Farcical Jun 23 2006

Being an Englishman, and following the English Football Premiership as I do, I find the performance of Graham Poll during yesterdays match between Australia and Crotia to be most hilarious. You see, I’m used to the frequent mistakes Poll brings to a football game. And I’m also used to the rather sad prospect of him perhaps being our top football official, our representative to the rest of the world when it comes to officiating a football match. And of course, on the biggest stage, he made a series of blunders that’ll ensure that if by some horrible set of circumstances England didn’t make it to the World Cup Final, he won’t be considered as a possibility for refereeing over the biggest football match in four years.

While I’m here, and as I’ve been quiet on the subject, let’s talk about the England football team. Here’s some quick views I hold over the recent shenanigans:

  • we haven’t played that badly when you keep things in perspective - three games, we’ve scored 5 goals, conceded 2, and finished top of our group, while remaining unbeaten
  • people who think David Beckham should now be left out of the team as he hasn’t played well obviously didn’t watch the first two group games (or even the warm-up games before the World Cup started) - a large amount of our chances, and thus our goals, have come from set pieces and crosses expertly delivered by Mr Beckham, and the idea that one “lacklustre” game against Sweden should see him dropped is preposterous
  • there is such a thing as equilibrium in a team, balance - dropping players, such as Beckham, and indeed Crouch (I’m not his biggest fan, but we’ve never lost a game with him on the field, and in 9 or 10 games he’s scored 6 goals now for England, not a bad international record), could easily upset the balance and have disasterous results
  • we all really know England can play better, and I think we’ll see them step it up a gear against Ecuador
  • I think Sven has gone mad with some of his decisions though, like taking Rooney off against Sweden so early - some of his substitutions do make you wonder what he was thinking
  • I have just read that rumour has it we will play 4-5-1 against Ecuador. Ridiculous. Not a single Ecuadorian player would make it into our team to replace our starting 11 (under a straight 4-4-2 formation), and as such we should be looking to simply play them man-for-man, safe in the knowledge we are better than they are, that chances will come, and that we will take them to pieces
Just a few random musings so far, mainly coming from the fact I’ve decided to ditch my usual staple of rock music in the car to and from work, and around about town, instead listening to TalkSport, who as you can imagine are devoting almost 24/7 coverage to the World Cup. Plenty of dialogue, viewpoints, and information, and I find it both hilarious, informative, and enjoyable. Some of the people that call up you can instantly tell know what they are on about, whereas I often question how some of the callers actually manage to dress themselves in the morning, with the brain power they display on-air being scarily lacking.


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