New Zealand Lambs v Slovakia (without a cheque to its name)
'It's going to be an epic' said Gary Lineker, his voice dripping with postmodern irony. Talking about the teams that New Zealand had played to qualify, Gary mentioned Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji before adding, 'I'm sure one of those is a volcano.' No, Gaz, they're all countries, you patronising crisp salesman, you.
New Zealand actually have two national anthems, the lucky so and sos. One for normal use and one for Sunday best. There's 'God Save The Queen' and, the one they played here, 'God Defend New Zealand.' So, no country for old atheists, then? The Maori anthem, presumably, is 'God Save Us From New Zealanders'? 'Lightning flashes over the Tatra, the thunder pounds wildly,' begins the Slovakian anthem, positively. 'Let them pause, brothers, they will surely disappear, the Slovaks will revive.' Nice imagery.
It took ten minutes before Simon Brotherton came up with 'who says there's no romance left in the World Cup?' the final cliché taboo, I reckon. 'What an awful passage of play that was between the two teams,' noted Brotherton after half-an-hour. He was talking about a thirty second period during which both of them gave the ball away about three times each, but it was actually a pretty accurate description of the entire first half. Mind you, the poor chap did have Martin Keown sitting next to him, that's enough to give anybody depression. He started talking about the weather at one point. 'Like a fine spring day in England. A nice breeze. Quiet pleasant.' Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a BBC football commentator was reduced to that.
At half-time the BBC dug out a recent, rather good, Football Focus interview with Noel Gallagher to wake the viewers up. We also got a rather decent bit of reportage from the fan park in Johannesburg. Then, it was back to the lack-of-action in Rustenburg.
To be fair, as Hansen noted, New Zealand were actually playing quite decently given their world ranking and the players at their disposal. Slovakia on the other hand, had been a huge disappointment and there was the confident prediction that they couldn't, possibly, play any worse. And, as it happened, they couldn't. A - possibly offside - Robert Vittek scoring early in the second-half. Keown chose this moment for a rather pathetic whinge about his own working conditions. 'We're in the studio at seven, we don't get to bed till gone midnight.' Well, if it's such a chore, you simian-featured horrorshow, quit and come home. I'm sure there's thousands of other not-particularly talented ex-professionals who'd be delighted to do your - not overly hard - job of 'sitting and watching some football matches and them making crass comments about them' instead. Try working in a call centre mate, that might be more to your nine-to-five sensibilities. I don't know, if you pay peanuts, you tend to get monkeys. And, in this case ...
Ultimately, New Zealand worked hard and tried their best but had nothing up front. Proof that a lot of effort can get you to a World Cup, but it probably won't keep you there. And then, Winston Reid went and scored in the last minute and threw the form book right out of the window! Football. Funny old game, eh?!
Ebony and Ivory Coast v Portuguese Men of War
ITV, predictably, began their coverage with a Ronaldo love-spurt of quite disgraceful proportions. I mean, seriously, it was one step away from throwing him on the bed, smothering him in honey and then licking it off whilst moaning, erotically, 'oh yeah, baby, you're the greatest. Fill me with your spunky love juice.' As if that wasn't bad enough, twenty seconds into the match I got a blue-screen-of-death error message on my PC (the latest of several I've been getting over the last few weeks). So, I finally decided it was time to bite the bullet and order a new PC base unit. Knickers. That's three hundred quid I haven't got down the swanny. Anyway, hence I was on the phone to Dell for the next half hour and missed most of the first half. It was still 0-0 when I got back. 'No much to report. Some tetchiness, some pushing, some shoving and one post hit,' reported Peter Drury. Sadly, whilst it was Ronaldo who hit the post, it was, seeming, with the ball and not his face. Sounds like I didn't miss much, then. God, it must've been bad, Andy Townsend called it 'dire.' And he's someone who really knows all about that state of consciousness. Still, at least we got that funny 'did Belgium even qualify?' Carling lager advert at half-time.
The second half drifted along for a while. Then Drogba came on and the crowd when effing mental. It didn't improve matters, however. For two of the undoubted flair sides in this tournament, this was very uninspiring stuff.
Of course, Ronaldo had his ankles clipped at one point and went down like he was still in Manchester and had just been the victim of knife crime. Satisfyingly, when he finally peeled himself off the turf and took the free-kick, it went well over the bar. How, you may well feel justified in asking, can a game that features this number of quality players (and, we're talking about a good dozen at least whom anybody who knows a smidgen about the game will consider to be world class) could produce a match with so little in the way of actual quality. Good question. And one that's cropped up several times so far in this tournament. Maybe it is the ball? Or the vuvuzelas? Or fear itself? Whatever it is, this has been the worst World Cup opening week since 1990 without any shadow of a doubt. Too much fear all round.
The Boys from Brazil v Pyongyang P'tang Kipperbang
ITV, inevitably, did their fully-expected tongue-rimming intro for Brazil - all references to 1970. And 1982 which Gareth Southgate claimed was his 'first memory of the World Cup' - God, I feel so old, I've got memories of three World Cups before someone who's managed in the Premier League. Albeit, not managed very well, admittedly.
Chiles - whose turn it was, it would seem, to wear ITV's lone pink shirt - told us it was a 'parky old night,' which was understood by all of three people in ITV HQ. The rest were probably wondering 'how much are we paying this chap?' Probably less than they'll be paying Robbie Earle from now on, I suspect. At the stadium, of course, it took Tyldesley less than thirty seconds to mention North Korea's 'appalling human rights record,' no doubt to some sage nodding of heads in Islington and Hampstead. Because, of course, Brazil's military dictatorship which governed that country between the early sixties and the late seventies (you know, when they were winning World Cups) were all a bunch of pussycats, weren't they? For God's sake, ITV stay away of political comment, you're bloody crap at it!
Then we got a long conversation about how cold it was and ... not much action on the pitch. 'It's no walk-over for Brazil,' Tyldesley told us, as though that was the biggest surprise in world football since Billy McCracken invented the offside trap. And the Koreans harried, and snapped at Brazilians heels and were first to every fifty-fifty (and most sixty-forty) balls and, generally, gave the impression of being really rather unimpressed with a bunch of blokes in yellow shirts living on - it could be argued - past reputations. And, the longer in went on, the more you sensed Dunga's men were getting pissed off with this fiasco. I, on the other hand, was getting pissed off with Tyldesley's deliberate over-pronunciation of 'Kaka.' I kept on replying 'Nicole?'
Inevitably, after about an hour of faffing around, Brazil eventually scored. Quite a good goal it looked, too, on first viewing, Maicon appearing to swerve one in from a narrow angle. Actually, after about four replays it was pretty clear it had been a cross-gone-wrong, which sort of summed up the game thus far.
But, still, the atmosphere felt as flat as an open can of lager after three days in the fridge. Luis Fabulous missed a glorious chance to make it 2-0 before Elano finally did quarter of an hour from time. Floodgates? No. Quite the opposite in fact and in the last few minutes, The International Communist Conspiracy scored their first World Cup finals goal since Goodison Park in 1966. It wasn't enough to cause a surprise but it was, perhaps, on Day Five, the first point at which this particular World Cup's icy exterior began to melt a touch. Even in a world of FIFA's sponsorship by corporate multinational greed, football can occasionally surprise, it would seem.
Goals: 23
Red Cards: 4
'It's going to be an epic' said Gary Lineker, his voice dripping with postmodern irony. Talking about the teams that New Zealand had played to qualify, Gary mentioned Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji before adding, 'I'm sure one of those is a volcano.' No, Gaz, they're all countries, you patronising crisp salesman, you.
New Zealand actually have two national anthems, the lucky so and sos. One for normal use and one for Sunday best. There's 'God Save The Queen' and, the one they played here, 'God Defend New Zealand.' So, no country for old atheists, then? The Maori anthem, presumably, is 'God Save Us From New Zealanders'? 'Lightning flashes over the Tatra, the thunder pounds wildly,' begins the Slovakian anthem, positively. 'Let them pause, brothers, they will surely disappear, the Slovaks will revive.' Nice imagery.
It took ten minutes before Simon Brotherton came up with 'who says there's no romance left in the World Cup?' the final cliché taboo, I reckon. 'What an awful passage of play that was between the two teams,' noted Brotherton after half-an-hour. He was talking about a thirty second period during which both of them gave the ball away about three times each, but it was actually a pretty accurate description of the entire first half. Mind you, the poor chap did have Martin Keown sitting next to him, that's enough to give anybody depression. He started talking about the weather at one point. 'Like a fine spring day in England. A nice breeze. Quiet pleasant.' Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a BBC football commentator was reduced to that.
At half-time the BBC dug out a recent, rather good, Football Focus interview with Noel Gallagher to wake the viewers up. We also got a rather decent bit of reportage from the fan park in Johannesburg. Then, it was back to the lack-of-action in Rustenburg.
To be fair, as Hansen noted, New Zealand were actually playing quite decently given their world ranking and the players at their disposal. Slovakia on the other hand, had been a huge disappointment and there was the confident prediction that they couldn't, possibly, play any worse. And, as it happened, they couldn't. A - possibly offside - Robert Vittek scoring early in the second-half. Keown chose this moment for a rather pathetic whinge about his own working conditions. 'We're in the studio at seven, we don't get to bed till gone midnight.' Well, if it's such a chore, you simian-featured horrorshow, quit and come home. I'm sure there's thousands of other not-particularly talented ex-professionals who'd be delighted to do your - not overly hard - job of 'sitting and watching some football matches and them making crass comments about them' instead. Try working in a call centre mate, that might be more to your nine-to-five sensibilities. I don't know, if you pay peanuts, you tend to get monkeys. And, in this case ...Ultimately, New Zealand worked hard and tried their best but had nothing up front. Proof that a lot of effort can get you to a World Cup, but it probably won't keep you there. And then, Winston Reid went and scored in the last minute and threw the form book right out of the window! Football. Funny old game, eh?!
Ebony and Ivory Coast v Portuguese Men of War
ITV, predictably, began their coverage with a Ronaldo love-spurt of quite disgraceful proportions. I mean, seriously, it was one step away from throwing him on the bed, smothering him in honey and then licking it off whilst moaning, erotically, 'oh yeah, baby, you're the greatest. Fill me with your spunky love juice.' As if that wasn't bad enough, twenty seconds into the match I got a blue-screen-of-death error message on my PC (the latest of several I've been getting over the last few weeks). So, I finally decided it was time to bite the bullet and order a new PC base unit. Knickers. That's three hundred quid I haven't got down the swanny. Anyway, hence I was on the phone to Dell for the next half hour and missed most of the first half. It was still 0-0 when I got back. 'No much to report. Some tetchiness, some pushing, some shoving and one post hit,' reported Peter Drury. Sadly, whilst it was Ronaldo who hit the post, it was, seeming, with the ball and not his face. Sounds like I didn't miss much, then. God, it must've been bad, Andy Townsend called it 'dire.' And he's someone who really knows all about that state of consciousness. Still, at least we got that funny 'did Belgium even qualify?' Carling lager advert at half-time.
The second half drifted along for a while. Then Drogba came on and the crowd when effing mental. It didn't improve matters, however. For two of the undoubted flair sides in this tournament, this was very uninspiring stuff.
Of course, Ronaldo had his ankles clipped at one point and went down like he was still in Manchester and had just been the victim of knife crime. Satisfyingly, when he finally peeled himself off the turf and took the free-kick, it went well over the bar. How, you may well feel justified in asking, can a game that features this number of quality players (and, we're talking about a good dozen at least whom anybody who knows a smidgen about the game will consider to be world class) could produce a match with so little in the way of actual quality. Good question. And one that's cropped up several times so far in this tournament. Maybe it is the ball? Or the vuvuzelas? Or fear itself? Whatever it is, this has been the worst World Cup opening week since 1990 without any shadow of a doubt. Too much fear all round.The Boys from Brazil v Pyongyang P'tang Kipperbang
ITV, inevitably, did their fully-expected tongue-rimming intro for Brazil - all references to 1970. And 1982 which Gareth Southgate claimed was his 'first memory of the World Cup' - God, I feel so old, I've got memories of three World Cups before someone who's managed in the Premier League. Albeit, not managed very well, admittedly.
Chiles - whose turn it was, it would seem, to wear ITV's lone pink shirt - told us it was a 'parky old night,' which was understood by all of three people in ITV HQ. The rest were probably wondering 'how much are we paying this chap?' Probably less than they'll be paying Robbie Earle from now on, I suspect. At the stadium, of course, it took Tyldesley less than thirty seconds to mention North Korea's 'appalling human rights record,' no doubt to some sage nodding of heads in Islington and Hampstead. Because, of course, Brazil's military dictatorship which governed that country between the early sixties and the late seventies (you know, when they were winning World Cups) were all a bunch of pussycats, weren't they? For God's sake, ITV stay away of political comment, you're bloody crap at it!Then we got a long conversation about how cold it was and ... not much action on the pitch. 'It's no walk-over for Brazil,' Tyldesley told us, as though that was the biggest surprise in world football since Billy McCracken invented the offside trap. And the Koreans harried, and snapped at Brazilians heels and were first to every fifty-fifty (and most sixty-forty) balls and, generally, gave the impression of being really rather unimpressed with a bunch of blokes in yellow shirts living on - it could be argued - past reputations. And, the longer in went on, the more you sensed Dunga's men were getting pissed off with this fiasco. I, on the other hand, was getting pissed off with Tyldesley's deliberate over-pronunciation of 'Kaka.' I kept on replying 'Nicole?'
Inevitably, after about an hour of faffing around, Brazil eventually scored. Quite a good goal it looked, too, on first viewing, Maicon appearing to swerve one in from a narrow angle. Actually, after about four replays it was pretty clear it had been a cross-gone-wrong, which sort of summed up the game thus far.
But, still, the atmosphere felt as flat as an open can of lager after three days in the fridge. Luis Fabulous missed a glorious chance to make it 2-0 before Elano finally did quarter of an hour from time. Floodgates? No. Quite the opposite in fact and in the last few minutes, The International Communist Conspiracy scored their first World Cup finals goal since Goodison Park in 1966. It wasn't enough to cause a surprise but it was, perhaps, on Day Five, the first point at which this particular World Cup's icy exterior began to melt a touch. Even in a world of FIFA's sponsorship by corporate multinational greed, football can occasionally surprise, it would seem.Goals: 23
Red Cards: 4
