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Saturday, July 08, 2006

Ain't That a Kick In The Nuts?

Euurgh. I can't really be bothered writing about this. I refer you instead to Sean's excellent analysis in the comments to my last entry. Football is dead. And like Sean, since last Saturday I have run the full gamut of emotions associated with the grieving process. In fact, I realise now that I had actually been in the denial stage for most of the tournament, buoyed by the return of Rooney and believing as I had those empty promises that performances were set to improve. Denial departed in the instant pictured top left, when the irresistible sense of history repeating suddenly crunched home like a - well, like a boot in the groin. The anger phase then reigned for the rest of the weekend before I finally heeded Beckham's pre-match exhortation to Say No To Racism and refused to blame Ronaldo or the Argentine ref for our failure. Since then I have been through Despair - England will never ever win a World Cup ever again! And now we have Steve McClaren for four years and all our best players will be too old by the time we sack him! And of course Apathy - Well I don't care, I prefer cricket anyway, not that we have any chance of retaining the Ashes this winter.

And finally, I have come to a philosophical acceptance which goes something like this. Knowing that Wayne Rooney's feet represent the truly (and only) eloquent part of his being, I have come to view the crushing of the Carvalhian crotch as an exquisite expression of what english football is all about. To whit - of England's five games at this tournament, I did not enjoy watching any of them. The same goes for the last World Cup, the one before that and the Euro Championships in between. The qualifiers, of course, are even worse. Put simply, it is never ever pleasurable to watch England play. Yet every tournament knockout, inevitable though it is, is still a bludgeoning shock and a numbing agony. Supporting England is essentially the same as being kicked in the nuts.

I am truly grateful to Rooney for this revelation - a tournament-defining incident certainly, but more than that - a powerful exercise in symbolics which has left on me an impression as indelible as the one he left on Carvalho's scrotum.

Well done for France and Italy for making it to the final, even though I'm really not that excited about it. I suppose I have to take back my words about Italy being over-rated - see what happens when you actually bother to go forward, even if it takes fear of penalties to make you do it? Good thing you're as bad at them as we are...

14 Comments:

Blogger Charlie said...

And now I have to take that back about Italy being rubbish at penalties as well. Doh!

6:36 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Incredible! I was just saying to the misses about Italian penalty misses, and then they put together a flawless set of them like that. Even if the keeper had have dived the right way for each of them he still wouldn't have saved one, which wouldn't have been the case if Buffon had have dived the right way for some of the French penalties.

Well England are officially now the worst penalty-taking International team! Shocking! (and apart from Spain England are the biggest underachievers in world football. Again that's shocking!)

7:24 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, I'm absolutely gutted about Zidane last night. I've summarised what I can make of it in my latest journal entry, and all I will say here is that it was the worst end imagineable to such a great career.

Well done Italy however, forza! I was supporting them as one of my best friends in Dundee is an Italian. Shame all their world cup winners will be consigned to Serie B/C next season!

12:55 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Since I have no interest in this monumentally tedious game, I'm going to do a "Langdown" and hijack this thread. Anyone else think this last series of Doctor Who was absolutely fantastic?

5:08 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes!

I only saw the latest episode, but it was pretty amazing! Seeing the Daleks take on the Cybermen was something I've waited and waited for! Needless to say the Cybermen were pants by comparison.

As for "monumentally tedious", that goes to baseline tennis. What happened to the serve-volleyer? I'm sure Sampras, Rafter and co could easily take on these stay-back wonders playing now...

5:55 pm  
Blogger Charlie said...

Sadly, being in Taiwan I haven't been able to see any of David Tenant's performance as the Doctor. Daleks vs Cybermen sounds like a mouth-watering prospect - but then again, so did Alien vs Predator...

1:11 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Trust me, this was what it was cracked up to be. They were both killing humans at the same time, well, mainly it was the Daleks killing everything...

3:07 am  
Blogger Charlie said...

Ah, so more like Kramer vs Kramer then.

9:09 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am thrilled and indebted, particularly to Simon, that my name has been attributed the act of hijacking a thread. I have to confess that I always hoped that doing a “Langdown” would mean something. I had originally though that this would involve a last second escape from a giant rolling boulder/killing the emperor of a dark oppressive regime/scoring the winning goal for England in a world cup final kind of thing, but I suppose changing the subject will do for now.

Despite the act for which I am now famous, I would like to try to draw the threads of this wayward discussion back together. I am extremely annoyed at Sven, and yet the joy of the final 2 part episode of Dr Who went someway to restoring my soul. It did make me think however, that I might have enjoyed the world cup a lot more if the Daleks and Cybermen were also represented.

Daleks of course are known for a shamefully aggressive approach and a complete disrespect for anyone else. Cybermen on the other hand have all creativity and individually crushed out of them as they are cruelly forced to be obedient to the oppressive system they operate under. Hang on a minute….perhaps they weren’t missed out at all! Yes, that’s right, Sven, a closet Dr Who fan, decided to show the ultimate homage to his hero by mimicking his foes in the way he managed England. Of course, that is where the analogy must end. The mighty Daleks are usually defeated by a few wry comments and a blue screwdriver. In fact, you might go so far as to say that to overcome them, their opposition (the Dr) just needs to turn up. Actually the analogy may stretch further than I had though.

All of which has massive influence on the whole Zidane incident. A team of Italian lip readers have been working day and night and can conclusively reveal that Materazzi did indeed use the vilest of insults to one of the world’s great players. It was, understandably, too much to take to hear the words “You wouldn’t even get into the England team.” The once-shocking still of a bald French head powering into the greasy Italian chest, now makes sense and I think we can all agree that such insults have no place in the modern game.

8:02 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just for reference, there's some new footage about the Zidane incident here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/13/zidane_headbutt_outrage/

6:04 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/13/zidane_headbutt_outrage/

That's the full link...

6:05 am  
Blogger Chris said...

Grr, there's the end of that link:

zidane_headbutt_outrage/

6:07 am  
Blogger Charlie said...

I would like very much like to see a match played between the Daleks and Cybermen, it would definitely showcase two contrasting styles. The daleks I feel would favour a more contintental flavour - keeping the ball on the deck would be of first importance, as is a well-tended pitch. I fancy they would get bogged down if forced to play at Selhurst Park in February. The Cybermen would play a long-ball game, though FIFA may have to legislate if those pipes on the sides of their heads are deemed to give them an unfair degree of purchase when heading - a new offence of 'handleball'.

Lipreading - the only real new talent uncovered at this world cup in my opinion - would be tricky in both cases, but dalek fighting talk is well-documented: 'I exterminated your sister with my plunger - and she loved it!'

2:15 pm  
Blogger Charlie said...

Chris, great Zidane clips, thanks!

3:15 pm  

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