World Cup Countdown
With less than 100 days to the FIFA 2006 World Cup, sponsored by just about every multinational Conglomerate that you can think of that adds no value whatsoever to the tournament other than their Greenback Dollar, kicks off in Germany. Last week saw most of the finalists play meaningless friendlies, sorry, warm up matches that provide a similar style and standard of opposition, from which the coaches will have come away knowing little if anything more about their players than they did at the final whistles around the globe last weekend.
Well, that’s not strictly true as there were some notable exceptions with mein hosts seeming to be the ones who have most problems. Reality hit Der Nationalmannschaft squarely and firmly between the legs in Florence on Wednesday night where the Italians outplayed and outclassed them during a 4 – 1 victory. In the past six years, the Germans have played 17 games against teams who are considered world class and won absolutely none of them. The eighteenth game was their 1 – 0 win at Wembley. During this time, they have come off second best to Argentina, Brazil, France and Holland three times each, the Italians have turned them over twice whilst the Czech Republic, England and Spain all currently hold bragging rights. Their next opponents are the USA, a defeat that previously would have been unthinkable is now a distinct possibility. If Frankfurter Allgemeine believes that the national team are Soccer dwarves now, to lose to the Americans presumably would make them a Soccer Corpse.
Even more amusingly, player disharmony is rearing its’ ugly head with Borussia Dortmund centre back Christian Worns being believing that Jurgen Klinsmann is “clumsy, dishonest and crappy” for sending him an email telling Worns that he would not be playing in Florence as the Germans were only taking three centre-backs to the match. Worns is apparently upset that he ranks below Chelsea benchwarmer Robert Huth, in Klinsmanns’ affections. If that outburst signals the end of his international career for a while then he can consider himself as receiving notification of it which is in marked contrast to Kevin Keegan who threw his toys out of his pram when Sir Robby Bobson failed to contact him prior to not naming him in his first England Squad. Perhaps Keegan was completely out of touch with how National Squads are announced as a large number of players called up seem to find out through the media even now.
It is always nice to witness the disarray of potential opponents of England when usually it is us who are cocking it up on a massive scale. For once, the build-up is relatively harmonious with the media being on the side of the team. Well aside from Sven and Ashley Cole suing the biggest selling newspapers in the land. Which should mean that the final squad training sessions will take place at The Old Bailey rather than in Bavaria. Perhaps Eriksson will arrange for friendly matches against juries from other trials in the recess from his and Cole's case. Who knows, if Cole aggravates his injury again, the Swede will be lucky and find a suitable replacement in the jury for Court 12.
Todays Tunes goes soulful:
Evie Sands - Take Me For A Little While & I Can't Let Go
Shirley Ellis - The Nitty Gritty
Well, that’s not strictly true as there were some notable exceptions with mein hosts seeming to be the ones who have most problems. Reality hit Der Nationalmannschaft squarely and firmly between the legs in Florence on Wednesday night where the Italians outplayed and outclassed them during a 4 – 1 victory. In the past six years, the Germans have played 17 games against teams who are considered world class and won absolutely none of them. The eighteenth game was their 1 – 0 win at Wembley. During this time, they have come off second best to Argentina, Brazil, France and Holland three times each, the Italians have turned them over twice whilst the Czech Republic, England and Spain all currently hold bragging rights. Their next opponents are the USA, a defeat that previously would have been unthinkable is now a distinct possibility. If Frankfurter Allgemeine believes that the national team are Soccer dwarves now, to lose to the Americans presumably would make them a Soccer Corpse.
Even more amusingly, player disharmony is rearing its’ ugly head with Borussia Dortmund centre back Christian Worns being believing that Jurgen Klinsmann is “clumsy, dishonest and crappy” for sending him an email telling Worns that he would not be playing in Florence as the Germans were only taking three centre-backs to the match. Worns is apparently upset that he ranks below Chelsea benchwarmer Robert Huth, in Klinsmanns’ affections. If that outburst signals the end of his international career for a while then he can consider himself as receiving notification of it which is in marked contrast to Kevin Keegan who threw his toys out of his pram when Sir Robby Bobson failed to contact him prior to not naming him in his first England Squad. Perhaps Keegan was completely out of touch with how National Squads are announced as a large number of players called up seem to find out through the media even now.
It is always nice to witness the disarray of potential opponents of England when usually it is us who are cocking it up on a massive scale. For once, the build-up is relatively harmonious with the media being on the side of the team. Well aside from Sven and Ashley Cole suing the biggest selling newspapers in the land. Which should mean that the final squad training sessions will take place at The Old Bailey rather than in Bavaria. Perhaps Eriksson will arrange for friendly matches against juries from other trials in the recess from his and Cole's case. Who knows, if Cole aggravates his injury again, the Swede will be lucky and find a suitable replacement in the jury for Court 12.
Todays Tunes goes soulful:
Evie Sands - Take Me For A Little While & I Can't Let Go
Shirley Ellis - The Nitty Gritty
posted by Yogi's Warrior at 1:49 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home