Is the paint dry yet?

Day 18. What happened today in Brazil.

I said this before and I'll say it again...Costa bloody Rica happened today. But more of that later.

First up today was Holland-Mexico. Holland were looking to show that they could live up to their "serious contenders" tag, which only started after the first round. Before that, everybody in Holland seemed to think they were pretty bad and were definitely going out in the first round. Even the manager, Van Gaal, didn't have much hope for the future and had decided that getting criticized constantly in Manchester was better than abuse at home. To make matters worse when Holland qualified for the last 16 as the top scoring team, the Dutch critics complained that Van Gaal's team had abandoned the Dutch way of playing football. As far as I can remember when they reached the final in 2010, the Dutch looked as far from Total Football as Greece did. But Holland found a way. After going behind to a beautiful Mexican goal, the Dutch kept going and going and going, until finally equalizing 2 minutes from the end, and winning with a controversial (when are they not?) penalty in the 4th minute of injury time.

Of course we can all feel sorry for the Mexicans. They really were very, very close to the quarter finals. But they really needed a second goal. You can never sit on a one goal lead when you have a goalkeeper who is that good. You know, the kind who has the game of his life against Brazil and then does it again today, but part of his brilliance is down to his eccentricity. And at one point he will decide to come for a cross because in his head he is going to spectacularly punch it away, but in reality he realizes he is nowhere near able to do that, and he looks like a fool when the other team scores because the goalie is nowhere to be seen. The goalie in question, Ochoa, knew he was at fault. How was it obvious? Did he do what every goalkeeper does when they concede a goal, yell at their defenders? No. Silence. Mea culpa. Of course the gullible English clubs are lining up to sign him, based on a couple of inspired performances. Ajaccio, in the French second division, who released him at the end of this season must know better.

Mexico, and their captain Marquez, gave away the late, late penalty. Was it a foul? The debate in Mexico will go on forever. In Holland it ended once everybody Dutch heard a whistle and the referee's arm pointed to the penalty spot. Does Robben dive? Sure. Did his foot make contact with Marquez's foot? Yes. Should Marquez have stuck his foot out, knowing he had a known diver trying to get around him? No. Is it fair? Happens all the time, and if it wasn't given the debate would have raged the other way. In the end the men in the orange ties and blue jackets were jumping out of the Dutch dugout, and looking forward to how they could not screw up against either Costa Rica or Greece.

I imagine that many Europeans, apart from the Greeks I hope, might have gone to bed before the end of the Costa Rica-Greece match. So allow me to describe what happened. The teams came out, the national anthems were sung and that was it. Excitement over, until 120 minutes later. In between, Costa Rica ran with the ball, Greek defenders hoofed the ball as far away as possible, Samaras tried some skill but was offside. Karagounis fouled a Costa Rican and then threw his arms up in the air...What. me? Costa Rica ran with the ball, Greek defenders hoofed the ball as far away as possible, Samaras tried some skill but was offside. Costa Rica ran with the ball......the crowd did the Mexican wave......another Greek player was offside. Karagounis fouled a Costa Rican and then threw his arms up in the air...Ref, c'mon, I didn't touch him. But hold on, a chance...Greece must score...no...ball hits Costa Rica goalkeeper on hip and goes out. Half-time whistle. Second half.....Here we go, Costa Rica running, nothing doing, Greece lob a few passes up field, nothing happening. Then suddenly Bryan Ruiz hits a pass towards the goal.....and it is a goal! Best thing that could have happened, Greece had to attack now. They tried and tried but couldn't break down the defence of the team that has St Kitts and Nevis as it's regional competitors. And then Costa Rica had a player sent off for a second yellow card. And the crowd went wild (the Greeks) or booed (the Costa Ricans and Brazilians). Or did they? Most of them must still have been in line for the toilet or beer (see yesterday). Or they were so bored they just couldn't be bothered. And on we went. Greece brought on the mystery man, Kostas Mitroglu, the striker who couldn't stop scoring in Greece, was transferred to Fulham for a record fee, but was then injured or not fit enough for English football, and.....nothing happened. The Greeks seemed disinterested in scoring, which was rather concerning for any knowledgeable neutral watching. Greece always do this, yet in the end, the very end as it turned out today, they find a way. 90th minute and Sokratis Papastathopoulos bundles in a rebound and we all nodded (or shook?) our heads in complete acceptance of the inevitable. Extra time had a little drama, mostly centred around who looked more knackered form running around aimlessly for 120 minutes. At the end of the extra time, before penalties, Fernando Santos, the Greek coach managed to get himself sent off for arguing with the referee. The penalties were going pretty well for both sides until number 5 for Greece was saved and Costa Rica scored the next one to go where they have never gone before. And, thankfully, it was all over.

This really was a terrible match. Bbc pulled out the "turgid affair" description again but really turgid does not do it justice. This was the match that you hoped anybody wanting to watch football for the first time was not watching. I was thinking of all the Americans who had heard about how great this Fifa World Cup thing is and wanted to get in on the action on a Sunday afternoon and saw this. They must have really wondered how this could be any more exciting than watching cars going round an oval track for hours, or sitting in a half empty baseball stadium hoping somebody would hit a ball so they don't have to keep checking facebook, twitter and instagram on their phone, in the hope that somebody's updated a status, because there's nothing happening out on the field. Yes, it was that bad. There have been some exciting 1-1 draws over the years (France-Brazil 1986 was one of the best ever), and others where you could at least appreciate the tactical battle. This had nothing. It's only saving grace, that saved me looking for re-runs of question time in the Canadian parliament, was that it was the last 16 of the World Cup. Hopefully never again in the next 2 weeks.

Tomorrow, we should have a couple of crackers. Maybe. France and Nigeria might battle end to end, or France might just be too good. And Algeria are out for revenge against Germany. The head says Germany will be too good, but I'm sure many heads said that in 1982. For 90 minutes, or 120, can we ignore oppressive regimes and...one, two, three! Viva L'Algerie!

Fred and Jo....and Neymar.

Day 17. What happened today in Brazil.

Brazil are just not very good, are they? Colombia are probably one of the best teams of this World Cup. What will happen when they meet on Friday in the quarter final?

Brazil huffed and puffed, and chased, and rode their luck and ended up with a penalty shoot out win against Chile. As negative as the prognosis on Brazil may be, at the same time they didn't concede more than one bad-mistake goal against what was supposedly one of the best attacking teams out there. In the final minute of extra time Pinilla, for Chile, hit an amazing shot against the crossbar. It would have been game and World Cup over for Brazil. But it didn't go in, did it, and nobody has ever won anything by going close. Brazil scored first through David Luiz's first goal ever for Brazil, although there is debate over whether he got the final touch. The Brazilians then looked like they were going to saunter through the rest of the match, maybe score a couple more goals, and that would be that. However, Hulk showed he had the touch of a uncoordinated, muscle oaf out of a fantasy comic book and let Chile in to score. To his credit, Hulk became a man possessed in the second half, a man possessed by the fear of being the reason for Brazil having no more interest in their World Cup. He repeatedly attacked the Chilean defence on his own, and he kind of had to since Neymar was having a no-shoot day. Even his change from gold boots to his regular ones at half-time didn't seem to make a difference. Of course no Brazil match would be complete without an ode to those 2 wonderful Brazilians, Fred and Jo. Fred's expected goal rush, after he scored his first goal against Cameroon, never looked like it was going to happen. He was back to the lovable Fred who you would love if you were the opposing team's defence. So, poor old Big Phil had to do what he himself must loathe to admit that he has to do. He brought on Jo, to replace Fred. Not sure if Big Phil hates more that he has to take off Fred, who he has high hopes for, or that the only other striker he can replace him with is Jo. Maybe that's why Neymar kept refusing to shoot today: he said to Big Phil if you are really going to keep lumping me with Fred and Hulk let's see what happens when I leave the goal scoring to them. And Big Phil, not one to mess with, thought, fine, you little so and so, you don't like Hulk and Fred, here's some real punishment...deal with Jo. Jo reminds me of that guy at school, who was told that he was good, or got lucky playing with boys much younger than him, but now that he's playing with the big boys is completely out of place. But he can't admit to it. Every time, he completely fluffs a good chance, he has that look; the look of, "what, how didn't that go in", which quickly changes to "hey, everybody that wasn't my fault, look, that blade of grass was out of place" which then becomes a look of "ok, stand tall, eyes wide open, if I look good and imposing nobody will notice I can't play this game".

At the beginning of the second half (and when I say beginning, I mean well past the 60 minute mark), the main stand across from the cameras had way more empty seats than in the first half. Again, my belief is that all those people are stuck in a queue for the toilet or beer. The real fans, in the upper tiers, just give up and go back to their seats. The number of fans constantly walking back and forth in that stand reminded me of watching football in Toronto, in Major League Soccer. It's amazing how many people just constantly walk around. Not in a football stadium to watch the football, obviously.

Colombia beat the Suarez-less Uruguayans pretty easily. It's was, as we say, a comfortable 2-0. With all the fuss about Suarez nobody seems to mention how his strike partner Edison Cavani is supposedly a highly rated player himself. But just not good enough. Like the rest of the team. Their era, if there was one, is definitely over. This was a victory for quick attacking football over let's-kill-the-game-and-win-off-one-goal-from-a-corner football. Colombia came to this World Cup without the player who was to Colombia what Suarez is to Uruguay. Radamel Falcao was going to be the man to score the goals but after his serious knee injury it seemed like Colombia had lost their main man. Now it looks like he would struggle to get into this team. Were would he fit in? James Rodriguez has become the star of this World Cup. When moneybags Monaco wanted to compete with the big boys in France they bought Falcao for a sickening amount of money from Atletico Madrid, but since they still had some money left they went back to Porto and bought the guy who had played with Falcao at Porto, Rodriguez. The provider and the goal scorer together. Rodriguez has now become both with 5 goals and assists in most of the other goals. Look out for him....number 10, the name on his shirt is James, but please, call him Hahmez.

Tomorrow the Dutch and the Mexicans do battle before Costa Rica and Greece fight it out for the title of the most unlikely team in the quarter finals.

And on the 16th day, they rested.

Day 16. What happened today in Brazil. Teams went home, others trained, or didn't in the case of Nigeria. Following Cameroon and Ghana's players' strike over unpaid bonuses, now it was the Nigerian's turn. Whatever we may think about greedy, overpaid footballers if they have contracts that promise these bonuses they should get it. It seems like President Goodluck's intervention has saved the day.

England have been home for a few days and a couple of their players are happily moving on and sorting out their futures, with a little bit more money to come their way. Defender Luke Shaw, who is 18, signed for Man United for a transfer fee of 27 million pounds. Yes, he's eighteen. Adam Lallana has had a medical at Liverpool in expectation of a 25 million pound move. More will follow, once the bigger teams start getting eliminated and the agents kick into high gear selling the new World Cup stars at terribly inflated prices to the gullible English teams.

Tomorrow, the action reaches a new level of excitement. Lose now, and it may take extra time and penalties, and losers there will be, and you're on your way home. No goal difference to the rescue now. It's South American day on Saturday. Brazil-Chile, followed by Colombia-Uruguay.

Chile have reached the last 16 three times and each time they have lost to, yes, Brazil. It wouldn't take that brave of a person to bet on the un-thinkable (to Brazilians) happening. Chile have looked mighty good and Brazil have been iffy. Only question about Chile is how Holland dealt with them pretty easily in the last group match.

Colombia-Uruguay, I imagine, is going to be ugly. Not ugly, in the turgid (thanks BBC) Italy-Uruguay way, but I suspect that especially if things aren't going Uruguay's way we are going to see some nastiness that the Colombians may get caught up in too. Uruguay are now in the us against the world mood, after Luis Suarez's suspension. Their coach, Oscar Tabarez, had quit his Fifa advising roles in disgust, the captain Lugano says Suarez did nothing wrong, Maradona has become an honorary Uruguayan to defend Suarez against the 'mafia' at Fifa, and the whole team refused to speak in English to English journalists because, in case you didn't know, Suarez only chewed at Chellini's shoulder because he is a victim of the English media's harassment and torture.

Colombia have only played a South American team once at the World Cup, and again you guessed it, it was Uruguay, who won 2-1 in 1962. Colombia won 3 games so far, which is the total number of wins in their previous 13 matches in World Cups. They have some wonderful players, and I hope we get to see them, and their fantastic goal celebration, again after tomorrow. Enjoy....this is going to get really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLAIjbJvx7s

One, two, three...Viva L'Algerie....sshhhhh!

Day 15. What happened today in Brazil. Watching, and supporting the idea of, the World Cup is a moral dilemma, with all the well reported issues in Brazil that need money more than brand new stadiums. So does wanting Algeria to win make one an even more ethically inept person?

Algeria, the country and the regime, survived the Arab Spring by using a tiny portion of it's vast oil wealth to keep the people happy for a while. While appearing to be a little more democratic than Tunisia and Libya, it is still a country run by a privileged inner circle, with backing from the very powerful military. Today Algeria made history of a completely different kind. They drew 1-1 with Russia to make it into the second round of the World Cup for the first time. If we really want to get into the existing political scenarios, it would be a tough choice to choose between Russia and Algeria for who would be a better choice to progress.

Hard as it is, and morally questionable, taking it just as a football event it was a momentous occasion, and especially so when you realize who Algeria play in the round of 16. Germany. Not the same West Germany but close enough to the team that is the reason why Fifa introduced the simultaneous match times for final group games after 1982. In that World Cup, after Algeria beat W Germany 2-1, the Germans and Austrians knew that a 1-0 win for Germany would see both teams qualify for the second round, as they knew the result of Algeria's final game, played earlier. And, that is what happened. One goal scored and an agreed non-aggression pact between the teams after that. And there was nothing that Algeria could do. Except for waiting 32 years to get revenge. I'm looking forward to this one.

Amongst the intensity of the Algerians, players and fans, and the desperation of the Russians I found time for a chuckle towards the end. As the ball went out of play in front of the Algerian bench, one of the subs kicked it, as commentators are wont to say, into row z, to the frustration of the Russians who didn't have a second to spare. Over trotted Mr officious referee, who found the offending sub, and brandished a yellow card in his face for time wasting. Now, if that was the only ball they had I would understand it because it would take a long time to find it and throw it down from the top tier. However, Fifa provides what seems like a constant supply of footballs and as soon as one goes out, another one appears. By the time the referee had come over, identified the player, shown him the yellow card and made note of his name, the Russians were probably waiting to take the throw in with a new ball. So it is the referee who should get a yellow card for wasting time.

At the same time as Algeria-Russia, Belgium were beating South Korea 1-0, despite playing all the second half with 10 players. This two-matches-at-the-same-time thing presents a dilemma. Which to watch? They both count. My decision was based on potential for excitement (Belgium had played 2 very boring matches, Algeria had looked like the version of Brazil that Brazil haven't found in their last match), potential for wild supporters celebrating historical moment (definitely Algeria) and potential for once almighty manager looking increasingly desperate as his team struggles against supposedly inferior opposition (only one candidate, Mr Cappello). The right choice was made.

In other happenings today, Germany beat USA 1-0 and thousands of Americans celebrated a defeat because Portugal hadn't beaten Ghana by enough goals. Apparently more Americans are now watching football than baseball. I'm sure many of them were baffled by the above reasons for celebrating but are doing it anyway, because it makes a nice change from celebrating a team's win which could be one of over a 100 games played in a season, many of which against the same opposition, and just as long as they finish somewhere towards the top of the league still have a chance of winning the whole thing in the post-season, even if they were the worst of all those teams. Confused now? Yes, goal difference seems a lot simpler, no?

Ghana ended with a defeat and without 2 of their players who were sent home before playing Portugal because of an argument with their coach and Ghanaian officials. I wonder if they met the specially chartered plane from Ghana carrying their bonuses, in cash, at the airport on their way out.

Tomorrow, they, and we, rest. Enough time to digest what has happened over the last 15 days, and to enjoy this moment one more time. Will revenge be sweet? Will revenge happen? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJD79UQihZw

Shaqiri...Shaqiri...Shaqiri...

Day 14. What happened today in Brazil. What do you need on the day that comes after the day that was yesterday? Bad defending, that's what. That will lighten up the day and give us lots of goals. Argentina beat Nigeria 3-2, with both teams moving on, but both coaches and supporters will be hoping they don't keep up the "it doesn't matter how many we concede, we'll just score more" strategy. Argentina's winning goal is a classic in "oops, I didn't mean to that, but wait, it's a goal...sure, planned it all along". As Rojo was coming down from his leap and missed attempt at a header the ball hit his knee and in it went. Nigeria still made it through after Iran's game plan fell apart....lose to Argentina, draw with Nigeria, beat Bosnia and hope that will be enough. Bosnia's determination to leave with a win overcame Iran's confusion as to how to try to attack and win.

Switzerland and France were the other winners today. Switzerland beat Honduras 3-0 to finish second and France drew 0-0 with Ecuador to win the group. Xherdan Shaqiri scored a hat-trick for the Swiss, but take a look at the first goal. Yes, it was a beautiful curling shot, but on the many replays, from many angles, it looks like the goalkeeper is waving the ball in. Really. He seems incapable of jumping to the right and halfheartedly stretches out a hand, and just seems to say..."well, that one's gone".

France couldn't keep up their great scoring run. On the other side Ecuador got nothing from the man who I have nominated as the winner of the category "looked good for average side at World Cup, fooled middle of the pack teams in England willing to spend money to reach the holy grail of top 4, bought by one of them and was playing second division in Spain within a few months". Yes, the winner is Enner Valencia. He scored 3 goals, including 2 against the mighty Honduras and all of a sudden "three teams in England are showing interest". Remember Asomoah Gyan, winner of this category in 2010. Sunderland were the transfer record suckers, some team in the UAE were his employees after a few miserable months in wonderful North East England. I'm sure it's lovely.

Really, nothing very inspiring today apart from the quality of Shaqiri's hat-trick and Messi's two more goals. The more important update today is the number of coaches who have resigned, the ones who are smart enough to go before the inevitable firing. Unfortunately, just getting to the World Cup means nothing any more for some of the smaller countries. Even Honduras expect second round action. Costa Rica have spoiled all the fun for the minnows. Gone so far are:
Prandelli (Italy)
Lamouchi (Ivory Coast)
Zaccheroni (Japan)
Luis Suarez (no, not that one....this one was Honduras' coach)
Still there. Roy Hodgson.

Tomorrow is the day of justice for Algeria. Thirty two years after beating West Germany, but the falling foul of the agreement between the Germans and the Austrians, they have the opportunity to make it to the second round. Only Russia stand in their way. A draw could be enough, but let's hope Algeria go for it, if only to see the look on Capello's face when his team is knocked out by....Algeria.

Hey Messi...where are Brazil?

Day 12. What happened today in Brazil.

Can somebody please explain where the real Brazil is? You know, the team made up of players that make you want to watch them over and over again, even repeats on TV of the same match, and that make you wish that the 90 minutes never end. Brazil beat Cameroon 4-1 today to move into the last 16. A comfortable scoreline, but a disjointed performance. I cringe when I read on Bbc live text comments about how great it is to see the "real" Brazil playing. Today may have been good for anybody who has seen Brazil play in the last 10 or 20 years. But it's ironic that in this World Cup of open attacking football, the team that should be putting on the finest display of attacking genius as they did regularly up until 1986, has been overtaken in that department by Algeria. And they were playing against a team that had nothing to play for, nothing to lose who even when they did have something to play for, barely bothered. When Brazil did put together a couple of quick, defenders-chasing-shadows passes the ball ended up at the feet of Hulk, and unlike most average players who would have been celebrating a goal he looked like his name and that was that. It had to be Neymar to lift the team, the 22 year old. And he did, with two goals. Just before the second, at 1-1, he went over to the touchline and had a few words with coach Big Phil. He spoke to Big Phil with his hand over his mouth, as is the norm with players and coaches at this World Cup (lest their conversations are picked up by the microphones and relayed back to the opposing coaches) and from the body language I imagined the conversation going something like this:

Neymar: "coach, I am the superstar, what am I am doing with these guys. And why are they called Fred and Hulk?"
Big Phil (and you have to picture his big shrug of the shoulders and roll of the eyes): "Neymar, what can I do? I have to let Fred play, he found God, he's important for the people and Hulk, pfff, he's Hulk, you know, he sounds kind of scary"
Neymar : "but, coach, every time I pass them the ball they fall over or forget if they are left or right footed...what do I do?"
Big Phil: " look, I cant stand it either. They're crap, but better than Jo, so go score a another goal all by yourself. The people will be happy. Then pass the ball to them a few times, maybe one of them will bounce of Fred's head into the net and nobody will notice he is offside. What can I do?"
Neymar: "ok, coach, watch this......"

Brazil had the champagne moment of the 4th goal, by which time the Cameroonians were wishing they hadn't made such a stink about their bonuses before they came to Brazil, and just wanted to go back to their club teams.

In other news.....Holland beat Chile 2-0. Both teams go through. Holland play Mexico, who finished second in Brazil's group, in the last 16 and Chile play Brazil.
That will be good, really good....Saturday at noon (Toronto time)

In still more news.....Spain played their meaningless match against Australia and took the opportunity to look to the future by playing David Villa and Fernando Torres. You know Villa is way past it because he recently moved to playing football in the US as he became New York City's first signing, although "moved" and "playing" are a little bit of a stretch as the team will not exist until early 2015. And Torres, well, as big of a fan as I have been, even I have to admit that a guy who has been a bit player in England for a couple of years is surely way past his glory days.

Tomorrow, is the big battle...Uruguay-Italy. One's in, one's out. Suarez or Balotelli? Who's going to the worst of the "why-always-me" boys?

One, two, three Viva L'Algerie!

Day 11. What happened today in Brazil. 

There's been a theme this weekend. Superstar Messi does nothing for the whole match yesterday but then scores a wonder winner. Today, Belgian, wannabe superstar, Hazard, looks like he should be playing with the Under 18s for 88 minutes and then sets up the winning goal. And the best of them all, supposedly, Ronaldo after 94 minutes of almost complete non-superstardom, whips in a perfect cross onto his teammates head for the goal that silenced the USA! USA!
 
What a day it was. The boring match of the day was supposed to be Algeria-South Korea. The Koreans never score many and Algeria had defended for 89 minutes in their last match. But suddenly the Algerians had a become a one touch, quick on the counter attacks football machine. At 3-0 it looked like this could be the one big one sided one that happens at every world cup....would it be 6,7. And this was Algeria, who are supposed to be on the receiving end of these hidings. The Koreans made it 1-3 early in the second half, Algeria made it 4-1, and finally it was 4-2. Revenge for 1982 is getting closer.
 
This match followed Belgium -Russia, which one could have been forgiven for expecting a classic: the hot shot Belgians against the battle hardened Russians. Well, the hot shots are firing quite a few blanks and the Russians might be having a hard time understanding Mr. Italian taskmaster Fabio Cappello. This was memories of Italia 1990, lazy, boring matches in the hot sun, a bit like watching baseball....you want to be excited but nothing, and I really mean nothing, happens. Finally, 2 minutes from the end Hazard, who spent the afternoon being knocked off the ball like he was a teenager invited to play with the big boys, goes off on one of his runs and sets up the young substitute, Origi, to score. Belgium have scored 3 goals, all by substitutes. Coach Wilmots must be planning 3 good substitutions for the next match.
 
As again my mind wandered, I realized something that's happening a lot at this world cup. Well over 5 minutes into the second half there were still lots of empty seats. Either there's not enough toilets, or the beer takes a long time to be poured.
 
Portugal-Usa was another, to quote the BBC, belter. Maybe every team and every coach was so sick of Tika Tika that they all agreed that they all need to play all out attacking football. Belgium and Russia didn't get the memo. This was end to end, non stop. The US came back from 1-0 down to lead 2-1 with 30 seconds to go when Ronaldo planted the ball right on Varela's head. You really had to feel for the Americans, they were almost there, almost the first team qualified from the group they were tipped to finish last in. But they are still very close. In the last round of matches they could lose to Germany 1-0 and Portugal would have to beat Ghana 5-0. In an easier scenario if Germany and USA draw, then they both move on. For the non-followers out there USA are coached by a former German idol, Klinsmann, who was also coach of Germany...and his assistant was the current German coach. Now if ever a couple of.old friends needed to do each other a favour. And it's not like the Germans haven't asked, allegedly, unproven of course, for a favour before....Algeria, 1982.

Day 10. Hey Waldo...where's Messi?

Day 10. What happened today in Brazil. And there goes another day of excitement from unexpected places. First up, from the man who threatens to be great, the player who can dance through any defence in Spain, can score the most outrageously amazing goals in Europe, but seems to forget it all when he plays for Argentina. Lionel Messi did shut me up (and remind me he was there) with a wonder goal in the 93rd minute after spending 92 minutes making the Iranian defenders look better than any team he faces in Spain every week. 1-0 to Argentina and they are through to the next round. Every match, especially in a new round has a different story, but can Argentina get better? Can Messi finally do a Maradona? Argentina's '86 team was not that good. Maradona made them. And before any "expert' says Argentina's system doesn't suit Messi, I'd say Maradona could play with anybody. He was the system. The play was at Iran's end for so long, yet with Argentina not getting anywhere I found myself distracted by what was going on with a red banner that kept getting hung by supporters behind the Iranian goal. Hard to see what it was but it seemed to create a lot of consternation amongst the stewards who called a few suits over. In the end it was taken up, but reappeared further over in the corner, where it stayed. A good story there, or just somebody complaining that someone had taken their seats? Such is my wandering mind.

Germany and Ghana played one of the most exciting second halves. Once Germany went ahead, all bets would have been on their Germanness killing off the poor Ghanians. But Ghana came back, not once but twice. At 2-1 up, and later, they had a couple of great counter attacks where they really looked like they did not know what to do. I guess they never practiced the scenario where Germany would have most of the possession and they would get chances on the breakaways. Ghana's other weird strategy was to shoot at will from great distances. And they were the kind of shots that a 10 year old would hit when playing at school and the ball came to them, they couldn't believe it and thought, oh I should just whack it because I'll probably have it taken off me soon anyway. Germany got an equalizer from that player, Klose, who has been around for ever but has also seemed old forever. Klose has now equaled the record for the most goals scored in World Cups, 15.

Finally, Bosnia, poor Bosnia. Nigeria won 1-0 and Bosnia, the first-timers, are off home. But it could have been so different if the linesman from New Zealand (New Zealand? you mean that country that sees top level football all the time?) hadn't got it completely, terribly wrong and disallowed Dzeko's goal for offside. Bosnia have a wonderful midfielder, Pjanic, the quarterback of the team. It was his perfect pass that set up Dzeko for his no-goal goal. Strangely, mid way through the second half Bosnia's strategy seemed to be get the ball out to the left wing, to the new guy Salihovic, who had come in. His service to Dzeko? Terrible. Salihovic lost the ball repeatedly in every way possible. And Pjanic was out of the picture. This is where I might want to add my disclaimer that the views expressed here are of someone sitting on his couch, beer in hand, unaware of the extreme heat these players were playing in, and not those of an expert of any sort. And when I say expert I don't mean an ex-England player who failed miserably in every World Cup he played in, but now has an opinion about the latest bunch of failures which we should all listen to. But I seriously digress. Dzeko very unluckily had a shot (a pretty terrible one after controlling the ball with his hand) hit the goalkeeper's foot and rebound off the post in the last minute. And that was that. Bosnia finish against Iran. Will they play for pride or will they let Iran win, and have one of the most negative teams (experts say "organized") move through to the next round.

Day 9. Tika Ticos!

Day 9. What happened today in Brazil. Costa bloody Rica happened. Wow. In my World Cup watching years I don't remember seeing a surprise team like this. Sure, South Korea beat Italy in 2002, Algeria beat W Germany in 1982, N. Ireland beat Spain in 1982, Senegal beat France in 2002, but this is a team that first qualified for a World Cup in 1990. And they qualify from the region which is hardly a hotbed of international football. St Kitts and Nevis and other such Caribbean islands are in their qualifying pool....and Canada!!! In 1990 they made it to the second round, but only because they were lucky enough to have Scotland in their group. There was something so wonderful about the way they played, and for once justice was served with their goal coming very soon after the referee decided to ignore the rules of the game and not give the Ticos a penalty after a blatant foul in the box. If it wasn't for goal line technology he might have got away with not giving them the goal when they actually scored. A 1-0 win against Italy. That is just incredible. That it means that the only team I have any biological, and emotional, tie to, England, have been eliminated is immaterial on seeing the joy of the Ticos. Later France walloped Switzerland 5-2. Since France usually have meltdowns in the first 1 or 2 games, unlike Holland who look like world beaters early on and then collapse, this could be ominous for the rest of the world. Funny thing happened at the end. French striker Benzema took a shot just as the referee blew the final whistle. It went in but it was disallowed. This doesn't happen much. Matches usually end when the ball is in the middle of the pitch and nothing is going to happen. So what some may say? Well, I'll tell you what. Switzerland have a goal difference of -2 now, not -3. In the last round of matches, if Switzerland lose to Honduras 1-0, Ecuador will not advance if they lose to France 3-0, whereas if that goal was allowed they could lose 3-0 and go through. Same, but opposite, scenario if they both win. And for poor Benzema at the end of the tournament that could be the goal that wins or loses the golden boot for him. In the third match today, Ecuador won 2-1 against Honduras to put themselves in the above position. It wasn't without referee controversy. At 1-1, Honduras had a goal disallowed after the ball came off the post, hit a Honduran player on the arm (according to the referee) and went in. Replays suggest mr referee was fooled by the fact that the Honduran player happens to have an arm that hangs on the side of his body. Honduras went ahead after a Luis Suarez type route 1 to the opposing team's goal, complete with Gerrard style terrible defending. it was 510 minutes since Honduras scored a goal at a World Cup. On a personal note, re my earlier comment about having no tie to any team left in, and since I am not inclined to pick a new team for the sake of it (no jumping on any bandwagons for me, to use North American speak), I just remembered that my great-grandmother was Algerian. And since I think one of the great injustices of the World Cup (1982) needs to be avenged I am now showing a little bit of interest in my new, very distantly related fellow countrymen.

Day 8. England, Oh England!

Day 8.What happened today in Brazil. England are done...after looking good in the defeat to Italy, today there were back to the normal, boring selves. All the fans think why can't they play exciting football like Liverpool since there are all those Liverpool players in the team. Only problem is the big part of the jigsaw plays for the other side, Uruguay. England lost 2-1 and now need one of those mathematical combinations of events which I love explaining to non-undertstanders. Italy have to beat Costa Rica and Uruguay and England have to beat Costa Rica but have a better goal difference than Uruguay and Costa Rica, as those 2 beat England and would be ahead if the goal difference is equal. Got it? Of course, England need to actually win a match. Colombia carried on the strong showing of the South American teams, beating Ivory Coast 2-1. The Colombian have the best choreographed goal celebration dance. It makes you wonder, when do they practice that. Does the coach allow it during training, or do the players sneak into each other's rooms at night and rehearse. Greece and Japan drew 0-0. Again, kind of predictable. Greece had a player sent off in the first half but it really doesn't make a difference to the way they play:defend, defend and hope for a corner or free kick. Japan, they run and run and you think you should like them, because it's cool to like the Japanese, but you never have much faith in all that running around ending up in a goal. Lightweight comes to mind.

Day 7. Oh Brazil, please take me back.

Day 7. What happened today in Brazil. Tim Cahill scored a wonder goal, but those plucky Aussies were beaten 3-2 by the Dutch. After Van Persie's much talked about flying header against Spain, Australian Leckie tried the flying chest goal. He probably would have scored with his head, he didn't and Holland then scored the winner. Later, the big one...Chile beat Spain 2-0...the end of an era, it had to happen at some point etc. The best team in the world for the last 6 years have come undone. We could see it coming. Only surprise is how long it took other teams to overcome the Tika Tika. Are we (the royal we) sad? A little. They were enjoyable for a while. There are some teams who dominate who you (me) love to see lose. But Spain did something different, and it worked. Their downfall was no Plan B, and the impression that the system only worked with the players who failed this time around. There wasn't a supply of players coming through who could take over. Hard to blame the coach, after all he did for this team. Biggest loser? Diego Costa, the Brazilian who became Spanish to play for Spain, was quite useless and is now probably going to be one of the players who gets dropped for this team. And now he can't go back to Brazil. And finally, Croatia thumped Cameroon 4-0. The African teams aren't doing so well. The 5 teams have 1 win, 1 draw and 4 defeats so far. Pele once said an African team would win the World Cup before the year 2000. Still waiting, Pele, still waiting. As I bemoan the lack of any fun when watching Brazil and while listening to everybody talk about the excitement of this world cup, let me throw a little Eder at you...1982.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx9KMhX4lzo

Day 6. The Belgians are coming....but they may take a while.

Day 6. What happened today in Brazil. Belgium played like what they are: the bunch of hot shots in European football right now, everybody's dark horse favourite, but they could not play as a hot shot team against Algeria but managed to squeak out a 2-1 win. Brazil looked anything like Brazil playing at home in their world cup are supposed to look like. they looked more like Mexico, their opponents. Sure, the Mexican keeper made a couple of outrageous saves, but I think the problem with modern Brazil is in their names. The mystique of Zico, Socrates, Falcao, Careca, Bebeto has been replaced by the commonness of Fred. Jo, Bernard, Maxwell, Dante.....who's going to fear Fred and Jo? Sound like my uncle and aunt...really. Anyway, for those who live on a different planet, it was 0-0. And, finally, Russia played South Korea which is one of those matches that you have to be a real die hard fan to watch, or Russian or Korean. I would been one of those suckers, except I couldn't watch it. My sources tell me the only battle was to stay awake, livened up by the Russian keeper spilling the ball into his own net and the Koreans allowing normality to be restored with a Russian goal for a 1-1 draw.

Day 5. He's no Maradona....he's not even a Messi.

Day 5. What happened today in Brazil. Of course the time had to come when we got a 0-0 draw and it was quite inevitable that it would be between the always over-rated, don't quite know how to play in a world cup Nigeria, and the brave Team Melli warriors Iran, who always enjoy their underdog, us against the world, status, where not losing is a victory and scoring a goal is an after-thought (they had one attempt on goal). Germany tore Portugal apart (4-0) where the One Who Thinks, sorry Knows, (almighty CR7 please forgive me) He Is Great's show was overshadowed by 11 Germans who put on a show which one Portuguese player (Great as he is) and 10 (then 9) other blokes wearing the same shirts couldn't quite match. And finally some USA! USA! USA! drama and excitement. They were all out for revenge against Ghana for beating them before (the rest of the world didn't really care about this grudge match). And good old young John Brooks scored the late winner. Favourite moment. Jones and Muntari got into a scrap after a nasty tackle, a possibly accidental boot to the head and a hands to the face reaction. And what did they do? Knowing they could both be sent off, they went over the top in their apologies and just abut professed their love for each other. How could the referee be so mean and send these 2 great guys off? Not even a yellow card. Anyway, here's some American, stick it the Ghanians, celebration from Samantha's Collection. Huh? Whoever this Samantha is (it was the only link I could find) she needs a happier, John Brooks I've-just-scored-a-goal picture. Mind you, he looked more bemused and overcome than happy. I could go on and on...U.S.A!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJFuTvel47Y

Day 4. Messi scored! Messi scored!

Day 4. What happened today in Brazil. The 6th best team in the world, Switzerland of course(!), scored with (and this is not a cliche) practically the last kick of the game to beat Ecuador 2-1. This was right after Ecuador had a chance to score the winner but the Ecuadorian dude took a second to imagine what the picture of him scoring would look like in tomorrow's papers and in that second he lost the ball and...boom..Switzerland went and scored at the other end. France looked like they were going to do a Senegal again (2002, google it), but after hitting the crossbar twice, won 3-0. Honduras kind of helped by having a player sent off, gave a way a penalty and best of all the goalkeeper managed to prove goal line technology works. He couldn't believe his luck when Benzema's shot hit the post and ran along the line back into his grateful arms...oops, he just did enough to palm it over the line, unseen by the naked eye but not by technology. And at the end of the day, the One We Want To Be The Great One, Lionel Messi, scored a Lionel Messi type of goal as Argentina beat Bosnia 2-1. Messi isn't quite Maradona or Pele yet, but let's see what happens this month.

Day 3. When you look good losing....except if you're Greece

Day 3. What happened in Brazil today. In the group of "how the hell did those 4 teams get so lucky to be drawn together " Colombia showed Greece that you actually have to try to score to win a match (3-0) and Ivory Coast just needed the presence of the great one, Drogba, to score 2 quick goals to beat Japan (2-1). England lost to Italy 2-1, but looked like they can play, unlike other World Cup disasters. In what was acclaimed as one of the biggest surprises ever, Costa Rica beat Uruguay 3-1. Uruguay have been one of the 'it ' teams of the last 4 years, but, as I thought, now look like they are going back to their level they were at for a number of years...an average South American team that only qualified after beating Jordan in a play off.

Day 2. Mr Linesman, what you doing?

Day 2. What happened today in Brazil. Mexico-Cameroon 1-0. I don't go along with the whole referees decisions are all part of the game. Mexico almost didn't win this because of 2 awful offside decisions. Holland-Spain 5-1. Two stories. One, is the Spanish era over? Two, don't get carried away by Holland. They have done this before, have us all oohing and aahing about them and then they implode. I'm not falling for it yet. Chile-Australia 3-1. One of those fun games to watch, questionable defending making for lots of chances between 2 teams who might be at home watching the big boys before too long.

Day 1. Thanks Fred!

Day 1. Yes, that's right. Somebody, not a football fan, told me they followed my countdown and read some of the links which was an education. So he said he doesn't have time to watch the matches but wants to know what's going on. So here is the first of my "what happened in Brazil today". Brazil beat Croatia 3-1. The referee was generous to the Brazilians. Superstar, golden boy, could-be-a-god on July 12th Neymar scored a penalty which was never a penalty, but Fred's arms up in the air was enough for the referee, to put them up 2-1. Croatia's coach said we should go home right now if this is how it's going to be and the rest of the world went on about unfair bias from the referees. And, while true, really, why the surprise? Happens all the time for the home team.....

The daily files

Day 1 starts here......

https://www.facebook.com/aidan.mifsud

I'm all Tika'd out.

“Those last minutes contained a distillation of their football, its beauty and elan and almost undiluted joy. Other teams thrill us and make us respect them. The Brazilians at their finest gave us pleasure so natural and deep as to be a vivid physical experience… it was the apogee of football.”
Hugh Milvanney, 1970, in his match report of Brazil-Italy, World Cup Final 1970

"Of course, we should give to Spain all that is their due.......But not at the cost of the truth, not because of some collective lapse of memory concerning the meaning of a team (Brazil) which won arguably the greatest World Cup of all (1970) with quite unanswerable brilliance…’

‘Spain may have become the owners, at least for a while, of today’s football, but that should not mean the disinheritance of a nation (Brazil) that which won three World Cups in 12 years and created such a sense of futility in their opponents…"

James Lawton, The Independent, after Spain's win at Euro 2012. 

 
As much as Zico, Socrates, Falcao and the rest of that team gave me a love for football, so did Hugh McIlvanney, Michael Parkinson and James Lawton give me a massive appreciation for the art of writing. Football was my school teacher of history, geography and world politics and these three were the university professors.

Many years ago The Daily Express and Sunday Express were regulars in our house. My mum liked the Express above all the other English newspapers. I assumed it was her newspaper of choice back home. She came to Malta in the early sixties, so not sure how much attachment she had to it twenty years later. We got the early evening edition British newspapers. One striking feature of this edition was that the mid-week football match reports only covered the first half. It was pretty much like watching a movie where you get drawn into the action, but then the VHS tape got stuck in the VCR, and then somebody told you how it ended. The Express still had the final result listed, just not the how and why of the second half. To add to the difference of what normality was back then, and despite it being the early edition, they still only arrived at our local newsagent at about five o' clock that afternoon.

James Lawton was the Chief Football Writer, or something to that effect, in the Express. I loved the way he described the action, how he brought in so much more to the match then what there was to be seen on the pitch; the background, what it meant for the team, the fans, the way a player moved. He created unseen emotions. I looked forward to Lawton's views on the troubles that were affecting English football at the time, rampant hooliganism and all the social problems surrounding it. At some point I learned of the differences between the tabloid newspapers and the broadsheets. Don't believe everything you read in the tabloids, I was told. But I knew that everything James Lawton wrote was true.

Awareness of the more serious newspapers led to more sports pages, more football reports. Somewhere Hugh McIlvanney appeared. I cannot remember where, but he didn't compete with Lawton, but complemented him. I do remember that Michael Parkinson entered my consciousness through his weekly column in the Telegraph. Parkinson wrote about his two loves repeatedly, cricket in Yorkshire and Barnsley FC. He had a way of finding comedic passion in both.When the seemingly helpless, luckless Barnsley played in their promotion season to the Premier League, I felt like I lived it through Parkinson.

In my life that started in 1982, and for a few years after, I had the dream, the one where I would hit free kicks like Platini, dribble like Socrates and save like Nigel Spink. Later,  I lived in the pages of Lawton, Parkinson and McIlvanney and as much as I wished I had the skillful feet, I now wished I had the magic of the brain that could put sentences together like they could.

And here I am, three hundred and sixty four days after I decided to start my own countdown to the World Cup. I have used my own words to explain memories which were special to me, or to attempt to share my opinion on a World Cup related subject, and to occasionally add my humour to a story I had come across. Iran, Team Melli, became an easy target. But most of the time, I called on the professionals. I used their writings to explain my feelings. If I picked a story, it was almost always because it was something that I wanted to put out there, and somebody had written about it.

Day -1 brings me to South Africa 2010. Could Spain really be that good and win a second consecutive major tournament. They were a revelation with their style: pass, move, pass, move, until the other team broke down mentally and physically. They were not Brazil 1982, but there was something poetic and athletically graceful in the way they played. It was a revelation because since Brazil '82, no team had found such a different way to play the game and do it consistently. I was drawn in and willed them to win. Finally, Spain, with their Tika Tika play, had found a way to win  after years of inexplicably under performing.

By the time, Euro 2012 came about, Tika Tika was beginning to look a bit tick-tock, when is this going to end. The problem was that there is only so long you can watch a team pass the ball around every blade of grass on the pitch, without actually achieving the objective of scoring very often. I started to yearn for the days of direct German football, as seen on TV(instead of Big League Soccer), where getting to the goal quickly and repeatedly was the target. Or, even more simply, Brazil '82.

Spain won in 2010. It was hardly a classic final, but of course Spain liked it that way. The irony, of which I was surely not alone in being aware of, was that their opponents, Holland, had been the proponents of a revolutionary style themselves in the seventies. Their Total Football was a little more exciting then Tika Tika. But now, in 2002, Holland were the hard tackling negative tactics team against the artists from Spain. To add to the irony, Tika Tika originated from one of the best Total Footballers of all time, Johan Cruyff, when he managed Barcelona.

The only positive from that final was that Spain scored the only goal late in extra time, so we were spared another World Cup decided by penalties. The down side was that we had to watch an extra 28 minutes to get a winner. After another wonderful month of football, if this is how these teams were going to play, then I was happy to be done with it. The high point of the final in our house was my four year old daughter throwing up on me sometime in the second half. It had more oohs and aahs then anything the football gave us.

In the earlier rounds, Italy couldn't beat New Zealand and were eliminated in the first round;  Spain lost it's opening match to Switzerland, Spain made the second round, Switzerland didn't; France were back to early implosion mode; Argentina, under Diego Maradona dazzled but were then completely outclassed by Germany, to the point of making you wonder what tactics Maradona had dreamed up; and England couldn't beat Algeria but made it through to face humiliation at the hands of the Germans.

England-Germany had the goal that was but wasn't, from Frank Lampard. His shot which rebounded off the crossbar and landed well inside the goal before bouncing was missed by the assistant referee, formerly known as a linesman. Not by name anymore, but still the man to watch the lines. If that goal had been seen, England would have come back to 2-2, right at half time, after being 2-0 down. Talk about momentum and all that. Instead of starting off even in the second half, England had to chase the game. Afterwards, the English media ridiculed another terrible performance as Germany broke away to score twice more. Frank Lampard and the ghost goal could have meant a very different outlook the next day.

For the second World Cup in a row, I was recently into a new job. Time off was not an option very often. But I did have the luxury of some flexibility, and the advent of complete online coverage. And, a new boss who was happy to have me and keep me happy. So, our IT guy was dispatched to fix my software issues which were preventing me from watching on my computer. Admittedly, I asked for help, discretely, but Mr IT mentioned in front of the big boss that he was on his way to help me and there was no opposition.

Brazil 2014, I am now ready for you. Are you? Your President says you are. The people don't seem too convinced. What will  I write about four years from now. What will the memories be? Will they be about beautiful football, or will they even be about the football?

My dream is a Brazil-Argentina final, a blockbuster final, the two big rivals doing battle with Brazil wanting to overcome the ghost of 1950 and Argentina loving to step into the shoes of Uruguay.

"Na hora da onça beber a água" has arrived. Let it be a good long drink.

Of trips, trees and Thierry.....

Germany have not won a World Cup since 1990. That hit me a few days ago. It's one of those things that you know to be true, since I can recite every winner since 1930, but only becomes a "wow, really" moment when you stop and count the years.

Germany winning World Cups is an assumption buried in my mind, just like the perception that home teams always win. The latter started when I first found out that England won at home in 1966 and thought, of course they did, they were at home. That was quite quickly followed by Germany in 1974 and Argentine in 1978. The feeling that Germany win a lot came about, on reflection rather than instinct, after their presence in the latter stages so often in my lifetime. They were in the final in '82, '86' and '90. USA '94 seemed like a huge shock when they lost in the quarters and again in 1998. Normal service was resumed in 2002 (finalists). Germany '06 was supposed to be the one that saw my beliefs merge.

2006 was a World Cup watched by a different me to the 2002 person. By 2006 I was married, had one 2 year old daughter, had number 2 daughter on the way, owned a house and had a new job. Within that four year period I, or better we, had attempted a new life in Malta and come back to Canada. That's a lot of stuff that happened in 4 years. All for the good, and maybe that's why Germany '06 doesn't stand out as much as many others. It's possible that my subconscious self was feeding many other memories into my head that were limiting the available space for the modern day emotions of the Zicos and Falcaos. Or, quite simply, those stand out World Cup moments just didn't exist anymore.

What did strike me about 2006? Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry. It had nothing to do with the most famous headbutt ever. As with Ronaldo in 2002, the return to dominant form of the two geniuses was beautiful to watch. France went from the ridicule of 4 years earlier to the tentative start in Germany, to a final appearance which was quite the surprise. Argentina seemed to be back with a vengeance. After the way they demolished Serbia and Montenegro with some quite sublime football, there seemed to be hope for go it all the way run. Sadly, but maybe predictably, the Germans saw them off after a shoot out in the quarters.

Another first was 2006 was a trip to Victoria, BC, for a wedding. There was nothing too remarkable about the trip, apart from a wonderful wedding, the otters close to shore in the harbour, the massive, hundreds of years old trees in Port Alberni and our daughter imitating the crows that caw caw-ed all over the place.  Luckily the wedding started just after England played Ecuador. Sitting on a hotel room floor by a large window overlooking the Pacific ocean, in between getting dressed was a weird atmosphere for a World Cup match of such importance in England's obvious march to the cup. All I can tell you is that David Beckham scored the one goal, England were through and I had to get my tie on. Later that day when we came back to the room for a required nap I caught a bit of the Nastiness in Nuremburg. I don't know what the Dutch and Portuguese had done to annoy each other so much, but it was mayhem. There were fights going on all over the pitch. The referee seemed to have given up, and maybe that was the problem, and his only objective was to show every player a card. After 16 yellow cards and 4 reds there was the small matter of Portugal winning 1-0.


The day before that nonsense we stopped in a Japanese restaurant for lunch. It was a huge place, one of those hip, happening joints. Seeing as we fit in perfectly, and were desperate to eat we took a table ready to eat quickly, only to notice that on a television in a far corner Argentina were playing Mexico and it was into extra time. There was no sound from the TV, I was too far away to really watch and nobody else seemed at all interested. So it all seemed a bit surreal when Maxi Rodriguez swung his foot at the ball catching it in the air and scored one of the all-time best world cup goals. No-one in the restaurant reacted. I thought that it hadn't actually happened. Sometimes I need affirmation of the fact from a commentator. Silence was not how a goal like this was supposed to be greeted.

Back home for the rest of the tournament was not all actually at home. Second quarter final day was at my wife's family's cottage on the lake, three hours from the comfort of TV that I knew would deliver England's next great step to victory. On arrival the evening before, we scouted out the best place to watch. With a plan, we headed to the pub in  town where I thought nobody would be watching football to be welcomed by many, many eyes glued to the match preview. Take that hip restaurant in Victoria, BC. Of course, England had drama, a red card and a loss on penalties. The most frustrating part of it, as part of my hope that I one day see England win a World Cup, was that this was probably their best chance at winning a quarter final that they might have for a long time. It was a very beatable Portugal team. What to do, but be dropped off at another pub while the girls went shopping, to drown my sorrows in a bit of Brazil-France. Not a bad second match of the day, one that I could enjoy without any emotional hindrance. It wasn't exactly Mexico '86, but it did have Henry's winning goal which brought a smile to my face.

The semi-finals were lost in a blur of working hours that I couldn't get out of. What was spat out was a final between Italy and France, hardly the most predicted final. The French had gone from defending World Champions four years earlier to also-rans, middle of the road team. To reach the final, I'm sure, was an amazing dose of self-redemption for Henry, Zidane and any other remaining players.

The final is remembered, even by non-football fans and sadly so, for Zidane's final act on a football pitch being his headbutt of Materazzi and his subsequent sending off. Zidane had scored a cool as you like penalty and Henry had a couple of moments which made me think this was going to be his day and a victory for individual skill. But then Italy equalized, not much more happened, Zidane got sent off in extra time and Italy won on penalties.

Soon after the final ended I had to go to work. I was on the road while the streets were pretty quiet. I came home that night to scenes which brought me back to Malta in 1982. As we lived on the edge of one of the Little Italy's in Toronto everybody and his uncle and brother, and sister and aunt, and friend who was Italian because he hung out with children of Italian immigrants, were out in their cars driving up and own the strip, and around the block, flags flying and horns honking. Sure, I just wanted to get home and I felt frustration that the police were happy to let the party direct traffic but I also thought this is why the World Cup is so much fun in Toronto. Not the carcading, or flagging as I heard a Torontonian call it, but the fact that if it had been another country that won then another part of the city would be alive. I doubt anybody who hasn't been here would believe that Canada, the country that does such a good job of being terrible at football, and celebrates men polishing ice with brooms, could have such enthusiasm for football. So the next day I bought the newspaper and sent the special World Cup celebration section home.

I'm almost there. South Arica 2010 will bring me nicely up to the start of Brazil 2014. Memories are fun. There has been a lot here, since 1982, that has made me very happy. There was a lot since 2002 that has made me extremely happy. My three wonderful ladies will put up with me for the next month and even take part in the fun. I'm almost done with looking back now. Let's just get the Tika-tika World Cup out of the way tomorrow. 

It still makes my blood boil.....

When I was 15 my English teacher was the best I'd ever had in teaching, me at least, how to write sentences that conveyed the meaning a writer wanted to get across, the way to use the adjectives to describe the scene that was to be set. Those sentences, when put together the right way, made the story flow and had the reader captivated. Just like I am trying to do now.

What words could I use to really describe World Cup 2002? It was a different one. The smaller teams shone, even if in the end it was two of the normal heavyweights, Germany and Brazil, in the final. Turkey and Senegal were a wonderful revelation, Turkey scoring a golden goal winner in their quarter final. Who would have though that the country that I remembered being beaten 8-0 by England, twice, in the eighties, would become World Cup semi-finalists.

The World Cup of weird surprises all started with, unsurprisingly, the opening game. World and European Champions, France, were up against Senegal, most of whose squad played in the French league. With France you never quite know what's going to happen. Them having the two titles somehow didn't seem to make them as assured winners as Spain were when they were in that position. But France's dismal decline started with a huge amount of bad luck. Twice they hit the post with the Senegalese goalkeeper a spectator. Senegal's goalscorer tried very hard  to miss by hitting his tap-in right at the French goalkeeper, but got lucky on the rebound. If Henry and Trezeguet's shots had caught a whiff of wind that changed the flight of the ball by a few centimetres it may have been a very different World Cup. I know, nobody wins on if only's and near misses. Senegal put the ball in the net once, France didn't. Cue the French meltdown. Au revoir. See you next time.

Then the USA beat Portugal, Germany scored eight against Saudi Arabia and Argentina lost to England and were eventually eliminated in the first round.

I make a living, partly, by teaching people of various athletic abilities how to play better tennis. I love it, not just for the obvious not being stuck in an office, but also because there is real satisfaction in seeing someone achieve improvement, no matter how small it is. And I get to meet some very interesting people, whose life stories I get to know about while picking balls up or standing at the net for a break.  One of these interesting characters had a weekly lesson with me scheduled to start 30 minutes into England's match against Argentina. This was the one I wanted to watch, but there was no excuse I could think of to cancel this lesson. "I have to watch the World Cup" would not fly with this lady. She would probably have asked me what the World Cup was. It is also safe to say that I was a little intimidated by her. I was the young tennis coach, wanting to impress the important people who, so I thought, made the big decisions. The lady in question worked in the film industry, so not sure what decisions she made could have had any impact on me. But she did pay the big bucks to play tennis at the club. And I had to provide the service to this lady who was very low on the athletic ability scale.  She was also very low on the listening to any instruction from the tennis instructor scale. Which kind of went against the whole idea of taking a tennis lesson. After about 10 minutes of the first lesson, it degenerated into me hitting balls and her swinging her racquet at them in no consistent fashion, with no attempt at implementing what I was suggesting. She didn't even have any interesting stories. She spoke a lot, about herself, and I smiled politely. But even her self-centredness had no entertainment value. She also suggested what we should do next, but no matter what it was it soon became the same thing we had been doing earlier.

I got to work early that day to watch the first 30 minutes before my lesson from tennis hell. I slumped off to the court. Movie lady did have an interesting anecdote that day which, oddly, I remember. As we stopped for a water break she told me that the body can only absorb 10oz (or was it 5 or 20) of water at a time.  Maybe I don't really remember. But something else sticks out in my head. After what seemed like an eternity (these are the lessons when you don't look at your watch), one of the club maintenance staff walked behind the court and whispered to me "Beckham, penalty, 1-0." Beautiful words. At the end of the hour I decided against engaging in our usual in depth conversation about the film industry and raced off to the TV. The last 10 minutes were watched with painful glee. I had survived another week and England had some revenge for 1986.

My other vaguely related story of interest is to do with Vincenzo Nardiello . He was an Italian boxer in the Seoul Olympics of 1988. As I watched anything Olympic that was on TV, there I was one day enjoying some boxing. An Italian seemed to be winning very handily against his Korean opponent. But when it came to decision time, the referee raised the hand of the Korean. Nardiello went ballistic. I remember him screaming at the judges words to the effect of "you are all idiots, all of you". It opened my eyes to the first time to the world of injustice on sport and, maybe more pointedly, corruption and fraud.

This came back to me when I watched Spain lose to South Korea in 2002. Spain had 2 perfectly good goals disallowed. Good goals. As in, nobody could explain what had just happened. Twice. But of course the match carried on and Korea won in a shoot out. Not since Nardiello have I seen athletes of any sport so despondent as those Spanish players at the end. Some vented their anger at the ref, but most of them were just too far gone in their disbelief to do anything. That's sport I guess, or so we are told. You have to play by the referee's decisions. But I felt the pain of those Spanish players, denied a World Cup semi final spot because of a referee and his linesman. No matter how much it has tried to be justified, that's what it was.

There had been rumblings of something amiss in Korea's wins against Portugal and Italy. The Italians were furious and for once I felt very sorry for them. Nothing will ever come out, the matches are decided on the pitch. Very simply, it could have been the referees succumbing to the pressure of the massive home support. That the co-hosts Japan didn't have the same accusations leveled at them must say a lot about the persuasive powers of the Korean supporters.

Japan/Korea 2002 was a happy time for Ronaldo. The desolate, disconsolate  player at the end of France '98 was replaced by a man determined to show the world he was back. I am a sucker for these comeback stories. I wanted nothing more than for Ronaldo to score, to do it spectacularly and when it mattered. In the semi final Turkey had understandably set up a defensive stall. It was all going well until Ronaldo somehow toe poked the ball around the Turkish goalkeeper from the corner of the penalty area. I jumped out of my chair. Sure it was nice to have the surprise team in the semi final but to see a genius at his best was the bigger event.

Nothing, Korean fans, referees, could distract Germany, trust the Germans, from getting past South Korea. So, amazingly, for the first time ever at any stage of the World Cup, Brazil were to play Germany in the final. Crazy time differences and a wedding the night before meant I was up at 7am in a hotel room in Ottawa, with a hangover that was to become so bad that it hadn't set in yet, to watch whether Ronaldo could indeed, to sound like a cliched football reporter, come full circle and find some personal redemption. And I found the energy to rejoice when he did, both times that he scored. His goals not only won the World Cup for Brazil but also made him the leading World Cup scorer of all time.

World Cup '02 really was on the other side of the world. And it took a bit of dedication to follow it. Funnily enough there was a repeat of the 1986 England-Morocco bore fest when England played Nigeria. This time I cursed being up all night the next day at work, and vowing never to do it again. Couldn't England at least make an effort to make it worthwhile?

So that was that. First World Cup in Asia done and dusted. Still to this day I think of what could have been for Spain. But there you go, what to do.We look forward and hope that the results on the pitch truly are determined on the pitch.

World Cup comes to Canada....and Guivarc'h!

If somebody told me many years ago that I Canada would be a good place to watch a World Cup, I don't think I would have even bothered to laugh it off. Ridiculous. But here I am for my fifth Canadian World Cup, my fourth in Toronto, and I think can there be a place where more people get as excited about it as they do here.

With a few days to go you can see it everywhere. The flags are flying on the cars, bars are gearing up with their posters and flags, and it's on tv with commercials and news. In a country where everybody seems to have come from somewhere else it's maybe not just about the football, more an opportunity for the locals, recently local or long term, to display some support and pride for the departed country. After five World Cups I've come to be at ease with the fact that the majority of these flag wavers are mostly part-time supporters, who are more interested in being a part of a group of fellow Italian or Portuguese congregated in bars and celebrating on the streets post-match. Hobby fans always irked me, the ones who were all of a sudden experts but had not grown up with the heartache of fan-dom as I had. I guess I was a football snob and still allow myself a few chuckles at the North American way of doing soccer.  But. no matter what, there is an excitement in the air of this city right now.

In 1998 I was working in Canada for a fourth consecutive summer. The attraction of taking a summer job at the end of University in a country which seemed so wild and exotic brought me here and discovered love kept me coming back. Hours of teaching tennis to players who had no interest in what was going on in France, in the middle of nowhere (really) didn't seem to lend itself to a month of watching football. Thankfully, the huge satellite dish on the roof of the hotel and the discovery of an audience in America meant that soccer was on Espn and ABC. This coupled with my luck that I was working for a hotel owner who appreciated fine French cuisine and service meant that I was to spend many hours around a TV with frustrated, annoyed and delirious Frenchmen and women.

It started in a pub in Toronto for the opening match. An English pub, chosen for me. It seemed like a great idea. Pity the landlord/bartender, whichever he was, forgot to think ahead and prepare for the eventuality of football fans turning up at his pub at noon, even though he had gone through the bother of advertising it outside. The match, Brazil-Scotland, was barely memorable, as was the service. The comedy of Brazil's winning goal, scored through a bizarre own goal, was as comical as the Faulty Towers type bartender running out to buy bread when he realized that customers were actually ordering lunch at lunchtime.

From then on it was a search for results for matches missed, of which they were many. The hotel bartender was a great source of information as during his slow afternoons he could slip into the large screen TV lounge across from his bar and happily keep football on, without distraction. This was also before internet had reached us in the woods. There were matches I knew absolutely nothing about. Cameroon played Austria and the score was 1-1. I found this out today.

The French matches were different. I guess it was power of numbers. The casual TV room was taken over by waiters, bartenders, chefs and tennis pros. I'm sure somebody was running the hotel and in a parallel universe guests were taking tennis lessons and being served afternoon tea.

Of course watching the football was good. Having the feeling that I was sitting in bar in France made it even more entertaining. Right away the obvious target for every Frenchman's ire was the centre forward Stephane Guivarc'h, the man who was supposed to score the goals that would lead les bleus to glory. Not only did he have the odd (to anybody not French) 'h in his name, but he also had the uncanny knack of consistently not being able to score. Frustration turned to comic relief at the expense of the unfortunate Stephane. On the other hand admiration from my part was beginning to grow for the exciting Petit and Henry and the wonderful Zidane.

While France made it through the first round comfortably, yet also strangely nervously despite the three out of three wins, England manged to put all their supporters through the normal grief. They started with a 2-0 win over Tunisia, of which I saw no action. I had volunteered to go on a Toronto bound errand, which was always a great opportunity to get away from nowhereness for a night and spend time with the person who was the reason I was here. Love over football. It was happening. Next, England lost to a last minute goal against Romania which lead to the customary must win last match scenario. Colombia were taken care of by Darren Anderton and a David Beckham special.

In other first round groups, Argentina looked good, Spain looked like they always did, good until they started playing, Nigeria were interesting, Scotland were consistent in not making it out of their group and the US were even worse than non-Americans thought they would be. They did give American TV a great story though, with their match against Iran and all the political and historic sub-plots.

The second round had two major highlights. Brazil-Chile (4-1) was probably a good demonstration of Brazil moving into second gear. But I was busy teaching somebody how to feel like they were hitting more topspin on their forehand. When there's little hope, the next best thing is to teach the perception of greatness. No, the first highlight was a night at the residence of our English general manager. He fit into the category of part-time, hobby supporter and so did the other few English staff members. It probably made sense that anybody who cared about football in England had thought "Canada? What would I want to be there for during the World Cup?" Except for the much traveled English bartender, who's Fijian ancestry, gave him a touch of the exotic. As a true professional he could go from five star service and exemplary manners to swearing at the TV with the best of them. Of course there was the one blot on his customer service record when he couldn't hold it any longer (literally) and told the fancy, five star hotel guests to hold off on their order as he had to go take a leak. Seriously. So I was the second most involved supporter amongst that small gathering of English folk. And it was quite the night. Micheal Owen scored his "here-I-am" wonder goal, Beckham managed to get himself sent off in Beckham-esque fashion and England lost after a truly typical gallant effort. Courtesy of our employers, but unbeknownst to them, much beer was drunk that night and there was a significant amount of yelling at the TV.

The other memorable second round match was France-Paraguay, or at least the 23 minutes of extra time, before Laurent Blanc scored the golden goal winner. It was a Sunday, always particularly busy at lunchtime. Tennis lessons were done and as the guests made their way to the buffet lunch, I was quickly into the main TV lounge. Extra time was starting and for the next 23 minutes waiters and bartenders seemed to have to take lots of detours my way. Even Chef made a quick appearance. In the end Blanc laid rest to any shoot out fears. The whole wait staff seemed to sigh a huge sigh of relief. This is undoubtedly exaggerated in my memory, but I'm sure that everybody was more relaxed knowing they could now get back to work, including the non-football watching staff who now had their colleagues' full support.

Now their seemed to be a destiny feel about France at least making it to the final. Never did I doubt they would win the penalty shoot-out against Italy. Even when they went 1-0 down to the surprising Croatians in the  semi-final it always seemed likely they would win in the end.

The quarter finals saw Dennis Bergkamp score a true beauty of a last minute winning goal against Argentina. This one I saw. But what I missed was Brazil's 3-2 win against Denmark. With no YouTube and no easy access to TV at night, matches like this existed for me as a scoreline with no story.

Brazil made it to the final after a shoot out win against Holland and the dream final was set. This only became a dream final when it was set. But what could be better than the home team, aiming to make up for what Platini's generation missed out on in winning their first World Cup, against the country that for so long set the benchmark of greatness. For the French winning the World Cup against Brazil would be a win of the greatest satisfaction, where there could be no detractors saying they had it easy. Brazil, on the other hand, could show that while the 1994 win was not one of their most spectacular, this team could come close to the greatness of '82 nd '86, and win.

Thirty minutes before kick-off, with my seat amongst the transplanted French bar patrons secured, I went off to make my call home, to Malta, for my first trans-Atlantic exchange of score predictions. I came back soon before kick-off and knew of no pre-game issues until well after France had given Brazil a good old 3-0 hiding. Zidane scored twice, and Petit finished it off with a flowing, celebratory counter attack at the end. And the une, et deux, et trois zero song was born.

It was only the next day that I read in the newspaper about Ronaldo's breakdown/illness/pressure from sponsors. They mystery has never really been solved. The conspiracy theories mushroomed. Whatever happened it was one of the more bizarre World Cup stories.

Two days later it was Bastille Day. The celebrations hadn't really stopped in our French community since Sunday afternoon. A bartender, who had taken great pride in the victory, drank his beer around the almost nightly bonfire and said nobody could do anything to annoy him, nothing could stand in his way because, "I am World Champion".

Brazil are back! Kind of....

I feel like my life is coming around in a circle of sorts. Not a full one, but there definitely is a roundness to it.

In 1982 and '86 staying up to watch late football was a struggle. In 1990 and '94 staying up late had become the norm. For USA '94, some matches were timed perfectly with coming home from a night out. If I remember correctly, but I may have not even remembered the next day, one such night I came home, at around 3am, to the sound of my brother calling me to the tv as Romario had just scored against Sweden. But now, the battle to keep myself alert past 10pm, to not give in to the allure of a soft pillow is a struggle returned. After a rare night out and with eight days to go until this project is over, a late summoning of my 1994 memories is in order.

Football and Malta had always gone hand in hand for me growing up. There was the huge celebrations when Italy won in '82. We drove home from my grandfather's house after the final through a mass of flag waving people on the seafront, amidst a din of honking cars. I found it hard to imagine that the celebrations could be any better in Italy. And of course there was Brian Moore, Big League Soccer and the man who read the results from England every Saturday afternoon on BBC World Service  with the perfect emphasis so you knew which team had won, or if it was a draw, before he said the second team's name. At about this time I discovered the joy of going to the "stadium" by myself. It was a 1/2 walk from our house and was the one stadium where all the top division league matches were played in Malta. It was also where the European Cup matches were played, and the Euro and World Cup Qualifiers. It was the stadium. It was here that I saw Malta take the lead against West Germany before going down 3-2. That was our victory, after all the six, seven, eight nil defeats. Live English football on tv happened sometime in the late eighties, but you had to be lucky to receive the Italian channel. It all depended on what way the wind was blowing.

By 1994 I was into my second year of University in England. Football on tv was a new experience, accessible and enjoyable. There were live matches, with English commentary and that nice man on the BBC, Des Lynam, made smart remarks, and was almost as entertaining as the football. And that's where USA '94 started for me, on my last day in England before going home to Malta for the summer. Spain played South Korea on that opening day, after Germany beat Bolivia in the opener. Spain-Korea (2-2) was extra special, watching it in England on English tv. The next day normality returned as I was on a plane to Malta.

Somehow in 1994 I still had a Walkman. Were they not extinct already? I remember because I turned it on as we flew over Italy and heard that Ireland had scored against Italy. It still seems bizarre that I picked up an Italian radio station. Also, I guess, there was no "please turn of your electronic devices" back then. So, indeed, Ireland had beaten Italy. England hadn't qualified so there was lots of bandwagon jumping-on for Ireland.

1994 had some wonderful matches, and lots of surprises of the kind that were enjoyable. Not the ones where one team attacks for 89 minutes, hits the post 5 times but then ends up losing to the weaker team on a goal scored via a deflected free kick awarded for a questionable foul. There was Romania's fantastic 3-2 win over Argentina where all three Romanian goals were masterpieces. Bulgaria came out of nowhere and not only won a World Cup match for the first time, they were also wonderful in defeating Germany in the quarter finals. Holland and Belgium played one of the most open, free flowing World Cup matches ever seen. Probably the best 1-0 I have ever seen with the winner, for Belgium, ironically scored by a  defender. Belgium then played a part in another beauty, the 3-2 loss to Germany in the second round.

Brazil, after the disaster of 1990, had now become a hybrid team, a mix of the need to win with a little bit of entertainment, much of which came from their attaching duo Bebeto and Romario. They safely made it through the first round, edged past the US in the second and then came to glorious life in the second half of the quarter final against Holland. Bebeto and Romario put them 2-0 up before Holland scored two of their own. It was Branco, the left back, who scored the winner from a free kick with a shot that stayed low over the grass as it whizzed past the Dutch wall and goalkeeper at a phenomenal speed.

For the third World Cup in a row, Maradona, stole the show. This time, it was more of a sad, desperate attempt to be in the limelight. He scored against Greece and celebrated like again he had been possessed by his demons from Naples. Indeed, soon after, he became the only played I can think of who was kicked out of a World Cup for testing positive to something he should have known better than to take.

Italy and Brazil made it all the way to the final. A few times Italy looked like they were done, toast, ready to pack their bags, but somehow they fought back and were now looking at upsetting the neutrals' favourite again. The Final was, sadly, forgettable except for Roberto Baggio missing a penalty in the shoot-out to hand Brazil the win.

Far off the pitch in California, in a hot un-airconditioned house in Malta I sat with my family for the last time to watch a World Cup final. The added bonus was that BBC tv had made it to Malta, so we would enjoy Des Lynam and co. We had returned to the village we grew up in, in a different house. The house gave us lots of happy memories, as it was the house for the new generation, the grand-kids on their holidays. Once again, my mother watched with us, giving us her tidbits of information read in the English newspapers. I'm not sure if she was at that time already sitting in what became her chair where she sat and watched, but maybe not enjoyed, many more World Cups.

The house is no longer, the chair and it's occupant neither. Ever since that day in 1994, World Cup finals with my family have been shared through a phone call before kick off with a prediction of the result. This year, we will brought together again and on July 13th there will be another reason why my life will have, almost, come full circle.

The road so far

Three hundred and fifty six days ago I started my own World Cup countdown. I'm almost there....

https://www.facebook.com/aidan.mifsud

1982 is dead

The thought, or mention, of the year 1990 immediately sets off one emotion, one memory in my head, the song. That song. Not Pavarotti's World Cup theme song but the cheesy "Notte Magiche", played to a background of images of Toto Schillaci looking like a man possessed, and trying desperately to get whatever it is out of himself, every time he scored a goal. The little Sicilian came out of nowhere, became the leading character, and scorer, at the World Cup and then slipped back into relative obscurity.

Luciano Pavarotti was not far behind in his representation of all that was good at Italia '90. Every night we would hear a few bars of his "Nessun Dorma" and we knew the evening match was about to begin. It was hot, all the windows were open, we could hear people on the street, tv's from neighbours all watching the same thing. The song climaxed with the "Vincero" bit and that was probably it for me. Why does a song trigger certain emotions? It must be the subconscious self that wants to reach that apex of victory, vicariously through the team you wish to win. And maybe, just maybe, the realization that those players out on the pitch are living the dream you had a as young boy.

So Pavarotti sang, Toto scored, Gascoinge cried and Gary Lineker had some of us dreaming again. But overall, Italia '90 associates itself with terrible, boring matches. There was a few I watched, where I really wondered what had got me hooked in 1982. But there is also an overriding memory of a great summer which bad football couldn't destroy. We had moved, which in Malta is never a great distance. The short distance had taken us from the small, sleepy village where watching who was sitting where in church on Sunday was exciting to the big town in the centre of all the action. Beaches for daytime fun, and bars for late nights out were all within walking distance.

But the football, yes the football. It was, to borrow an expert opinion "cynical and defensive". One of the highlights, ironically, was Argentina beating Brazil 1-0 with a  counter attacking goal. Argentina spent the rest of the time cynically defending. This was a different Brazil, a sad representation of the country that gave us Pele, Garrincha, Carlos Alberto and the class of '82 and '86. They didn't excite anybody. They had, as the tactical experts said, tried to play the European way, to play to win, not excite. The breathtaking play of '82 brought them nothing, and this new style didn't make them winners. It also didn't win them any admirers. The nine year olds watching football for the first time in 1990 would have nowhere near the same experience as this nine year old in 1982.

Italia '90 was also the World Cup of the Irish. Ireland, the Republic, had qualified out of Malta's group. Their final, historic, qualifying match was played in Malta. And the Irish had come to celebrate. For us the fun was being there . We had seen the big teams, Italy, Spain, Germany play in Malta, but never supporters like this. I can still hear "Que Sera, Sera........we're going to Italy" And if you ever hear stories of Irish supporters still turning up at half-time, it's true. I saw them walking in with their suitcases. The Irish and their non-stop supporters made it to the quarter finals before Italy narrowly beat them.

It was also the World Cup of Roger Milla and Rene Higuita. Cameroon's Milla was of undetermined age, anywhere between 32 and 42 but he entertained, he scored and he had the best goal celebration jig. Higuita was Colombia's colourful, eccentric goalkeeper. The two came up against each other in the second round. After Milla scored a pretty special first goal, Higuita's attempt at playing as a  defender well out of his penalty area gifted Milla the second goal.

Cameroon, the neutrals' favourites, were leading England 2-1 in the quarter final, before they, unfortunately enhanced their reckless defending reputation, giving Gary Lineker 2 penalties to give England the win.

England in the semi-finals. Was this it, the self-redemption for 1982 when I switched allegiance only to be let down so miserably? No. And I knew it was not going to happen because of the dream. http://dinoworldcup.blogspot.ca/2014/03/the-dream.html
The dream that England lost in the semi finals was so strong that I never doubted it. In England v. Italy crazed Malta, it looked like it might be the perfect ending for one half of the country. Italy had lost the night before. Diego Maradona, playing in his beloved Naples in front of his adoring local fans, helped Italy to a somewhat surprising win on penalties. So England were now poised to beat Germany and we could all laugh at the Italians that we went better than them in their home World Cup.

A brief detour to explain that come the World Cup, I was somewhat justified in using "we" in reference to England, even though I very rarely did. My English mother had given me that right. Although, in effect, there was more "we" in watching Malta play.

I knew that the night was going to end in disappointment. The media's often mentioned memory is of Gascoigne's tears when he was yellow carded and realized he would be suspended for the Final. I do not remember that at all. What comes to mind is the German free kick deflecting off Paul Parker and over the oh-too-short Peter Shilton. And at that point I did not think, that's just what the dream said would happen. I knew England would score. It would be a dramatic loss, one of close misses in extra time and the terrible defeat after penalties. It was over. Gary Salt 'n Vinegar couldn't do anything now. But the dream, sadly, of England playing Italy in the 3rd/4th place play-off in Bari had come true. That Italy won, and Toto scored to become top scorer was a ending with all the excitement of anticipation taken out of it.

The Final itself was really the worst ever. Argentina had a game plan. Kill the game, suck the life out of it and hope the Germans collapse under the weight of cynicism. Germany had a plan too. Expect the Argentinian negativity and attempt to be even better than it than them. Two Argentians were sent, the only game came from a penalty and the whole football world was happy it was finally over.

Germany won, but please really do excuse the cliche, beautiful football lost. Zico said that when Brazil lost to Italy in 1982, football died. It was a slow death. Brazil and France still lit up Mexico '86. That neither triumphed was maybe the reason that 4 years later France weren't there and Brazil were there in a completely different form. How all their wonderfully talented footballers could disappear in 4 years is beyond me. As further evidence of the death of football, look at what happened to the creative genius, Maradona. His magic was the difference in 1986. In Italy he was, in reported hindsight, under the influence of his environment in Naples. The magic was gone, replaced by a obsessed determination that helped present a different Argentina. Things could only get better in 1994. They had to.

The summer of 1990 still had a lot to offer after mid-July. Notte Magiche played on, with a tinge of sadness. A few weeks later I was in Rome to play a tennis tournament. The flags were still hanging out of apartment windows and the Italians still blamed the poor coach. The rest of the summer was again a haze of heat and beaches. Even the poor football could not take away that it had been another World Cup summer.