The first round group games of The World Cup Finals are wrapping up this week and as per usual we've seen many matches where we were left hoping that both teams would find a way to lose. Entertaining it is not.
France have provided the only true spectacle at the tournament so far, The Man Tits. William Gallas in particular highlighting the problems they face with their shirts being way too tight. Haven't heard Lineker say much about it so far on the BBC, but it surely must've been on the mind of every panelist. Crass commercialism appears to negated the rule of bringing the game into disrepute otherwise the referee might've send the entire team off. Knocked out without winning a game, those shirts have cost them as much as anything else.
From the England team we've seen about four solid minutes of football. The first four minutes against the USA. After that, instead of pressing forward, England defended too deeply, played too deeply in general and invited the US to score. When America proved to be as inept at scoring as England were at football in general, Robert Green made an error so fundementally awful it might've been scripted. I mean, no professional goalkeeper could actually do that could they? No wonder the defence of Terry and whomever seems a little uncertain at times. Feeling vulnerable to speculative punts from 40 yards would undermine the b'jesus out of Bobby Moore himself.
No wonder Wayne Rooney is chewing the cameras while leaving the field after games.
And so to June 23rd, most important day in Fabio Capello's life, etc. England must win their must-win third group game against Slovenia. More grandiose statements and some sort of mutiny suppressed in the camp already this week. The best and most positive news prior to kick off was to be found in a footnote in a national newspaper, (approximately) England win 60+% of their games televised live on the BBC and only 30% of their games on ITV. England Slovenia is live on BBC 1 at 3pm.
