Kaka sending off bites Coast!

Strange as it may seem, the refs appalling decision to penalise Kaka for the temerity to defend himself against the Ivorian Coast player who, apparently, deliberately ran into him, may well end up punishing the Ivorians more than Brazil.  With Portugals 7-0 thrashing of North Korea, the Ivory Coast (on 1 pt) need to beat North Korea and for Brazil (on 6 pts) to beat Portugal by a combined total of nine goals to put Ivory Coast through at Portugals expense in order to progress from the group stages.

Trouble is Portugal are on form right now and Brazil will need to be at their very best to beat them, let alone by the sort of margin that is going to be necessary.  Doing that with Kaka would have been a hard-enough task, but without him, Brazil /Portugal progressing looks like a banker.

Bet that Ivorian will be kicking himself or at least faking he did.

South Africa’s French miracle?

Down and almost certainly out after last weeks 3-0 defeat at the hands of Uruguay, suddenly things are looking a lot rosier for a South African team preparing to face a French side at a historic low, assuming the French actually turn up for the game, which given yesterday’s strike abandoned practice session, cannot now simply be taken for granted.

The plot thickens.

Roo’d boys

Okay so Wayne had a go at the crowd at the end of the Algeria game.  So what?

Quite honestly, after the appalling display the England team put up against Algeria I would have been more worried had he not been in a foul mood coming off that field.   And as pi&&ed off as he might have been I’m pretty sure the people I shared the bar with last Friday night were at least as pi&&ed off as Wayne given the nature of the comments being directed at the England team, most of which were far from constructive or helpful; although the actualisation of some of the wilder suggestions would have made for interesting tv, if any of it could have been broadcast.

However, before we start slagging off the England team/squad lets remember those players are if not the very best 23 players we have, certainly very close to it.  Our certainty of that is due to the fact that the Premier league is dominated to such a degree by foreign players that England has difficulty putting together a 23 man England squad comprising only premiership players.

Sure it’s great to be able to watch the United Nations of football such are the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City etc but the price for such a wealth of international talent is the reduced playing time available to even the most promising British youngsters – just 4 years ago Walcott was being hailed as the Golden Child of English football but thanks largely, one assumes, to the limited playing time he has received since then, he didn’t even make the squad this time – despite his game changing 20 minutes in Arsenal’s first leg against Barca.

To make matters worse, whilst Germany and Spain boast multiple players who play together week in and out for Bayern Munich and Barcelona, the English squad has been drawn from no less than eight sides, several of the squad are not guaranteed first team places and of the four who play for league and cup double winners, Chelsea, Joe Cole was identified as being surplus to requirements for next season, prior to the start of the tournament.

But before we slag off the clubs for actions which increasingly are threatening the hopes of the England team, lets remember, it’s the fans paying week in/ week out to gobble up Premier league fare who are rewarding and reinforcing the actions of those clubs.

And along with the guys complaining loudest and lewdest after Friday’s game, including our national media (which we also support), we are those “fans”.

Ball fix

Bit of a co-incidence that the two best performing teams so far – Argentina and Germany (yes I know Germany lost to Serbia but even with just 10 men they were by far the better side – how Podborski didn’t get a hat-trick is anyone’s guess) – just happen to be representing two of the leagues who used the Jabulani ball for the entire season just finished.

Whilst the rest of the world is having real problems controlling and hitting the ball desired distances, particularly with crosses and free kicks, the Argentines and Germans are making it look easy.

Sure it might just be co-incidence (those two teams do have some of the tournaments best players) but then again knowing how radically different this ball would be, wouldn’t it have been prudent for FIFA to introduce the new ball for the World Cup qualifiers two years ago and add a jolly “South Africa” paint job for the finals so every team had the same chance to get used to it’s unsual flight and avoid the suggestion that certain teams have an unfair advantage?

As for the defence that certain unexpected behaviours are as a result of the altitude, were the ball’s developers not aware that the tournament was to be held in South Africa where the altitude, although obviously a factor, hasn’t changed since South Africa was announced as hosts 6 (?) years ago or were the ball’s developers just having way too much fun in the wind tunnel to think about anything else?

Not, of course, that Adidas will be complaining if Argentina and Germany continue to shine.

Host heading South

With a 3-0 loss to Uruguay, Wednesday, the South African Lions must play for a miracle against France in their final group stage game, if they are not to become the first host nation to fail to progress from the group stages since its introduction back in 1950.  And to make things really tough, South Africa will have to do so without suspended midfielder Dikgachoiits and first choice keeper, Khune.

Whilst Uruguay never looked under threat, the 3-0 scoreline could have been quite different had Luis Suarez, the Uruguayan brought down in the box at 1-0, resulting both in Khune’s sending off and the penalty which doubled Uruguay’s lead, been ruled offside, as seemed the case in the replay, thanks to the slight deflection which took the ball to Suarez’s feet as the defence chased out.

Admittedly, a really difficult call for the referee to make but since South Africa, as hosts, will have spent hundreds of millions building stadia and improving infrastructure, the South African Football Association may well be lamenting FIFA’s reluctance to spend a little more on the tv replay evidence which in either confirming the offside, or not, would at least have ensured the Fair Play FIFA boasts of and even awards trophies for, was seen to be being upheld.

Had South Africa lost only  1-0, the Lions would be going into next Tuesday’s game against France with the hope of even a scraped win taking them through and would have their first choice keeper helping them do it rather than only a prayer for the miracle victory they now, desperately, need.

Lets hope South Africans will make good use of their wonderful new stadia and not let them rot as China reportedly intends to let happen with its $400 million plus 2008 showpiece, the Birds Nest National Stadium.

Swiss bank a shocker.

Spain, one of the favourites to win the entire competition and currently one of Europe’s so-called “PIGGS” staring  economic meltdown in the face, loses, without demonstrating anything like the same desire to win it that was evident in their real desire not to lose it, for the first time, to rank outsiders, Switzerland.

Switzerland, better known for banks and bank accounts than for its sporting achievements is home not only to FIFA and the International Olympic Committee but also to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the organisation which together with FIFA fined Mutu, formerly of Chelsea, £14 million for doing only what many successful bankers are doing every night of the week, if Wall Street and other Hollywood movies are anything to go by.

My guess is that this otherwise incredible decision must be due to the fact that when twenty-something footballers make mistakes, their fans go home really upset whereas when bankers, of twenty-something and up, make mistakes we just go home poorer, assuming we (especially Mutu) still have homes to go home to.

Strange that this story which dates back to 2004 should have made headlines now right in the middle of the 2010 World Cup but what a stick for FIFA to remind players, many of whom will be undergoing drug tests during the event, that it has in its bag.

Thank heavens theres no such thing as a corrupt dope tester and its impossible to tamper with the results.

Blame Canadian

So Robert Green’s hot-ex Canadian girlfriend dumping him so close to the World Cup finals was what caused his aberration against the Americans.   For his sake I hope not.

Much as I, as a recently separated man, can sympathise with his emotional state after being found surplus to requirements by his partner, if, as a professional keeper whose total concentration was required for such limited periods in that US game, that was all that was required for him to become a liability to his team then he might as well turn in his fat gloves now.

Given the publicity the gorgeous pouting yet previously unknown Elizabeth Minett has received over her possible role (roll?) in the howler, isn’t it much more likely that Green just had one of those days that has plagued England keepers since Gordon Banks’ time and her agent, seeing the opportunity to get her on the inside pages, leapt and grasped that chance with considerably more skill than Green demonstrated in the fraction of a second that will haunt him for the rest of his England career.

Ironically, whilst Ms. Minett reportedly comes from a family famous for its intellectual accomplishments and has been described as very bright (with a 2008 economics degree from the university of Waterloo) either that particular family trait really wasn’t passed in the genes or when, as reported 0n theRecord.com, she said, “I started learning French when I was 3 and am pretty much fluent. I even have a cousin living in Paris who is married to a Frenchman” she suffered a howler of her own, albeit an intellectual one.

I have Italian cousins, real ones born and bred in Italy, yet I can’t speak a word of Italian.  Except the swear words that is.  There is no correlation – not that theRecord.com noticed that (although to be fair they may have been trying to decide which picture to go with at the time).

Then again, of course, since Ms. Minett has dual Canadian and US citizenship and presumably knows things about Green he might not want made public (such as my soon to be ex knows about me), maybe the howler really is evidence of truly sinister forces at work and we should view everyone less than 100% English as potentially part of a conspiracy to stop England from winning what should rightfully be ours this year.

But wouldn’t that mean we should be keeping a very close eye on Fabio, the Italian guy who put the love-sick Green in the net in the first place?

Just one more reason this Anglo-paddy will keep watching, for all our sakes.

Hello World Cup!

It’s not even the end of Day 5 of the 2010 World Cup and already so much injustice has been recorded – missed fouls, unfair bookings, a dodgy sending off and an offside goal –  that I can no longer remain silent about FIFA’s refusal to take all reasonable steps to discourage such foreseeable “errors”, by refusing to allow referees the same tv replays we couch potato pundents base our judgments on.

FIFA’s refusal is threatening to allow football’s World Cup, the showcase event for the world’s “Beautiful Game”, to become just another reality TV show, where winners can be decided by guile and deceit rather than skill and integrity.

There are enough un-sporting organisations off the field with vested interests in what happens on it – how fortunate for BP and their shareholders that England could only manage a draw with the USA?  (And how appropriate that the guy credited with giving the USA the point and indeed who stopped them getting all three, is called “Green”?) – that the last thing the game needs is any suggestion that its ruling body isn’t doing all it can to ensure the best team wins.

Until FIFA realises that and introduces tv replays the only people FIFA should be fining, suspending or banning for allowing the game to be brought into disrepute are the individual FIFA board members themselves.

More later as Brazil v North Korea is about to kick off (and yes I know I need a different photo)