Richard Irvine – Page 9 – sportreview.net.nz

World Cup Cloud City

South Africa 2010 was a weird-balled-vuvuzala-d-goal-free mess really.

Luckily Brazil 2014 seems to be the antidote. We’ve had fantastic goals, like Van Persie’s rainbow header and Tim Cahill’s left foot thunderbolt, tremendous discipline-related incidents and some fantasy results.

From the moment the Official FIFA app spoilt the Netherlands v Spain second-half result I was MySkying to Germany cheerfully and efficiently ruining Ronaldo’s plans for himself at this tournament to Chile putting Spain out, it’s been absolutely tremendous.

Except for Spain – I feel sorry for them, after they went to all the trouble of redefining modern football into something that was oh so pretty to watch, they’ve been made to look less clever than a man trying to drive a wheelie bin down the highway. Football moves pretty fast, but I don’t think anyone expected it to go this fast.

Brazil have looked like, um, the All Blacks trying to negotiate pool play in 2011 as hosts and favourites with all that that entails. I think they’ll be fine, usual ‘never listen to sportreview.net.nz on matters sport’ rules apply.

USA! USA! definitely have the cutest team and fans. When John Brooks’ winner hit the back of the net you knew there was going to be some serious backwards-baseball-hat-wearin’ and back-of-a-pickup-hollerin’. Then their fans, each of whom look like they play in a gnarly blog-rock combo, got a harsh lesson in hopes raised and dreams shattered (see also: England) against Portugal. Admittedly, I silently think ‘bless’ to myself anytime an American does anything to do with football, but fair play, they have an infectious corn-fed exuberance, and they made a lot of people I follow on Twitter very excited so bless good on them.

England have been England basically. Moments of great promise – check. Awkward actual results – check. Pantomime villain in the opposition – check. Deafening bloodletting when they go out – check. I feel a bit bad for them. This was a team of young promise and bright prospects after Roy Hodgson resisted the temptation of giving the olden generation another wheeling out.

Most importantly they were largely emotional-baggage-free and going out in a fairly dignified fashion (as long as nothing idiotic happens v Costa Rica) means they should stay that way, until qualification for the Euros at least.

The fans have played a blinder too. Who can forget the Ghanaian with the pot on his head with steam coming out of it?

This isn’t just a Tui Sneak, it’s the full Souls Of Your Vanquished Nemesi Burning For All Eternity In The Pot Of Doom sneak. Top work.

If ever there was a sporting event the States would send VPOTUS to, it’s the football world cup. Screw them, Joe’s getting heaps better photo ops than the President right now.

If Apocalypse Now had wanted something truly terrifying at the end of the river, they should have replaced Kurtz with this guy. Those carrots aren’t making it home safe.

The best bits for me have been Germany v Ghana, both the USA’s matches, England v Uraguay and Spain v Netherlands, and some of the comical fouls – Alex Song tried hard to make himself the villain of the tournament so far, but looked more like a poor masseuse to me. My early calls for the title are Netherlands, France and Germany (yes, still) – and Argentina and Brazil, the local teams who’re yet to get underway really. Columbia and Chile and Uruguay are doing their bits too, we’re in for some cracking Clash Of Styles-style matches when we reach the knockout rounds.

Everyone seems to be getting into it most cheerfully according to office chat, bus chat and sidelines-at-the-kids-games chat. The viewing hours are rilly user-friendly (when they’re not clashing with TEST CRICKET *cough*), and local media are giving the World’s Most Fuck-Off Sporting Event due care, attention and coverage.

I’ve slipped so easily into the rhythm of waking, checking the early-morning result on my phone, watching the 7am and 10am matches, tweeting away merrily in a kind of all-day cheerful football party and watching the highlights every night that it’s going to be awfully jarring when this is World Cup Cloud City is over. Enjoy it team. It’s been magic so far, but it’s going to get much better from here.

Presented without comment

Parenting done right

Home run catch in one hand, offspring in the other.

World in motion

There’s no doubt there’s the twin whiffs of a deathly unimpressed host nation and murkier-than-usual FIFA corruption hovering over this World Cup. Brazil seems as enthusiastic about hosting the tournament as hosting an attack of boils – watch John Oliver for an entertaining / depressing run down, or this photo essay gives you an idea. It’s not great, and the folly of building stadiums like the Arena Amazonia stadium in Manaus (with a pitch that’s a bit shit) in a country where new hospitals would be handier, seems like, well, folly.

I’ll leave the pat explanations there. Reality is, once we get underway tomorrow morning, most football fans will be too busy finding ways to manage work, family and responsibility in general to be in front of televisions or posting animated GIFs of tremendous goals and fouls on Twitter to worry.

That’s because, with respect to the other World Cups, this is *the* World Cup. Football, as we’re allowed to call it, brings the whole world together to play a game that’s easy to understand and, when done right, can move you to tears. I mean Arjen Robben, who plays with hipster-football-fan’s-choice Holland, can dive about like the best, but he can also do this. Let’s face it, hating the villains is as much fun as appreciating the heroes. That’s, well, sport. And life really, innit?

For my sins, I will support England, as per usual. The golden generation is managing, modelling and boring people on the telly these days, so now we have a team that most people haven’t heard of, Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard aside. It could go really well, as the crushing pressure *should* be less. It’ll go right back up again if they get to the knockouts though, of course.

I know this is hipster-football territory, but if I can support a player, it’ll be Pirlo. My soft spot for passing midfielders with time on the ball is deep (one, two), and Pirlo is the current master. Pour a nice chianti and wallow:

Get excited

Steve Braunais has a galaxy of pundits picks – it looks like he’ll write through the tournament

sportsfreak.co.nz has had comprehensive previews of all the groups, and will cover the tournament no doubt

Kiwi freelancer Ben Stanley is over in Rio, he’ll be worth following

Hadyn Green came out of semi-retirement to write a sort of anti-World Cup World Cup preview

If you’re feeling generous, the Ockers are our closest to taking part – here’s a typically awesome guide to watching the cup in our timezone with @rustyjacko

App wise, just get the official FIFA one, and the strangely mesmerising Score!, for pretending you’re Pirlo on the bog

Grantland has had some cracking articles and videos already – check out this tactics 101 piece. It may be aimed at the supposedly non-football-aware, but I definitely learned a thing or two

FiveThirtyEight says Brazil will win. I think it may be Spain or Argentina, but 538 is much smarter than sportreview, in fairness

For day to day tournament coverage, I tend to go Guardian. I think they’re ace. Here’s their writers’ predictions, and a ‘which world cup team are you?‘ quiz. I am Spain, just FYI

Early sportreview.net.nz prototype

Charles M Shulz surprisingly prescient of modern web culture here.

Links on Friday

Footballers. They’re generally into Page Three models, Essex nightclubs and flash motors. Innit. But, it turns out that plucky title-challengers-Liverpool are sheltering the EPL’s only hipster footballer Daniel Sturridge, the “Kanye West of the Northwest”. It’s a fair call, and Vice asks valid questions about why footballers are so uncool generally (remember when George Benson was every player’s fav musician in Roy Of The Rovers questionnaires?), but I say Sturridge is number two hipster – doesn’t get more street than Andy Carroll off his tits at a festival wearing a flouro vest, does it?

Further ‘Scottish football managers are generally angry’ news:

Baseball fandom get the New York Times data journalism treatment. Interesting, nerdy stuff – but it seems sportreview.net.nz-favoured Oakland Athletics have no fans. Kind of like sportreview. Ahem.

American Football team logos designed as proper football logos. Some of these are awesome.

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: Etc

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing posts – thanks for reading, team. Ten years: Banners / NEWSDESK / Cartoons / Links on Friday

Thanks for bearing with the ten year posts team, I know it’s been a hard slog. And thanks again for reading. It’s always a thrill to know that a few people enjoy reading the site and get a laugh out of it. As always, the aim of the site is:

I love sport, and I love New Zealand. We Kiwis support our sports people admirably, but take it all a bit seriously. I just want to inject a little humour. Relax, it won’t hurt a bit.

Also thanks to the other sports bloggers, who are a little thinner on the ground now as say five or six years ago (Twitter has a lot to answer for here). The likes of Graeme , JRod, the Beige Brigade (one of the finest fan-lead organisations in the world)’s Paul Ford, Hadyn (the Dropkicks!), Duncan Grieve‘s lamented DeadBall and all the others I’ve missed. It was a lot of fun being part of a group of (mostly) guys who gave a lot of fucks about sport, on the field, but also about the issues around it, the creep of commercialisation and where where the sporting organisations were taking their sports.

The site has evolved over the years from a pretty straight links-blog-with-a-little-comment to the cartoons, to the links on Friday, to the satire, to the ‘analytical‘ stuff to what it is now. Yes, I know the site is not updated as frequently as its heyday, and that pragmatically, with my job, I’m not as actively annoying. Hopefully that’s balanced out a little, where possible, with some behind-the-scences stuff from the BLACKCAPS. Here’s when I went to Bangladesh and, um, here’s that other time I went to Bangladesh. Ahem.

Some of the posts I’ve enjoyed writing the most are from my own sporting experiences – as someone that spent most of my OE trying to visit sports events, the sportreview.net.nz top 12 stadiums post was a great place to record all that (top three are Waikato Stadium, Eden Park and White Hart Lane, spoiler fans). There’s also my two attempts to cover myself in glory and lager at the 1999 Cricket World Cup in Cardiff as the BLACKCAPS beat the Aussies, and the All Blacks v Italy pool match in Huddersfield that ended with an un-sanctioned meet and greet with the team in a Leeds nightclub, also in ’99. You may also enjoy this write up of playing cricket in a friendly fixture / piss up in Wexford, Ireland.

1999, what a year! Making friends with Glen Osbourne in Huddersfield.

1999, what a year! Celebrating wasting the Ockers in Cardiff.
Some other stuff that you may enjoy are the sportreview podcast – start with this French test preview. Try also Sport’s top five Fight Club duos and the Top ten tragic moments in New Zealand Sport.

I’m still taking Stalkipedia entries, you know.

I enjoyed the site the most during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the one we bloody won. Reminisce on the semi-final, the final, Stephen Donald’s recall and those bloody jerseys.

If you’re having a look through the site, start with the Greatest Hits.

I think that’s about it. I think the site can be summed up best by ‘caring about sport’ and ‘having fun’, and I trust that if you’ve found your way here you do one, or the other, or both. Good on you, sport needs more like you. Righto.

That Bangladesh bat-signing shambles in full.

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: Links on Friday

This is the 127th post tagged ‘Links on Friday’ – hopefully the extensive yet sporadic coverage of Roy Keane, Kevin Keegan, own goals and Zombies has made your Friday log-on a little more entertaining. Here’s some of the best YouTubeage from over the years.

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: Cartoons

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing posts – thanks for reading, team.

See all the other cartoons that aren’t as good as these ones.

Ten years: Banners / NEWSDESK / Cartoons

25 July 2005 – first one

23 July 2008

25 July 2010

See all the Dingo Deans Double Agent cartoons.

12 March 2009

20 February 2009

28 November 2005

29 March 2006

Ten years of sportreview.net.nz: NEWSDESK

This week marks the ten year anniversary of this blog making the internet worse. Cue a series of unprecedented navel gazing posts – thanks for reading, team.

Ten years: Banners / NEWSDESK

Read all articles, which are worse than these, tagged NEWSDESK.

24 June 2011: Stephen Donald resting up on Kapiti Coast beach

NEWSDESK: Former All Black Stephen Donald has made himself at home on a Kapiti Coast beach. Donald, who was dropped from the All Black training squad this week, was discovered by Peka Peka Beach resident Gladys Coronation, who was out walking her dogs. “I thought I was seeing things, it’s pretty unusual to see an All Black in this neck of the woods. He seems content, but he’s just… sitting there.”

Coronation contacted the Department of Conservation, who are advising that people should remain at least ten metres away from Stephen Donald at all times, and that dogs should be kept on a leash. “Donald could deliver a vicious peck if he feels threatened. Best case scenario is that he eventually swims back out to sea,” said a DOC spokesperson.

The residents of Peka Peka beach have taken Stephen Donald into their hearts, and are taking it in turns to stand guard. “I’d love to throw a blanket on him and say ‘Just forget about fucking up in Hong Kong, bro’ but you have to let him be. You just have to let him be,” said local hardcase Gavin McEyebrow.

17 September 2007: French to All Blacks – ‘We will steal your girlfriends’

NEWSDESK: French efforts to win the World Cup are moving from the playing field to the bedroom, launching a campaign to distract the All Blacks by stealing their girlfriends. Experts believe the players’ unrelenting focus on World Cup preparations, not sweet nothings whispered in ears, could leave them exposed to a brigade of oily French marauders.

Alarm bells are ringing in the All Blacks’ camp at the potentially disastrous consequences sudden, unexpected heartbreak could have on the campaign. Despite smelling mainly of garlic, onions and cheap aftershave, French men are renowned for their sensitivity to a woman’s physical and emotional desires, compared with our Kiwi fellas’ grunting emotional unavailability. Tactics at the French gits’ disposal include admiring the starry lights of Paris by night, getting caught in the rain and seeking shelter in a cafe, browsing second hand bookshops wearing a beret, and speaking French, the language of love.

The All Blacks are now playing catch up, learning key romantic French phases like “Ici, ayez une chemise de polo d’Adidas, je l’a obtenue libre” (Here, have an Adidas polo shirt, I got it free), “Là où sont mes chaussettes propres?” (Where are my clean socks?), and “La jeune mariée d’emballement est sur le câble ce soir, bébé” (Runaway Bride is on cable tonight, baby).

17 April 2007: England lose, un-invent cricket. World Cup thrown into chaos

NEWSDESK: In a bold move, England un-invented Cricket following their crushing nine wicket defeat at the hands of South Africa. Former ECB Chairman David Morgan told reporters “Our supporters have long faced taunts about England inventing the game, but being crap at it. Well, sod you lot quite frankly, we can ruddy well un-invent it. That is all.” When pressed further while leaving the press conference, a clearly tired and emotional Morgan blurted “You Aussies think you’re so smart – well stick this up your jacksie, Trev.” before being quickly lead away.

Chartered accountant Micheal Vaughan said “Obviously we’ll take full responsibility for ending Cricket forever – that’s life. Batting first after winning the toss wasn’t the best move, but hindsight’s 20/20 isn’t it? We just have to make the best of it.” Yorkshire plumber Andrew Flintoff: “Well the lads are pretty disappointed at how its worked out, but we mustn’t grumble, we’d had a good innings. We’ll always have fond memories of 2005, and that WAS a tremendous piss-up afterwards.”

7 September 2011: All Black selectors get drunk, select backline

NEWSDESK: All Black selectors confirmed they were “pretty wasted” when selecting the team to face Tonga. Forwards coach Steve Hansen told a packed press conference: “We had a few selection headaches, so Smithy brought a box of Woody’s. It all kicked on from there.”

A lightly kebab-stained team sheet revealed the surprise combination of Sonny Bill Williams and Ma’a Nonu, and the inclusion of Isaia Toeava. “I was as surprised as anyone to see Kahui on the wing. Lucky Kronic has been banned, it could have been Mils at centre!” said Hansen.

23 April 2009: Tua / Cameron fight moves to nightclub car park

NEWSDESK: Top Kiwi heavyweights David Tua and Shane Cameron will go toe to toe in the car park of Hamilton’s Troppoz night spot in November. Originally scheduled for Waikato Stadium, then Mystery Creek, the 12 round fight now takes place in a roped off section of the 60 car capacity parking facility. “We’ve hosted a number of fights in our car park” said proprietor Greg Baartowel. “Ohaupo 2nd XV versus the cops in ’93 springs to mind.”

New Zealand’s newest boxing venue is pulling out all the stops to give fight fans their money’s worth. Corporate seating will be offered in a row of thoroughly valeted V8s ringside (“Patrons can specify Holden or Ford”), while general admission punters will get great views from temporarily erected trestle tables. ‘Mountain Man’ Shane Cameron will enter the ring from behind the bar, while David Tua and entourage will emerge from the disabled toilets. Baartowel is keen to emphasise the fight will be a family friendly event. “Like the cricket, if any kids want to get in the ring and have a fight between rounds, they can do so” he said.

29 May, 2007: Dunedin’s stadium debate resolved with formation of ‘Tagotown

NEWSDESK: She’s a hard road finding the perfect city, but the people of ‘Tagotown agree they’ve come pretty close. New Zealand’s newest city has risen from the ashes of the intense debate between the region’s rugby folk and the usual gang of lefty whinging soft cocks. The pro-stadium faction took matters into their own hands and erected a wall between the former Dunedin and their new home, ‘Tagotown. The wall runs from east to west through the the Octogon, and is comprised of worn out tackle bags and couches, many of which have been set on fire.

Wall foreman Steve Hotten laid out some of the city’s founding principles in an oration to the ‘Tagotown people upon the wall’s completion. “It’s pretty farkin simple. Number one – we’re building a stadium. Number two – we support Otago. There’s no number three. If you wanna wear bone carvings, go to Dunedin.”

Unpopular posts

22 September 2010: Delhi officials concede Otago scarfie interior design firm were poor choice

“Athletes bringing a synchronised swimmer back to their room may want to leave the light off, but that’s standard practice where we’re from.”

22 June 2012: Weepu eats Cruden

““When the lights came on, everyone was like ‘where’s Aaron?’. Yeah, you always regret eating a team mate, I’m gutted for him. Hopefully the boys can dig deep on Saturday night and win it for Aaron,” said Weepu.”

29 August 2007: Red faces all round as cylinder contains body parts, not turf

“I got some funny looks going into all those cemeteries with a shovel and saw, let me tell you. What a turn-up, eh?”.