So many thoughts, so little time. Here's a few quick ones.
Thanks to technology which I try to keep up with, I had a system on the weekend where I watched the Euro pre-match shows online on either BBC or ITV and then the match on Canadian TV. I enjoy the ability to watch Gary Lineker and company, and was amused by ITV's offerings. The first thing I saw was Louis Saha (French, ex-footballer who played for Fulham) and Marion Bartoli (French, retired tennis player, Wimbledon champion) at the fan zone in Paris talking to each other in English. And I can't even remember what they were talking about but it pained me that they couldn't speak French to each other, while they fiddled with their huge wired microphones. Akward, uncomfortable came to mind. I wonder if, in two years, in Russia, Andrey Arshavin and Maria Sharapova will be doing the same thing. Arshavin? You can look him up. Sharapova may be an ex-tennis player in two years, forced into retirement by a drug ban. Or she may be making a comeback after her ban. Or she could have had a wonderful two years, with a successful appeal against her badly handled ban behind her. And the Russian promoter of all great Russian athletes, Vitaly Mutko, will be beaming with delight. Look him up as well.
Brazil and the Copa America Centenario are over, broken up by a Peruvian player who swiped the winning goal into the net so expertly with his hand that none of the refereeing team noticed it. It really was a good one. If Maradona's was the hand of God, this was the hand of "in your face, I'm going to get away with this". It wouldn't be the Copa America in the US without some good comedy. The referee, assitants and 4th officials all conferred for a few minutes to decide whether they could award a goal that the Brazilians seemed so convinced was illegal. "Did you see it?" "No, you?" "Well it looked like his hand, no way it couldn't have been really." "So what do what do?" "I say leave it. Brazil will probably score anyway and I don't feel like upsetting all these Peruvians". Of course, Brazil didn't score against one of the weaker South American teams. The Dunga emergency rescue plan is failing miserably. I reiterate my belief that it is very possible that they don't qualify for Russia 2018. Unless they bring back Big Phil.....
In the Euros today the overrated hipster team, Belgium, were comfortably out-witted by Italy. When did Italy beating Belgium become a surprise? Spain beat Czech Republic with a defender coming to the rescue once again with a late goal. They don't believe in centre forwards in Spain. And The Man (only he thinks that of himself) Zlatan, who was going to win this whole tournament by himself, was thankful to an Irish defender for scoring in his own net for Sweden to rescue a draw against the mighty Ireland.
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