Champions League, Oceania and Frank Farina

Day -746. ‎WorldCup2018‬

I had about 4 or 5 sentences in my head for how to start this.

1. I wonder what the players of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu thought of it all: the Champions League Final that they watched after their World Cup qualifier with the Pepe "I've been punched by Mike Tyson" act (twice), the goalkeeper who didn't even bother fake diving when the Real Madrid players took their penalties and the tears, oh my word the tears; there were lots of them

2. Even the BBC don't care much about what goes on in Oceania World Cup qualifying.

3. I missed the Champions League final because I had to go by a car. Yes, I admit, it's true.

4. There was a huge money-driven match played today, and it wasn't the Champions League, or Solomon Islands-Vanuatu. It was Hull-Sheffield Wednesday.

5. Frank Farina is still around, in Fiji.

Which one shall I carry on with first? Number 3 to get it out of the way. Through a combination of a busy work schedule and the time difference between Milan and this side of the Atlantic, a choice had to be made between watching the final and missing on a too good to be true deal on a car, or driving for an hour to buy the car, miss the final, record it and hope that I did not hear the result anywhere. The car was bought, the taping was successful and the match was watched in the evening, which seemed more fitting anyway. The most difficult part about it was not being able to send out a series of "what I think about what's going on" tweets while I was watching it. I had the "this is perfectly set up for a Torres last minute tweet" all ready to go but realised it would have seemed a tad silly coming 5 hours after Torres had not actually scored any winner, or even come close to coming close. And he cried at the end, and so did that girl who cried when Real scored and then cried some more when Atletico lost. What was it with the producer and that cameraman and their obsession with the crying, red haired Atletico fan?

The Solomon Islands kicked off round 2 of qualifying with a 1-0 win over Vanuatu. And New Zealand beat Farina's Fiji 3-1. I woke up this morning, eager to check the results. It may be some Pacific islands with no hope of reaching the World Cup playing each other, but seeing as the World Cup is my theme it's kind of exciting to be following actual Word Cup matches. Even though I knew I could get the results on fifa.com, just to prove my point I checked the BBC website. Now they have an extremely comprehensive list of leagues and countries from where they report results: from the Argentinian Primera Division to the Turkiye Super Lig, and from U-21 friendlies to Women's international friendlies. But when one clicks on "All European and World" there is no mention of poor Oceania. No results. Nothing. It really makes one feel like that qualifying is not just happening on the other side of the world, but on a different planet. World Cup football in Oceania, forgotten even by the BBC.

There could have been a story about Frank Farina and his attempt to bring Fiji into the World Cup limelight. Farina was the first Australian footballer I had probably heard of. He made a name for himself in Belgium with Club Brugge and also played for Bari and Notts County. I guess him being Australian and being good at football made him kind of fascinating to me. He managed Australia when they lost to Uruguay in an inter-continental play-off for the 2002 World Cup. Farina was the manager when I was in Melbourne for a friendly that Australia played against Brazil. More than a friendly it was really part of the Nike Brazil Word Tour, with Ronaldo (the original) as the main attraction. A few days before the match, it was announced that Ronaldo was injured and would not play. The Australians were not happy to be paying money for a show without the main star. So my decision to not buy a ticket was vindicated when Nike decided no Ronaldo, no pay for tickets. Free! I joined 80-90,000 people at the MCG for a match which, like my England-Italy experience I have absolutely no memory of. All I know was that I was there and the Australian fans had this very annoying habit of making paper aeroplanes out of any paper they could find and throwing them from the upper stands down to the spectators below them. I have more vivid memories of watching Aussie Rules.

And the match at Wembley today? Hull beat Sheffield Wednesday to win what has become the richest match in football. Promotion to the Premier League is estimated to be worth £170m, plus more if the winning team doesn't get relegated the following season. An obscene, disgusting amount of money and an argument for another day. It'll be better now to remember those paper aeroplanes at the MCG, annoying, yet free and fun (for some).