Not impressed, Gary?

The new football season is upon us once more. After the dissapointment of the World Cup from an English perspective, the domestic Premiership season has started once more. To prove it we’ve had shock defeats, horror tackles, poor refereeing, transfer shenanigans, whining managers, new managers, sky rocketing wage packets and a healthy spot of our new, favourite past-time… Sven-bashing. Match Of The Day, great drama from the BBC. All this and we’re only two weeks in. Thankfully, it seems the one thing we have been spared so far is insight into the vices and seedy private lives of the players themselves, although the inevitability of this may have escaped my notice as I don’t tend to dwell too heavily on the content of the redtops. Ironically, the one saving grace is that it’s not quite as controversial as the cricket! After the pre-season dismantling of Greece, it’s back to the competetive internationals this weekend as England take on the might of Andorra.

Tags: BBC1, England, Football, Gary-Lineker, Match-Of-The-Day, Premiership, Sport, Sven

“Time waits for nobody”

So, the First Test against Pakistan ended in a draw and another game of “what if…” for England. These two teams have seemed remarkably well matched since the winter tour and so it proved again with both squads, admittedly somewhat injury hit, effectively cancelling one another out. On the plus side there were four century makers for the home side but Mohammed Yousef’s double ton stole the show for the visitors along with Inzamum’s 9th consecutive score of 50+ against the English. Sky’s coverage continues to be slick with some great commentators (and also Bob Willis) providing the analysis. This uninterupted and comprehensive style is something that the terrestial stations could only ever dream of, in this day and age and even the quick advert breaks between every other over don’t really annoy me too much. Three tests to go in this long hot summer of ours…. can’t wait.

Tags: Cricket, ECB, England, Freddie-Flintoff, Inzamum, Pakistan, SkySports, Sport, Test-Match

Don’t Lose Your Head

There we have it…. 32 teams, 64 games, 147 goals and 28 red cards. A moment of outrageous indiscipline from the star player followed by ignaminious defeat in that cruelest fashion, the penalty shoot-out. Oddly, not England this time but our close neighbours France. What a game Marco Materazzi had though: he gave away the penalty to gift France the lead, leapt salmon-like in the box to head home the equalizer, stroked in one of the quintet of perfect Italian spot-kicks and (most memorably now) was on the receiving end of the Zidane head-butt. The feeling here is that this World Cup, though always the greatest of sporting spectacles, seemed to fizzle out a touch after the great start we had in the group stages. The only exception being the brilliance of the Italy v Germany semi-final, after which I guess it was only right for the Italians to win it in the end (it is the Chinese Year of the Dog after all, and only Brazil or Italy are allowed to win, if you put faith in such quirks). It was a good tournament though and as always, I left with a feeling that they should do that every year.

Tags: BBC1, Football, France, Italy, Penalty-Shoot-Out, Sport, Sven, World-Cup, World-Cup-Final, Zidane

Quarter Finals day 2

We all worried about his foot and, when all was said and done, it was his head that should have been the subject of our concerns. Rooney saw red as another World Cup drifted away from England’s grasp in the cruelest of penalty shoot-outs (yet again). The accusations will be undoubtedly, and to a large part correctly, levelled at Sven and his choices of selection, substitutions and tactics but he has long since announced his departure. It came of more of a surprise to hear that his captain had handed back the armband for good. And so, as the Eriksson/Beckham era comes to an end we will begin to look at their legacy of 3 consecutive quarter-finals, we will look back at the 5-1 game in Munich and the Beckham free-kick against Greece and wonder how a team of this undoubted talent have failed to secure any silverware. Ah well, there’s always next time… it’s always next time. Elsewhere, France beat Brazil by a solitary Henry goal. It was apparently a great game but I was too despondant to watch.

Tags: BBC1, England, Football, Gary-Lineker, Match-Of-The-Day, Portugal, Sport, Wayne-Rooney, World-Cup

Quarter Finals, Day 1

Well the early match saw Germany face Argentina. As a loyal England follower, it was hard to know who to cheer for as our two old footballing enemies went head to head. The first half was a dire affair with no chances, no imagination and almost nothing of interest. Ayala bravely headed the South Americans in front shortly after the break only for Klose to get his fifth of the tournament with 10 minutes left and the tie livened up a bit. Extra time was tense; penalties were inevitable; the Germans were lethal. 4 almost perfect pens from the hosts has taken them through to yet another semi final. It was after everything had finished when everything kicked off, so to speak. There were some pretty ugly scenes as the two sets of players clashed after the final whistle. Then the Argentinian head coach resigned, which was only fair given the terrible substitution decisions he made during the game.

The Germans’ opponents in the semi-final will, in another mouthwatering tie, be Italy. Zambrotta opened the scoring early against Ukraine and a 1-0 result looked to be a dead cert. However, in a more lively second half, Ukraine began to threaten only for Luca Toni to double the lead when Italy counter attacked and then score his second and Italy’s third after 70 minutes. It was easy in the end, but if we’re honest we’re only worried about tomorrow afternoon’s match, England v Portugal is sure to get masses of viewers, and I’ll be one of them. C’MON ENGLAND!!!!!

Tags: BBC1, Football, Gary-Linekar, Match-Of-The-Day, Sport, World-Cup

Ow - no!
Well, last Tuesday night I thought that this moment, when Owen’s knee popped out in glorious high-def, was going to signify the end of England’s (albeit slim) World Cup hopes. However, as they used to say in old US sports commentary, it’s not bad to “win ugly”…. and you couldn’t win more ugly than England do at the moment. Another slim victory this afternoon, 1-0 over Ecuador, saw our once mighty nation scramble their way to the quarter finals. The good news is that we’re going to play Portugal who battled through a vaguely ridiculous match of 16 yellow and 4 red cards, and therefore will have suspensions and cautious players aplenty. All in all it has been a great World Cup so far, intriguing games, super goals, and all set up for some pretty fantastic knock-out football…. try and predict the outcome of the Germany vs Argentina 1/4-final! Go on, have a go.

Tags: BBC1, England, Match-Of-The-Day, Michael-Owen, Portugal, Sport, Wayne-Rooney, World-Cup