Smiling Through the Pain

I am shocked! I've seen pictures of England footballers (if that's not now officially a contradiction in terms) - England footballers LAUGHING just HOURS after the game.


Not miserable enough Cashley

Just what the hell have they got to laugh at? I don't expect to see one of 'em crack so much as a smile for the next four years. I'm surprised they've got the gall to fly home on an aeroplane. They should WALK. (I'm sure Rooney and co can manage the tricky bit around the Med - it wasn't that long ago that they could walk on water).

And some of them have got back only to go away on holiday. Holidays? No, no, no. Fuck the Maldives. We have some Three Lions sackcloth and Maldon Sea Salt for them to rub into their gaping wounds of shame.

Seriously though Ledley and Ashley are as entitled to a laugh as anyone. You do kind of wonder what they might have been saying to each other - something to the effect of:
'So at which exclusive late-night dive will you be hurling abuse at the staff and/or police, Cashley?'
'Where do you go to do it, Ledley, old chum?'

It's pretty clear what these blokes have got to laugh at, any road. They remain unthinkably well-paid for being unthinkably average and unthinkably blinking unthinking about the way they play the game.

They'll still be able to cash in. I can see the ads now. Rob Green consults his Nat West bank manager cos money just seems to slip through his fingers. Jamie Carragher embodies a particularly slow broadband connection. Parcelforce show Messrs Lennon and Wright-Phillips whacking cross after cross over Crouchy's haed while the strapline says 'For really good delivery use Parcelforce.'

You might include Capello in this loop of the overpaid and underdone although I don't think a lack of forethought is his problem. Just take a look at how clairvoyantly the squad suits matched perfectly the vibrancy of England's attacking play.

The FA have already embarked on their obligatory post-tournament challenge to distinguish a large posterior from the pointy bit in the middle of the arm. And even they manage that the chances of the elbow knowing what the arse is doing are nil.

There are of course various replacements being lined up, mostly by the papers, but frankly, unless someone potters in and tells the preening constricted ninnies who couldn't put together a 4-year-old's jigsaw puzzle let alone a thrilling passing movement to go back to their clubs and prepare for retirement, then we'll just have a different farmer to blame for being in charge of the muck-spreader.

Harry Redknapp leads the England squad out to train

Of course the fact that the thrusting young Germans turned us over has made everyone wonder why the creaking thirty-somethings were there in the first place. And there's a tale. Someone pointed me in the direction of Matt Dickinson in The Times.

He says the Germans were in bits after Croatia tonked them 3-0 in 1998. Self-loathing reached fever pitch when Keegan's England beat them 1-0 in 2000. (And that England team made this one look like Barce-frigging-lona).

They have to host the World Cup in 6 years! What are they going to do?

Option 1: Bring in a bloke who's seen the world and pay him shedloads to really nail down this 4-4-2 system so we can't do owt else, ever. And make sure he picks the same half-baked fatigued lamebrains to underline their mastery of the anticlimax.

Option 2: Force your nation's top division to have a fully functioning academy at every club or you'll take away their right to play in the Bundesliga. Oversee an increasing representation of young ethically diverse and talented young lads who actually get to start the odd game at their clubs and get a national coach in who like sthe idea of young fellas playing for Germany, even if it means the odd freakish 5-1 drubbing being given a team that's a bit tender and naive. (As opposed to England 2010 who represent the only recorded instance of being long-in-the-tooth and naive).

Naturally they took the long-term option. Not the quick-fix that turns out to be a BP style sticking plaster of a plan. We should do that, then.

So I hereby give my permission for:
1. Sepp Blatter to ride roughshod over European employment law and force English clubs to play at least 5 Englishmen.
2. The FA to put a wage cap on clubs in this country so that chuckling chavs look a little less self-satisfied when they open their wage packets of a Friday morning.
3. A ban on doom-mongers everywhere cos the average age of the new England team is 23 and they get a fearful hammering from Belgium.
4. Let's buy some playing fields back.

In the meantime you've got to start putting together your team of the tournament. Is bloody well mandatory.

Here's mine:
Eduardo (Portugal): Maicon (Brazil), Juan (Brazil), Lucio (Brazil), Heinze (Argentina); Felipe Melo (Brazil), Xavi (Spain), Ozil (Germany), Sanchez (Chile), Honda (Japan), Villa (Spain).

Honorable mentions to Klose and Higuain who are charmless but effective, Xabi Alonso, Endo, Donovan, and of course the lad Messi, who hasn't made it on the grounds that he hasn't surprised me at all.

Traditionally, you should have an Utter Stefan Kuntz XI but I'm afraid they know who they are and any road they're all on holiday at the moment.

They're Coming Home, They're Coming Home!

Dunno about you lot but I’ve not seen too much of the following: anger, despair, dismay. Mostly it’s been a mixture of bewilderment and resignation. Most of us knew we weren’t good enough after the first game. The rest of us knew it after the second, bar the silly numpties who though 1-0 v Slovenia was somehow a turning point.

I also had the solace of an evening chain-smoking and catching up on my lost beer. And any road, relax. We’ll have some proper footy to watch for a couple of weeks.
The post mortem has started in earnest. Fact is, this corpse has been long dead. Let’s line up the guilty parties who have been firing arrows into the English cadaver.

1. Fabio Capello. 6 million quid a year and he’s made Jonathan Ross look like good value. There’s no doubt he’s been stubborn and regimented in a way that the average English superstar doesn’t need. Heskey for Defoe at the end will be as resonant a death knell as Graham Taylor’s Alan Smith for Lineker in ’92. He never took the Gerrard/Lampard decision but stuck ‘em both in in the wrong positions. He was a relief after the boot-licking brolly-holder but it’s clear that the utter tools at his disposal weren’t up to it.

2. The FA. Enough with the kowtowing and cringing as they roll out their begging blankets to the good and great of European football. Time for some economy and humility. Sack Fabio and get someone weird in (but not Hoddle). Becks? We’d still be shit but it’d be one for the ladies.

3. John Terry – caught out of position all game long and all season long when he;s been off the pitch. I’ve heard it said he was playing out of position in the back four but given he and Upson played together for a lot of the qualifiers that’s so much twenty-twenty vision slurry.

4. The referee/linesman. This is what the pig-ignorant people who are pulling the wool over heir eyes are saying this morning. If Lamps’s goal had been given we’d have gone in 2-2 and the whole picture would’ve changed. We wouldn’t have been pushing for the equaliser and the breakaway goals wouldn’t have happened. Bollocks. Anyone who thinks that the Germans wouldn’t have continue to flit gaily through the English defence like Hansel and Gretel on a toddle through the Black Forest is in the land where Reason eats canteloupes and rides on the back a four-winged goose singing ‘Shaddap Ya Face’ (that’s the brandy kicking in). Which is NOT to say that it’s not a fucking scandal.

5. The press. They build us up so they can knock us down. Maybe. And just maybe we all delude ourselves that our footballers are really good when they are quite good to downright cack. Certainly someone has been lying about Wayne R, cos if he’s 100% fit then I’m Fatima Whitbread’s waxer (I’m not, by the way).
Am I the only one who thought Wayne carried all the lightness and grace of Chrissy ‘Christ you’ve gone to seed’ Waddle? Our reporters have talked up this golden generation but that there’s Fools Gold! I had no expectation after Slovenia and yet the red-tops talked it up like the Germans were quaking in their boots and our team of Godfrey, Wilson and Jones were going to shake off the Dad’s Army tag. Twats.

6. Landon Donovan. That last minute frigging goal deprived us of a cushy game against Ghana, then Uruguay. Shit, we’d be in the semis by now. Anyone think Ghana wouldn’t have beaten us? Seriously? It’d be harder to beat a carpet.

7. Germany. Well they’re a good thing to blame cos they were 400 times better than us. As they were in 2006 with another ‘average’ team. Hansen, Shearer and Dixon were right bullish before the match about England’s superiority but I thought, well in what sphere are you operating when you can say that Schweinsteiger, Ozil, Klose, even the lad Muller, wouldn’t waltz into the England XI. And we accuse the Germans of arrogance.

8. And this is the real answer. English footballers are dense. This is the crux, right? So what if Gerrard plays wide left. SO what if Lampard tries playing deeper. So what if it’s 4-4-2 when 4-4-1-1 looks better. Intelligent players could adapt.
The players England have available are quite simply a product of the system in which they grew up. And that system hasn’t changed since 1966. Forget the blip of 1990. (England played well in one game of that tournament and that was the one they lost). There are 900 pro footy coaches in this country. There are 17,000 in Germany.
By and large English schoolkids get the same dumb-ass, brain-dead instruction from the age of 9. Emphasis is still placed on hoofing it long. They play on full size pitches where the big hoof reaps dividends (Miroslav Klose will explain how it works).
You learn from the womb whether you’re a midfielder or a centre-half and chances are that’ll never change. And woe betide you if you’re titchy like that midget Messi, or you bring the ball out from the back like you’re a fucking Brazilian, or you try a Ronaldo lollipop when your mates are expecting you to kick it in to the car-park and get rid.
For too many years we’ve been gasping like my missus during a Clooney movie at the technical genius of them foreign types. It’s not genius. It’s just that they learn how to use the ball properly. Every other nation left in this competition treat the ball as a friend. Our boys treat it like piss-soaked bus shelter in need of a good kicking.

In other words, WE ARE A BIT CRAP.


Now let’s enjoy some proper football and not tarnish our minds with giving the overpaid chumps a second thought. I love you, beer. Let’s never fall out again!

Germany here we.. erm, dawdle

I keep thinking of Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction: 'Okay boys lets not start sucking each others dicks just yet.'

Yes, we were much better.

Defoe for Heskey was like butter for lard. A centre forward who scores. Novel.


Here's Jermain looking at a dodgy front two and hoping he can get in there and score.

Milner for Lennon was like Phil The Power Taylor for Cupid. Positively Beckhamesque delivery.

Upson for Carragher was like racehorse for donkey. The last ditch tackle was immaculate and I can't see the worthy doddering Scouse getting another bash at it.

Other than that they remembered some of the basics. Keep the ball, pass to each other and perhaps now they'll remember the other principle of the modern footballer, keep your press conferences bland.

Capello was hearty and tactile afterwards, and it looked a bit uncomfortable, like a boisterous uncle after a couple of pints.

And me? I made a stupid vow before the game. No booze and no fags until England lose. Bugger me if it didn't work. And now I've been ordered to keep it up.

So in order to support a great run for our boys I am prepared to put my wellbeing on the line. Not a B&H or a bass will pass me lips till we lose. And when I say no booze that includes wine, cider and even beer that you swig out of a bottle with a slice of lime in it like it were a campari or summat.

I'm not being a pessimist. I just don't reckon that next pint is far away.

Rooney isn't fit. You can see it. He was better than against Algeria but then a lump of igneous rock would have been an improvement. He lacks that instant movement and quickness of foot and mind (in a purely footballing sense) that a fully firing Wazza would have in spades.

Joe Cole's appearance was welcome but he's still got that kiddy mentality where he comes on and tries to do way too much too soon. He's like one of them numpties who joins a motorway and is weaving between cars before he's got off the slip road.

Barry gave Slovenia every chance to counter attack and mishit so many more passes than his midfield mates that I thought there was a divot stuck to his boot throughout the second half.

And we should've tonked six past them.

At least we won't have to listen to our boys whispering how difficult it is to be cooped up in one place with nothing to do when they're not training. There's a world outside Grand Theft Auto and beer and shagging the missus.

There are things called books. Terribly clever people have spent a long time writing them and they're like stories. Like The Hungry Caterpillar but even longer.

There are things like pens and paper. You could do pictures with them. Post them to the children. They might even send something back that looks like what it's supposed to look like.

You can create shapes with the paper if you can't remember which end of the pen to point at the paper. It's called origami. No Ashley you're getting confused - the Dutch fans are nicknamed the 'Orange Army'.

Which reminds me. Other people talk different to us. You can learn how to do it and it might help you get a job where they live.

Plus you know the crap you bung on your headphones. That doesn't just happen you know. People who make those noises learn how to play things called musical instruments. It's tricky at first but once you get the hang of it, you'll never get be boring again. Unless your name is Chris Martin. Or Dido.

There's also internet porn. But they know that. How can they be bored?

So there's a job lot of beer sitting under canvass in the back garden, just waiting for the sprightly Germans to send our back four scattering. They've got Terry Hall as skipper and a real star in Ozil. Plus they move it about the park in well nifty fashion like a slightly wooden Argentina.

It'd be nice to stick one up sneery Franz Beckenbauer's schnozz but I can't see one of them brews being called Schadenfraude come Sunday night.

I'm not being unpatriotic, and I'm not whingeing about a beer embargo (unlike our boys in Rustenberg) I'm just basing it on what we've seen so far.

'I can't vait for ze latest hilarious piss-take of vat is one of ze greatest pervormances IN ZINEMA HISTORY!!!'

Of course no one wants an English victory more than the Youtube subtitling fraternity of Downfall. It's going ot be endless, I tell you.