeking to cede possession as swiftly as possible. Where other teams play the ball around the back, the midfield, even the attack, Engerland fall back on the ‘hoof’, lofting the ball over the halfway line to the opposition. Only in the last 20 minutes did Engerland show any willingness to want to keep the ball.

That Was Robert Green’s International Career That Was

With a display of catastrophic ineptitude, Green joined a long line of Engerland goalies. Peter Bonetti against Germany in Mexico 70, David Seamen against Brazil in Japan 2002, Paul Robinson against Croatia in the Euro 2008 qualifiers, Scott Carson against Croatia in the Euro 2008 qualifiers among them. You kind of feel that with his real experience this season being picking the ball out of the West Ham net last season, he wasn’t the best choice for Engerland’s number one. Joe Hart, who pushed Birmingham way beyond where they should have been, would have been a better choice. You also feel that the Engerland coaching staff must supply some kind of special training for this (and I don’t mean post-incident psychological trauma counselling although they would be well skilled in that by now), because you don’t see that level of consistently shit performance without some kind of prior planning. I mean I don’t see the Brazillians or the French, both of whom have had their share of nutter keepers in the past, displaying this regularity of spastic performance these days. I think both Green’s and the entire Engerland goalkeeping staff’s days are numbered.

The Rhino Is An Endangered Species

You can count on the thumbs of one hand (possibly the same outside thumb that Robert Green used to spoon the ball into the back of the net) the number of real game-changing opportunities Wayne Rhino has had in the last four Engerland matches. In contrast to his effect when playing with Man U, where he has had his most successful season, Rhino looks isolated and ineffective for Engerland. He shows none of the potency that announced his appearance at Euro 2004, little of the ambition and, ultimately, isn’t making that much of a contribution to the team. Given he is far and away Engerland’s most skillful player, and really the only Engerland player who can genuinely change an international game, it is criminal to mismanage him this way.

Too Often Engerland Chose The Safe Option

If Engerland have a style (and that’s a pretty big if), it’s that we have fast, pacey wingers and full backs who get down the line, challenge the defence and open up goal-scoring  opportunities. However, currently neither our wingers nor our full backs are punishing their opponents and Engerland don’t really look much of a threat. You need to ask, Do we want to win the World Cup, or just not lose it?

Remember Engerland vs France, Euro 2004? It’s Deja Vu All Over Again

Five minutes to go, Engerland were 1 – 0 up and coasting. They even managed to miss a penalty. Then, in the last 5 minutes, a foul by Heskey provided Zidane with the platform to level the match before a suicidal back pass from Steven Gerrard gifted the French with a penalty that they didn’t miss. Now as then Engerland are their own worst enemy.  Like all the teams we’ve seen, bar possibly the Argies, Engerland look totally beatable.

5 Down 59 To Go


What We Learned From France vs Uruguay (0-0)


I Agree With Hanson

As always BBC Pundit Hanson tells it like it is. “I blame the French,” he states. The cheat-eating surrender monkeys as Donald Rumsfeld might describe them did nothing to try to actually win the game. Mind you, a couple of moments from Diego Forlorn aside, neither did the Uruguayans.

Will Someone Please Attack

We can’t really make blanket judgements based on two really pretty shit matches, but it doesn’t look like anyone has the confidence in themselves to actually try and win anything rather than try desperately not to lose. A while back I was talking about actual quality football (something that has still to make an appearance here), and was comparing the ‘frolicking football’ of Arsenal, Barcelona and Spain with the ‘defend and break’ of Inter and, fundamentally, Dunga’s Brazil. None of the teams on view today displayed anything like as coherent a footballing philosophy. All dragged back 9 or 10 men behind the ball once they lost possession and none seem to have the balls to take the game to their opponents. All teams now seem to be perfectly content to sacrifice the space between their own halfway line and the space in front of their own box in favour of building a defensive wall at the 20 – 25 yard line.  As yet no one has shown the guile necessary to break through this space. In contrast to World Cup 2006, where the Group games got off to a flying start, with teams more anxious to get 3 points than worried about losing them, this time it looks like the conservatism of Euro 2004 (won by the tedious Greeks) has come to the fore.

This Group Is Shit

Any of the four can now make it. Neither Mexico nor South Africa are out of this. And none of these teams look like being anything to worry about. However, once they get out of the Group, these teams have a pretty easy draw, so there is the terrifying risk of repeating the French experience of 2006, which would be a real travesty.

2 Down 62 To Go