Day 14: …And the afterglow
Jose Mourinho is probably the only human on the planet capable of eclipsing Engurlund in the World Cup mode press post-Beckham.
Still as the team he happened to guide mercurially to Champions League glory this season weren’t English the jingoistic jibes set in:
“This is not an Italian team, it’s a Mourinho team.”
Other anonymous scribes could be more circumspect however. Perhaps it’s an ego thing?
There’s an interesting feature on which foreigners England could do with who are eligible thanks to the fact they’ve never been capped for their ‘home’ country and have spent at least 5 years in England. They may well have missed a very special talent who has been snatched from under their own noses. Ollie Norwood of Man Utd has been causing a stir amongst Norn Iron fans due to his phenomenal free kick skills for our junior teams. After having played for England schools he made the switch to come under highly-rated U-21 coach Steve Beaglehole’s direction thanks to a Northern Irish grandda. On Friday night he inspired a fighting comeback in the Euro Champ qualifiers against Russia, scoring both NI goals in the last 7 minutes of the game to rescue a point. One of which being from his trademark setpiece. And today he put another 1 away in a 3-2 defeat at the hands of Italy.
One thing that puzzles me over the Lord Treason sensationalised mudslinging the English press engaged in; never once did they stop to think that the gist of Triesman’s private loose talk – corruption at the highest levels – is essentially completely true and also completely unreported in mainstream media. As can be seen from the over the top reaction to Capello’s commercial venture, there appears to be a don’t-upset-the-applecart theme that intertwines both football’s governing bodies and their cheerleaders in the press. 2nd opinions can now be seen floating about.
In amongst all the one-eyed bullshit crap plastered over the media during the build up there are no doubt many geniunely impressive tails of innovative devotion from supporters. ABE has no issue with these guys and looking over the sundays one such story stands out – Two guys heading south …by hitchhiking.
Builder Andrew Grady & camerman Simon Wilson set off for France on April 28th and are currently in Morocco with the aim of making the 2nd England group game in Cape Town on June 18th. On a route that seems sure to present a plethora of problems (a good proportion likely to emanate from ‘authorities’ it has to be said), they may well have the odds stacked against them. I hope they have the opportunity to enjoy the ride though, and having done a smaller scale version of it (well, as far as Mauritania anyway, and in a slightly more glamourous 1984 LHD Mercedes) I can imagine it will be a hugely worthwhile experience.
May 26th, 2010 at 8:53 am
[...] a further read through the shit storm kicked up by the Mail’s creation of a national scapegoat even before there was any hint of failure. It’s difficult not to feel sorry for the English [...]