Tommies v Jerries
And, that, I hope is the last war metaphor I intend using for this World Cup. From now on, it's strictly the armistice.
So, here you go - the ultimate quandary for any sports fan in Great British: England v Germany on BBC1 in the football or England v Australia on Sky Sports at cricket. Aw, come on. Not fair. Not fair at all. The BBC spent an hour bigging up a game that, really, genuinely, needed no bigging up. Shearer's comment that for the first time since he retired he wished he was back out on the pitch seemed sincere and genuine. There really is something about England v Germany games (at least, for the English anyway) that sets the pulse racing. And, speaking of racing, there was a bad omen before the match even started when, over on BBC2, Sebastian Vettel gave Lewis and Jensen a good tyre-burning in the Grand Prix. But, nevertheless, we hoped. We dreamed. We should've known better.
For thirty minutes, England were awful. Apocalyptically awful. I mean, dire. Worse than the Algeria match by far. Rooney couldn't hit a pass to another red shirt to save his life (and he wasn't the only one, either), Barry constantly allowed Özil (the best player on the pitch by a distance) space he should never have had. Oh, and we were two-nil down thanks to some of the worst defending from England I have ever seen. Firstly Neuer's long goal kick sailed over John Terry's head and Miroslav Klose showed great strength and coolness to hold off Upson and poke the ball past David James. Klose was held and could easily have gone down and Upson would have been sent-off but, credit to the German, he stayed on his feet to score his fiftieth international goal. Bet you don't see anything in the Sun tomorrow praising him for doing the right thing. 'You will never, ever see two centre-halves in a worse position than when Germany scored their first goal, I promise you,' noted Hansen at half-time. And, I believe him. Then, it got worse as England's defence crumbled into a state of absolute shambles for a second time. Germany attacked down the right and a clever flick from Klose teed up Thomas Mueller. With England's central defenders nowhere to be seen Mueller played it over the top to Podolski and from a tight angle on the left, he scored. If, at that moment, you'd put all of the England team - with the possible exception of Calamity - into a big bag and hit it, hard, with a stick, covered in shit, you'd have hurt someone who thoroughly deserved it. For the next five minutes, I think most of us would happily have taken two-nil to avoid any further embarrassment and just slunk off into a dark corner to lick our wounds and mutter about 1966 and all that. There looked no way back for England. When was the last time you can remember a German team surrendering a two goal lead?
What happened next was not in the script ... on thirty seven minutes, Steven Gerrard sent over a cross from the right and with Neuer all over the place, Upson - who'd had a wretched game - got a head on the ball and it looped into the empty net. Now, it was Germany who were rocking.
And, we were all enjoying the schadenfreude of the moment. Because we're English and that's what we do. And then, it happened. The moment that, for better or worse, is probably destined to be this World Cup's most remembered, and possibly defining, incident. The 2010 Hand of God if you will. Frank Lampard hit a shot from outside the area. It beat Neuer, bounced down from the underside of the bar and about two feet - at least - over the line. I mean, it wasn't even close. A goal wasn't given. The first person to say 'that's pay-back for 1966' will be spanked with a wet kipper, I thought. Don't worry, dear blog reader Guy Mowbray beat you all to it, by some distance. He and Mark Lawrenson then spent the rest of the half whinging about the manifest unfairness of life. How it was all Sepp Blatter's fault and why is it a Uruguayan linesman instead of an Azerbaijani one? Et cetera.
Half-time with Gary and the panel was a curious mixture of dejection, apoplexy at all things Uruguyans (and Swiss!) or related to the England defence and testosterone snorting 'up-and-at-'em' rhetoric. The latter mostly from Shearer. England came out for the second-half breathing fire and brimstone from their nostrils for about ten minutes. Lampard hit the bar from a thirty yard free-kick with Neuer hopelessly beaten. Defoe almost got on the end of a delicate through-ball. But, every time the Germans got the ball in the English half, there was panic written all over the face of every Englishman in the world. And, particularly, those on the pitch.
When Gareth Barry stupidly lost the ball on the edge of the German area with eight of his colleagues ahead of him, a devastating three-against-two German counter-attack at pace ended with Mueller scoring the third. Two minutes later it happened in replica and, again, Barry was at fault, totally skinned by Özil down the left. A simple ball into the box and Mueller made it four. Capello's response? He sent for Heskey. I'm not one, normally, to agree with pretty much anything that Happy Harry the Hamster chimes up with but the dripping sarcasm in his voice when he noted 'we need a goal so we take Jermaine Defoe off and bring on Heskey,' spoke volumes. The inquest, it seemed, had started early. There were shots of some very pissed off people in fancy dress in the crowd and one very lonely-looking Italian on the bench as the Germans played keep-ball and the crowd started doing the oles! 'Whatever you think of England as a potent attacking force, you cannot defend like that at this level,' noted Lawrenson, with a mixture of incredulity and more incredulity.
So, are the Germans as good as the scoreline here will suggest or was it that England were that bad? Again, probably it was a bit of both. They're a very young side, the Germans, they seem to have a dodgy keeper and, if you get at them, they're not infallible at the back. But, coming forward, they're frighteningly quick and they're only going to get better. For England, the so called Golden Generation were, once again, more like Golden Showers of stinking piss. Much-vaunted, much-hyped, highly-paid, not one of them, not a single one, will end their careers having got any further than a quarter final of a major international tournament. The plus points? A thirty nine year old goalkeeper who did little wrong ... and that's about it. I'd poo-pah'd the idea that anybody would be doing any 'thrashing' in this game, based on precedent and that fact that although we're English and we crave disappointment, we can usual manage not to let many goals in. Gerrard piped up with a banal comment to the effect that 'the score makes it look like we took a hammering, but the game was a lot closer than that.' No it wasn't and if you're delusional enough to believe that it was then you ought to be in a secure hospital not the national football team, you thick Scouse waste-of-space. Today was as much a blow for English ideas of invincibility as Dunkirk was. Oops. War metaphor. I said I wouldn't do any of those. Maybe if Lampard's goal had counted, it might have been a different game. Maybe. And that's probably the crumb of comfort that the eternal crass optimists will cling to as to why 'this wasn't our year' just as the last forty haven't been either. Personally, I thought we got a trousers down shafting from a vastly superior team who, simply, wanted it more. Later in the evening John Motson drew comparison to another memorable England defeat by (West) Germany, in 1972 at Wembley as the last occasion he felt England had been comprehensively outclassed in a game of this importance. That was when Günter Netzer and co. gave Alf Ramsey's England a jolly harsh lesson in the new realities of European football. Motty was also, interestingly, the first person in any media that I saw to articulate how sorry he felt for the England fans who spent a lot of money to follow the side to South Africa and had been rewarded so poorly with a series of such inept, spineless and woeful performances. I'm sure when Lampard, Rooney, Gerrard, Cole, Terry et al are playing in the Champions League later in the year, we'll be assured by supposedly 'informed' opinions that these players are world beaters. For some strange reason, however, when you put them all together, they aren't. Explaining that takes a bit of work. 'England have, literally, no defence,' noted Mr Lineker. And also, no bottle, no class, no luck (admittedly) but no style or flair, either. Meanwhile, there'll be dancing in the straßes tonight. Achtung, Schweinsteiger. You deserved it, baby.
Still, at least we won the cricket. Just.
Argentina v Mexico
Oh God, do we really need Jurgen Klinnsman bending over backwards to be magnanimous?! Mind you, for not letting Garth Crooks get a word in edgeways he should probably be awarded with a medal of some description. Ah well, it not the end of the world. End of the World Cup, maybe, but not the end of the world ... Steve Wilson kicked off coverage of this one with the worst pun of his career. 'Ein, zwei, drei, vier, thumped.' Okay, I smirked, briefly, I'll give you that one, Stevie.
Resisting the urge to watch Top Gear instead of this match (I recorded it for later) and chose to stick with the footie. And I'm really glad I did. Mexico almost scored twice in the opening ten minutes, including an amazing moment when Carlos Salcido hit the bar from distance.
Then, to match the earlier controversy in the England game, we got some here too. Messi put Tevez clear but Oscar Perez came out and got their first. The ball rebounded back to Messi, who chipped it goalwards. Tevez, who was yards offside, headed it in. Despite Mexican protests the goal was given. Then the referee appeared to confer with his assistant when the incident was replayed on the huge screens at Soccer City Stadium and they both clearly saw that they'd got it wrong. However, they refused to change their minds and the goal stood. Are you watching Mr Blatter? Straight from the restart, Mexico's Rafael Marquez became the first man into referee Rosetti's book after catching Messi late, the Mexicans still clearly having a massive tortilla chip on their collective shoulder over the goal. Then, Ricardo Osorio had a complete nightmare passing a loose ball across defence without looking, and promptly played in Gonzalo Higuain, who couldn't believe his luck and rounded the keeper before slotting home.
At half-time we got a further impassioned plea for the use of technology from Alan Hansen before the incredible sight of a bunch of England players, clearly in denial, talking about having' dominated' the first twenty minutes of their game. Were playing in the same match we were watching?
Meanwhile, back in J'burg, we'd seen the first half end with a right bit of rive-on and, amazingly, Maradona trying to act as peacemaker between two very stroppy sets of players and the potential for kids getting sparked and all sorts. It was quite a sight. In the second half, Tevez got another - a beauty. No argument about that one. Mexico did pull one back with twenty minutes left - another cracker from Javier Hernandez - but I missed that one. I'd gone to Top Gear for a few moments. Well, hippies and Communists hate it so it must be doing something right. Messi almost added a fourth in the final moments but Perez made a fine save. So, it's the Argies and Ze Chermans in the quarters. Again.
Goals: 116
Red Cards: 13
And, that, I hope is the last war metaphor I intend using for this World Cup. From now on, it's strictly the armistice.
So, here you go - the ultimate quandary for any sports fan in Great British: England v Germany on BBC1 in the football or England v Australia on Sky Sports at cricket. Aw, come on. Not fair. Not fair at all. The BBC spent an hour bigging up a game that, really, genuinely, needed no bigging up. Shearer's comment that for the first time since he retired he wished he was back out on the pitch seemed sincere and genuine. There really is something about England v Germany games (at least, for the English anyway) that sets the pulse racing. And, speaking of racing, there was a bad omen before the match even started when, over on BBC2, Sebastian Vettel gave Lewis and Jensen a good tyre-burning in the Grand Prix. But, nevertheless, we hoped. We dreamed. We should've known better.
For thirty minutes, England were awful. Apocalyptically awful. I mean, dire. Worse than the Algeria match by far. Rooney couldn't hit a pass to another red shirt to save his life (and he wasn't the only one, either), Barry constantly allowed Özil (the best player on the pitch by a distance) space he should never have had. Oh, and we were two-nil down thanks to some of the worst defending from England I have ever seen. Firstly Neuer's long goal kick sailed over John Terry's head and Miroslav Klose showed great strength and coolness to hold off Upson and poke the ball past David James. Klose was held and could easily have gone down and Upson would have been sent-off but, credit to the German, he stayed on his feet to score his fiftieth international goal. Bet you don't see anything in the Sun tomorrow praising him for doing the right thing. 'You will never, ever see two centre-halves in a worse position than when Germany scored their first goal, I promise you,' noted Hansen at half-time. And, I believe him. Then, it got worse as England's defence crumbled into a state of absolute shambles for a second time. Germany attacked down the right and a clever flick from Klose teed up Thomas Mueller. With England's central defenders nowhere to be seen Mueller played it over the top to Podolski and from a tight angle on the left, he scored. If, at that moment, you'd put all of the England team - with the possible exception of Calamity - into a big bag and hit it, hard, with a stick, covered in shit, you'd have hurt someone who thoroughly deserved it. For the next five minutes, I think most of us would happily have taken two-nil to avoid any further embarrassment and just slunk off into a dark corner to lick our wounds and mutter about 1966 and all that. There looked no way back for England. When was the last time you can remember a German team surrendering a two goal lead?
What happened next was not in the script ... on thirty seven minutes, Steven Gerrard sent over a cross from the right and with Neuer all over the place, Upson - who'd had a wretched game - got a head on the ball and it looped into the empty net. Now, it was Germany who were rocking.
And, we were all enjoying the schadenfreude of the moment. Because we're English and that's what we do. And then, it happened. The moment that, for better or worse, is probably destined to be this World Cup's most remembered, and possibly defining, incident. The 2010 Hand of God if you will. Frank Lampard hit a shot from outside the area. It beat Neuer, bounced down from the underside of the bar and about two feet - at least - over the line. I mean, it wasn't even close. A goal wasn't given. The first person to say 'that's pay-back for 1966' will be spanked with a wet kipper, I thought. Don't worry, dear blog reader Guy Mowbray beat you all to it, by some distance. He and Mark Lawrenson then spent the rest of the half whinging about the manifest unfairness of life. How it was all Sepp Blatter's fault and why is it a Uruguayan linesman instead of an Azerbaijani one? Et cetera.Half-time with Gary and the panel was a curious mixture of dejection, apoplexy at all things Uruguyans (and Swiss!) or related to the England defence and testosterone snorting 'up-and-at-'em' rhetoric. The latter mostly from Shearer. England came out for the second-half breathing fire and brimstone from their nostrils for about ten minutes. Lampard hit the bar from a thirty yard free-kick with Neuer hopelessly beaten. Defoe almost got on the end of a delicate through-ball. But, every time the Germans got the ball in the English half, there was panic written all over the face of every Englishman in the world. And, particularly, those on the pitch.
When Gareth Barry stupidly lost the ball on the edge of the German area with eight of his colleagues ahead of him, a devastating three-against-two German counter-attack at pace ended with Mueller scoring the third. Two minutes later it happened in replica and, again, Barry was at fault, totally skinned by Özil down the left. A simple ball into the box and Mueller made it four. Capello's response? He sent for Heskey. I'm not one, normally, to agree with pretty much anything that Happy Harry the Hamster chimes up with but the dripping sarcasm in his voice when he noted 'we need a goal so we take Jermaine Defoe off and bring on Heskey,' spoke volumes. The inquest, it seemed, had started early. There were shots of some very pissed off people in fancy dress in the crowd and one very lonely-looking Italian on the bench as the Germans played keep-ball and the crowd started doing the oles! 'Whatever you think of England as a potent attacking force, you cannot defend like that at this level,' noted Lawrenson, with a mixture of incredulity and more incredulity.So, are the Germans as good as the scoreline here will suggest or was it that England were that bad? Again, probably it was a bit of both. They're a very young side, the Germans, they seem to have a dodgy keeper and, if you get at them, they're not infallible at the back. But, coming forward, they're frighteningly quick and they're only going to get better. For England, the so called Golden Generation were, once again, more like Golden Showers of stinking piss. Much-vaunted, much-hyped, highly-paid, not one of them, not a single one, will end their careers having got any further than a quarter final of a major international tournament. The plus points? A thirty nine year old goalkeeper who did little wrong ... and that's about it. I'd poo-pah'd the idea that anybody would be doing any 'thrashing' in this game, based on precedent and that fact that although we're English and we crave disappointment, we can usual manage not to let many goals in. Gerrard piped up with a banal comment to the effect that 'the score makes it look like we took a hammering, but the game was a lot closer than that.' No it wasn't and if you're delusional enough to believe that it was then you ought to be in a secure hospital not the national football team, you thick Scouse waste-of-space. Today was as much a blow for English ideas of invincibility as Dunkirk was. Oops. War metaphor. I said I wouldn't do any of those. Maybe if Lampard's goal had counted, it might have been a different game. Maybe. And that's probably the crumb of comfort that the eternal crass optimists will cling to as to why 'this wasn't our year' just as the last forty haven't been either. Personally, I thought we got a trousers down shafting from a vastly superior team who, simply, wanted it more. Later in the evening John Motson drew comparison to another memorable England defeat by (West) Germany, in 1972 at Wembley as the last occasion he felt England had been comprehensively outclassed in a game of this importance. That was when Günter Netzer and co. gave Alf Ramsey's England a jolly harsh lesson in the new realities of European football. Motty was also, interestingly, the first person in any media that I saw to articulate how sorry he felt for the England fans who spent a lot of money to follow the side to South Africa and had been rewarded so poorly with a series of such inept, spineless and woeful performances. I'm sure when Lampard, Rooney, Gerrard, Cole, Terry et al are playing in the Champions League later in the year, we'll be assured by supposedly 'informed' opinions that these players are world beaters. For some strange reason, however, when you put them all together, they aren't. Explaining that takes a bit of work. 'England have, literally, no defence,' noted Mr Lineker. And also, no bottle, no class, no luck (admittedly) but no style or flair, either. Meanwhile, there'll be dancing in the straßes tonight. Achtung, Schweinsteiger. You deserved it, baby.
Still, at least we won the cricket. Just.
Argentina v Mexico
Oh God, do we really need Jurgen Klinnsman bending over backwards to be magnanimous?! Mind you, for not letting Garth Crooks get a word in edgeways he should probably be awarded with a medal of some description. Ah well, it not the end of the world. End of the World Cup, maybe, but not the end of the world ... Steve Wilson kicked off coverage of this one with the worst pun of his career. 'Ein, zwei, drei, vier, thumped.' Okay, I smirked, briefly, I'll give you that one, Stevie.
Resisting the urge to watch Top Gear instead of this match (I recorded it for later) and chose to stick with the footie. And I'm really glad I did. Mexico almost scored twice in the opening ten minutes, including an amazing moment when Carlos Salcido hit the bar from distance.
Then, to match the earlier controversy in the England game, we got some here too. Messi put Tevez clear but Oscar Perez came out and got their first. The ball rebounded back to Messi, who chipped it goalwards. Tevez, who was yards offside, headed it in. Despite Mexican protests the goal was given. Then the referee appeared to confer with his assistant when the incident was replayed on the huge screens at Soccer City Stadium and they both clearly saw that they'd got it wrong. However, they refused to change their minds and the goal stood. Are you watching Mr Blatter? Straight from the restart, Mexico's Rafael Marquez became the first man into referee Rosetti's book after catching Messi late, the Mexicans still clearly having a massive tortilla chip on their collective shoulder over the goal. Then, Ricardo Osorio had a complete nightmare passing a loose ball across defence without looking, and promptly played in Gonzalo Higuain, who couldn't believe his luck and rounded the keeper before slotting home.At half-time we got a further impassioned plea for the use of technology from Alan Hansen before the incredible sight of a bunch of England players, clearly in denial, talking about having' dominated' the first twenty minutes of their game. Were playing in the same match we were watching?
Meanwhile, back in J'burg, we'd seen the first half end with a right bit of rive-on and, amazingly, Maradona trying to act as peacemaker between two very stroppy sets of players and the potential for kids getting sparked and all sorts. It was quite a sight. In the second half, Tevez got another - a beauty. No argument about that one. Mexico did pull one back with twenty minutes left - another cracker from Javier Hernandez - but I missed that one. I'd gone to Top Gear for a few moments. Well, hippies and Communists hate it so it must be doing something right. Messi almost added a fourth in the final moments but Perez made a fine save. So, it's the Argies and Ze Chermans in the quarters. Again.
Goals: 116
Red Cards: 13
