She's happy, so am I.MONDAY 28th JUNE
Holland v Slovakia in the afternoon game, a game for which I and everyone everywhere in any part of the world that was not Slovakia, predicted a Dutch win. Arjen Robben made his first start so many of the spread betting companies would have been running their Robben specials:- Minute of first injury, minute of first blatant dive and maybe even minute of first goal. The Dutch had been steady and not spectacular in their games so far but they’d won the lot so at the end of the day, I doubt they care much. This was likely to be more of the same and so it proved as the Slovak defence allowed Robben to cut onto the only foot he can kick with and true to form, he lashed the Dutch in front on 18 minutes. The rest of the first half was pretty tame but the second half opened out with the Slovaks having good chances through Stoch which was well tipped over by Stekelenberg in the Dutch goal and through Vittek who never looked like he believed he could score. All the Slovakia attacks were coming via the managers son Weiss, who despite looking about 14, looked a very decent player. Game over with ten minutes to go as the Slovak keeper came rushing out with no plan or idea and Dirk Kuyt beat him to the ball before squaring to Schneijder to fire into an empty net. Slovakia probably deserved a goal and duly got one though a last minute penalty by Vittek to give him four goals for the tournament.
He’s one of my hate figures but I have to say, in the interest of fairness, that Dirk Kuyt had a brilliant game. Ok, he’s taken over from Ruud Van Nistelrooy as the ugliest Dutch player but he was excellent today nonetheless. Talking of ugly players and again with a Liverpool connection – Martin Skrtel, bloody hell. He shouldn’t be allowed to play in any match that kicks off before 9pm in case there are kids watching.
To the evening and Brazil v Chile. Brazil, near as dammit, had their first XI on the pitch and what a difference to the last match. Juan, the centre half who should have been suspended, opened the scoring on the half hour with a thumping header from a Maicon corner and though you could argue that Chile were having most of the possession and looking good, Brazil never looked like conceding (which reminded me of England not) and always carried a threat themselves. This was illustrated five minutes later when Robinho broke away at pace on the left, fed the ball into Kaka who weighted a brilliant pass into Luis Fabiano who went round the keeper and slotted for 2-0. Brilliant goal. Half time came and went but we were all done on the hour when Ramires ran through three half headrted challenges before the ball broke to Robinho to curl it first time into the corner. Another brilliant finish and game over. Chile kept going in the quest to get the goal they deserved but not to be and Brazil through to play Holland in the Quarters. Interestingly, most observers seem to think that Howard Webb had a decent match refereeing this so maybe England do have a chance of getting to the final after all. With all due respect Howard, it’s just not the same…
Meanwhile in Rustenberg, Fabio Capello is facing the media and offering up player tiredness as an excuse and admitting that he spoke to his boss at the FA and said he wants to stay on. The FA are taking two weeks to decide which means they are looking to see if they can afford to sack him having removed the ‘fuck off with no compensation’ clause just before the tournament started. If memory serves, didn’t they do that with Sven Goran Eriksson before Euro 2004 where we were similarly shite. Joking aside, I expect they’re weighing up where they could get anyone who could do better. Certainly, no one could be better qualified than Capello but as I said yesterday, he lost the plot when it mattered most. Interesting to think back to Eriksson who also, always did well in qualification before being as useful as an ash tray on a motorbike in the tournaments… makes you think that it must be the players who either can’t handle the pressure, are too knackered or who just aren’t good enough to play against the really good sides. Certainly though, I feel that there are managers out there who could have got more out of our players and though I hate to endorse him, Harry Redknapp is the one who springs to mind. If Capello is gone in a couple of weeks though, expect the tax evasion case against ‘Arry to miraculously fall apart….
Our fans have been praised though for being well behaved which is nice though I bet there was at least one incident last night of a German fan being hospitalised with a Vuvuzela sticking out of his arse.
A circus midget sucking on two golf tees.
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