World Cup 2022 Part 1 - The World Cup Starts on my Birthday

Sepp did Nothing Wrong

20/11/22
Today happens to be my birthday. I’ve never had a World Cup on my birthday.  Thanks FIFA.

When I was a kid, one of my earliest memories was watching the World Cup Final in 1974 when I wanted the team in orange to win but the team in white won in the end. That team in White was of course Franz Beckenbauer’s West Germany and Johan Cruyff‘s Dutch artists came second.  I’ve enjoyed every World Cup since, to varying degrees.

1978 for the spectacle, the ticker tape and Archie Gemmill.  I was too young to understand that you have to hate everything about Scotland and was of course too young to understand the significance of the tournament, regarding the Military Junta in Argentina who, some said, were using to tournament to ‘Sportswash’ all the human rights abuses going on in the host country at the time.  It’s a good job that 44 years later, we’ve all moved on from that kind of thing.

1982 in Spain was my first World Cup with England involved – Southampton’s Kevin Keegan was injured and missed the group stages and then somehow contrived to miss a header from 5 yards which ultimately meant we got knocked out.  That World Cup had the amazing Brazil team of Zico, Socrates, Falcao, Junior and Eder but the Italians and Paolo Rossi gave me my first real lesson in that it doesn’t matter how good your attack is, if your defence is dreadful.  I was not happy that Italy knocked out Brazil but come the final, Rossi, Marco Tardelli and the rest were beating that team in white, so all was good.  

1986 with Gary Lineker and Diego the shit bag, Hand of God and all that.  England were crap, then Bobby Robson stumbled upon a good line-up and we were suddenly decent until we came up against Maradona who came as close to winning the World Cup on his own as it’s possible to do.  I never forgave him, though it should have done us a favour and told Bobby Robson that Peter Shilton couldn’t jump anymore.

1990 against that team in white and the penalty shoot-out in the semi-final, remembered for the misses by Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle but equally by me for the folly of having a 40-year-old goalkeeper who couldn’t jump.  The fact that the football wasn’t the best in this World Cup has kind of been forgotten what with the penalty defeat and Gazza’s tears.  The team in White of course won the final in a sensational match-up between Argentinian thuggery and German diving about, led by Jurgen Klinsmann, who then moved to Spurs and almost single-handedly, introduced diving to the English league game.  Argentina got to the final despite losing their first game of the tournament to Cameroon, who basically kicked the fuck out of them.  The tackle by Benjamin Massing on Claudio Caniggia is still one of the funniest football moments I’ve ever seen.

1994, no England thanks to Graham Taylor and ‘Do I Not Like That’. The tournament was pretty boring with Brazil winning on penalties after a 0-0 draw kind of summing the whole thing up.  Roberto Baggio had a shit haircut and took a shit penalty in the good ol’ U, S of A.

1998 and England were managed by Glenn Hoddle, with Matt Le Tissier and less importantly, Paul Gascoigne left out of the squad and another penalty defeat, this time to Argentina after David Beckham decided to kick Diego Simeone up the arse, forcing us to play with 10. France eventually won it 3-0 against Brazil in the final, with Zidane scoring two identical headers. Before the game there was a bit of controversy with the real Ronaldo who apparently had some sort of seizure but was forced into playing because of pressures from the sponsor.

2002 and the first tournament wasted by Sven-Göran Eriksson as we were 2-1 down against Brazil and they had 10-men but we did absolutely nothing for the last half an hour whilst Sven just stood there pondering which FA Executive he could shag next.  This was our Golden Generation, apart from Danny Mills, obviously.

2006 and another penalty exit to Portugal with a certain spoilt little bastard being the centre of attention for them and he’s still there now which is fair play to him for longevity but he’s still a sport little bastard who hasn’t grown up at all in 16 years. This tournament was held in the home country of that team in white, so their defeat to Italy in the semi-final was one of my all-time favourite World Cup matches. The Italians of course went on to beat France in the final where the story was all about Zidane’s head-butt on Materazzi. Zidane was indisputably the reason that France lost the World Cup Final but the French treated him as a hero and blamed the Italian for getting head-butted. Strange brunch.

2010 was a complete shambles for Capello’s England. Getting hammered 4-1 by that team in white, and the tournament will be mainly remembered for Spain beating the Dutch in the final when the Dutch horrified the memories of 1974 and 1978 by basically just trying to kick the shit out of them like a shit pub team.  Nigel de Jong kicking Xabi Alonso in the throat should have seen him sent off after about 5 minutes of the Final..

2014 in Brazil was supposed to be their ‘football’s coming home’ moment but they got annihilated 7-1 by that team in White in the semi-finals. England were beyond fucking dreadful under Roy Hodgson as we lost our first two games and were the first team in the entire tournament to be knocked out. We still gave him another tournament though because that’s what we do.  The German’s won it because that’s what they do.

2018 saw England use the most favourable or favourable draws to make it to the semi-final where they basically shit the bed against Croatia and having gone one up early, just sat back and allowed Croatia to play and do what they liked until they won. The tournament itself saw the overbearing presence of Vladimir Putin and to see him handing out the medals was a bit of a jarring moment, even in 2018.  The French didn’t implode and were the best team at the tournament by a mile and deserved winners. Putin sent some blokes to Salisbury and invaded Ukraine.

What all of these tournaments had in common was that they were played in fucking June and July. 

In those tournaments I have mentioned, most of the 'alleged' corruption has been off the pitch. If it stays off the pitch this time, then I would say that a majority will try and just enjoy the football. Corruption on the pitch is a different thing altogether and there are a few previous World Cup Finals incidents that spring to mind if I cast my mind back. One was that famous game in Argentina 1978, when the hosts needed to win 5-0 to progress and Peru’s Argentinian goalkeeper ensured they won by six.  Then you had the 2002 South Korea against Italy quarter-final which is one of the dodgiest games I have ever seen. You can’t have that many refereeing decisions going against one team in any game without suspecting something. When a goal was disallowed for the ball being off the pitch in the build-up when it was about a yard inside the field of play, you know that it’s bent. Then of course there was the Austria and Germany game in 1982 where they basically held hands for a result which guaranteed they both got out of a group. In all three of these games, no sufficient sanction was given to the benefiting team.

There was undoubted corruption off the pitch, in the award of some of the previous tournaments that I’ve mentioned. 1978 for example and the Argentine Junta influence on then FIFA president João Havelenge. The award of the 2010 tournament to South Africa was dodgy as fuck and then you have 2018 being awarded to Putin’s Russia but somehow nothing compares with Qatar 2022. It’s basically a country with no heritage in football, no desire to grow the game in that country but lots of money which seems to have found its way into the pockets of the FIFA Exco members who awarded the tournament to them. Bearing in mind the vote was taken 12 years ago, I find it staggering that in those 12 years, with all the corruption and cash-for-votes uncovered, the tournament has not been moved to a more suitable destination… but here we are.  I’m going to concentrate on things happening on the pitch as much as possible, that I fear that won’t actually be possible. 

Oh, and Sepp Blatter did nothing wrong ever as President of FIFA.  It was just all of the Executive Committee members that reported to him.

Here we go, World Cup 2022 Edition.