Nothing
gets me going from a sporting point of view than football. It’s exciting,
bastardised by money of course but exciting nonetheless. And in football there is no competition
greater or indeed like the world cup. It’s the one that unites people and sets
them all alight at the same time.
To be
perfectly honest football is a sport that has grown on me, at least in the
granular sense anyway. Growing up I remember my brother sneaking downstairs to
watch Brazilian Soccer ( which I watched with him sometimes- and the endless
games of table soccer with the coke tops and biro lids) and the various football matches throughout
the ages for one reason or the other with various people who happened to be in
my life at the time. (My love of
started grudgingly in university- and cemented many years later).
This
world cup just gone is the first one in which I have watched nearly 95% of the
matches as avidly as I did. Other world
tournaments that I watched stand out as follows:
1986- That
game with the hand of God…
vs.
1990
vs.
And I will start with this one, the Italians were seriously acting, diving left
right and centre. We were all screaming at them as one does (as if they can hear);
eventually mummy started yelling at the Nigerians for not diving…how
interesting. The Italians eventually won 2-1. As for
vs.
– what could I say? Its all been said but the point is out of everything to do
with that world cup that is what I remember and indeed amongst my uni friends I
seemed to be the only supporting Argentina at the time, I cannot even remember
why except I must have been being a pain.
At the time I could not understand why Maradona did what he did,
although his reasoning is very amusing. Worse
cup. For me, I cannot talk about world
cups past without talking about the 1990 quarter final between
dozen of us, if not more packed into my dad’s flat in Neasden. It was an
aggressive game. We all felt (without exception) that the ref was unduly biased
towards
Many fouls went unpunished and the floor of my dad’s flat got a battering of
its own when Roga Milla came on and did his thing. I can’t remember the score
line, but
went through to the semi final and the dozen or so of us were left feeling down
trodden and pissed off to say the least.
These are the moments that have added flavour to my interest in the
world cup and indeed football generally.
As I write I also remember a world cup match between
Ronaldhino lobbed a ball from some yds right over the head of David Seaman.
All
very good and now we are in 2010 the year in which we had a new country join
the world’s elite! The build up to this
world cup was fanatical as it ever could be. Personally I can remember being in
my kitchen when it was announced that
cup in 2010. I was so excited that I could picture myself right there with my
best peeps. It did not even cross my
mind that I would not make it there that instead I would be watching it by
surreptitiously streaming it at work, in my iphone, rushing home from tae kwan
do to my front room to catch the action.
I recall the expectations and numerous reports that
was not up to the task, there would be too much crime, the stadiums would not
be built etc. We had the reports about ticket fraud and sky high hotel prices –
but boy did
prove them all wrong. They so came out to play and showed them that you cannot
keep the good boys down. This was to prove a recurring theme.
Then
the year got nearer and then came the reeling out of glories past in particular
the never to be forgotten 1966 win for
the squad announcement and the pre world cup friendlies. This was the
tournament that taught me about the 30 man down to 23 scenario. Anyhow so much
for that the squads were announced and all the media was alive to the sound of
selection: should they go or should they stay.
My favourite medium has to be five live, they were all so funny on there
and of course the supporters were always adding their ten and ten pence. The
Tuesday that the
squad was announced on supporter rang the radio and wailed and wailed how it
was so hard to be an
supporter. It was quite funny; she clearly had a different view to Capello as
did many pundits.
How
many of you participated in the office sweepstake? I had
never really supported them especially against
expected and desired that Spain should win, just as I expected based on what I
had seen of Germany in previous matches ( e.g when they went down to 10 men
against Serbia and still looked like they were going to win) that they would
give Spain a run for their money! So shock horror when like
play their own best game, but instead to stop
abundant patience paid off! 1:0
As I
said at the beginning this is the first time I watched over 90% of the
tournament. I was looking for excitement, adventure, unpredictability and
Romance. My chosen teams in no
particular order were
Of
course
disintegrated into an undisciplined mess, came last in their group and was
banned by President Jonathan Goodluck. (This ban was later retracted). As for
of you who share with me on Facebook will know what I thought of them. My chosen teams were picked off one by one
with the exception of
who are now the champions. No adventure there, but this was provided in one
fell swoop by the disintegration of France after or leading to (depending on
your point of view) the suspension of Nicholas Anelka. I and lots of others am sure, could not have
predicted that
have gone home without even making it through the group stages, that
would not make it past the quarter final and the only 1 African nation would
make it to the quarter finals. The
Romance for me came in the shape of
was with gyan in the quarter final. Who knew?
None of their big guns were there in the squad. It was all just football
and the whole of
them. It was a fab game and in the 119th minute PB found what was
looking like a fantastic last minute winner, make no mistake about it, it was
going in, but the cheating Surez had other ideas and double hand volleyed out!
OMG, a penalty in the dying seconds of the game…it was a sure banker! Alas! It
was not to be. Agyan kicked it too hard, too whatever…he missed..then it went
to penalties … I would like to say the rest is history, but kharma had to add
its own ten and ten pence and the Dutch showed them what happens when you don’t
come out to play,. (See that theme again).
Now
onto the final. I had hope and anticipation oh what a match it was going to be!
If it were food I would have been salivating at the thought of it. I enjoyed the final in the end, but it was
not as exciting as it could have been. There were only a few minutes of end to
end stuff. Why? Well in my opinion that
was because
before them who had played
did. They spent their energy trying to
stifle them! However they were different
in that they had a plan, this plan included martial arts and general cynical
fouling. Don’t get wrong,
handed out some fouls of their own and definitely took advantage of
It was in this match that I saw how patient
passed and passed yet again. Eventually in the 116th minute they got
their goal! They were champions with a
familiar yet unfamiliar ring to them: they made history, they were new
champions, first final first win, they won despite losing their opening team
and the only other team apart from them to do the double of being European
champions then going on to win the World Cup was
non European soil.
Monday were full of it. They blamed Howard Webb, referee, they blamed everyone
but themselves hmm. They remind me of child in the supermarket, whose mum has
said no to the packet of sweets and their response is to wail in a high pitched
voice. ”it’s not fair” as a parent my response to that would be that life is
not fair!
So in a
nutshell when all is said and done, what will I remember about this world cup?
·
The
vuvezela
·
The
disallowed
goal, that was definitely a goal
·
of a match to equalise
·
Suarez
who forgot accidentally on purpose forgot that he was playing football and not
volley ball
·
Paul
the Octopus
·
The
mad pundits
·
The
sound of five live
·
The
rushing home to watch the match
·
Agyan’s
sobbing
·
Frank
Lampard volleying himself in the air like a winch
·
Diego
forlain
·
Maradona
The
list above is not exhaustive, and it represents stuff I have not talked about
earlier in the body of this article.
Really
what I was trying to demonstrate is that its personal, what one sees, how you
interpret it or feel about it depends on many things that go to make up your
individuality. I loved this world cup, yet I know of other football lovers who were indifferent
to it, thought it was not good enough, did not put on a good enough show of
high class football, lost interest just because their team did not do well or
were put off by the vuvuzela.
I loved
it, did I say that already? I will remember it for a good while.
