Author: Richard Irvine

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World Cup notes 13 June

The only jaw dropping moment for me so far was Robert Green fumbling the ball over the line to gift the United States prepsters an undeserved equaliser. Yes, my jaw literally dropped, it was a mistake as cataclysmic as wearing an airline sleeping mask in a downhill ski race. Unlucky. And, unluckily for Green, England as a nation just doesn’t do forgiving goalkeepers – just ask Paul Robinson, consigned to the scrap heap by the Zagreb turf. He’s not playing at this tournament, it will be interesting to see if Green is playing at the next one. You can imagine the headlines in the UK press, not noted for their sensitivity – The News Of The World went with ‘Hand Of Clod’ and ‘Shock n Draw’, while the Daily Mail went for the jugular with the wordy, functional and indignant ‘What a let-down! Fans’ disappointment as England’s World Cup campaign begins with a draw.’

Still, England could have won it – they created a very nice opening goal, laid on for Gerard by Heskey, who, when I saw his name in the starting line up, almost prompted jaw drop one. I decided to go with a long groan instead. Heskey had the best chance to snatch an equaliser – if he was aiming to hit US goalkeeper Tim Howard between his nipples and his waist, he hit the target. He failed to score a goal on that occasion, however.

Rooney was everywhere, except in the middle of the park near the goal, presumably where his best chance to score is. He looked tired, and was running everywhere trying to get things going. If England are relying on him, I’d prescribe Wayne picks his battles a little better.  They should go through on this showing though, they were bright and attacking, and could have easily won the match with better  goalkeeping and finishing.

Elsewhere, South Africa scored an emotional goal, and were only overhauled by Mexico’s extra class telling over 90 minutes. They have a point, however, and if they can keep riding the emotional wave they’re on, they may make it out of the group. Fair play to them.

Argentina and France were subdued, but at least Maradonna’s team got their win. One theory says Maradonna is shaping his side, which could have been one of the all-time great attacking sides if Diego had bought even half the talent at his disposal (sportreview.net.nz’s official Dick Move Of The Tournament is leaving Riquelme at home), in the image of his 1986 cup winning side, made up of ten cloggers plus Maradonna. Messi = Maradonna in this case, obviously. We’ll see. Old weird beard has been great value on the bench this far anyway, imagine when it starts to get tense.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it so far – it’s nice to be back on Planet Football*. See you on the couch.

*pinched from Pete Davies’ brilliant All Played Out.

All Whites also surprised to learn New Zealand plays football

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NEWSDESK: New Zealand’s participation in the World Cup finals has been a rich source of comedy for pundits and broadcasters alike in the tournament build up. Most members of the international press were under the impression the South Pacific island nation were more of a rugby playing / sheep shagging / quasi Welsh proposition. “New Zealand? Playing football? Sounds about as likely as Snoop Doggy Dog walking into t’ Rovers  and pooing on the bar, like,” said Pastie Cornish of the Manchester Evening News.

So it was little surprise when the All Whites themselves expressed their astonishment they were in fact a football team at a packed press conference in Johannesburg. “I knew played sport, but I just thought it was touch rugby, I used to play that at Uni,” said Leo Bertos, who was surprised to learn he is a right back. “Turned out to be football – we used to call it poofball! The touch guys are going to give me heaps when I get back.”

Goalkeeper Mark Paston was able to dimly recall a big match in Wellington last year, but said he couldn’t remember due to alcohol-related memory loss. “I recall I had gloves on – but I always wear gloves when its cold, I thought nothing of it. Trip to South Africa? Sure, why not? I didn’t suspect a thing.”

“To be honest, it’s a big weight off my mind to learn we’re playing in the World Cup,” said coach Ricki Herbert. “I had all these people congratulating me in the street and the supermarket, I didn’t know WHAT they were on about – thought I was going farkin mad.” Herbert was confident he and the rest of the New Zealanders staying in his hotel would give a good account of themselves. Playing football. “At the end of the day, we’re here to do a job and not let the country down. Apparently. FIFA have been kind enough to supply some football DVDs for us to watch, and we’ll be down the video shop to rent some football games on the playstation as soon as someone sorts out two forms of ID.”

In other news, the ICC said they would be reviewing the Black Caps’ participation in the recent T20 World Cup in light of today’s revelations.

World Cup online

The internet, eh? What did we do without it? Got shit done, that’s what. Anyway. Here’s your guide to the cup online.

Marca’s impressive calendar keeps you up to date in style

Here’s the The All Whites official site, complete with video and the all important player profiles

Local lot Public Address have set up the speaker page for the tournament, with guest bloggers Peter Darlington and Dan Slevin, along with Hadyn Green

The Guardian as usual have impressive coverage, from the tournament guide to the daily podcast, to the ambitious and all encompassing fans’ network featuring NZ sporterati’s Sportsfreak

Alan Davies is a gooner, but he’s very funny, so he’s OK – he’s hosting the World Cup Armchair podcast every week. I had a listen doing the supermarket shopping Thursday night, its quite a larf

FIFA’s site is actually quite good

Brainy magazine The New Republic have a World Cup blog, with a fairly exhausting output

Twitter sneaked out an impressive World Cup page today, and will tag your country tags with flags (ahem) if you’re on the web page – #sco doesn’t work, I checked

DDyerNZ is a blog about a gaggle of pommy Kiwis traveling to the cup – entertaining stuff , can’t wait to see how they go

I must also mention Giovanni Tiso’s epic and touching post about Brazil v Italy 1982, a tournament dear to most NZers’ hearts

Rugby in crisis

Our national game is in a crisis of getting-it-stuck-in-the-fly proportions. No NZ team in the Super 14 final, more All Blacks out injured than out on the piss and a beloved ex-All Black stirring up a race war.
Haden in his playing days, when it was 14 moustaches per team – and that’s it
Sporting agent Haden, whose stable includes legendary sporting figures like Sale Of the Century’s Jude Dobson, talking very loudly’s Chris Harder, eating’s Peta Mathias and erm, Stu Wilson, blew the lid off the Crusaders’ ‘manual’ with his race-based selection claims. Other sporting manuals around the globe are now living in fear of similar outings, as sportreview.net.nz can exclusively reveal:
Springbok manual – one player on the ground wondering what fresh hell this is and that’s it
England manual – one RWC 2011 touring party that should feel right at home and that’s it
Crusaders manual – fifteen fellas a *bit* too keen to get their kit off and that’s it
Co-incidentally, Haden made his controversial comments on a show with a ‘three fuck-knuckles per episode – and that’s it’ policy.
Meanwhile, the All Black injury outbreak is reaching crisis point – in The Good Old Days™, when you could break a full backs’ nose without fear of television-enabled-reprisal, Colin Meads played with a broken arm, Grant Batty played with a funny name and one lock even took his place in the lineout while suffering from death.

Modern All Blacks, however, suffer new ailments like “Adidas poisoning’, ‘Powerade knee’, ‘Xbox’ and ‘Bench sickness‘. Getting potential All Blacks to play club rugby on Saturday backfired spectacularly, with Luke McAlister and Stephen Donald both going down with ‘Soft-cock’s elbow’.

Our playing stocks are at breaking point. Long gone are the days when you’d put the cat out and find four or five All Blacks sheltering on your stoop. Efforts to increase playing stocks by releasing All Blacks into lakes and the bush only seem to have made the problem worse.

Add in the fact South Africa has more big, scary players in hot form than Victor Matfield has leg hairs, while Australia has the best coach on the world by far, along with a crop of young players coming of age together and OH MY GOD WE’RE FUCKED, WE”RE TOTALLY TOTALLY FUCKED. In response, Graham Henry drove his vee-dub to an abandoned warehouse, had a beer and a smoke, danced around a bit and named his squad. And it looks pretty good. Relax, people, and that’s it.