The Final Countdown

There you go, we have our final 32. 3 years of blood and sweat. Over 150 nations whittled down to just 32.

Now we look forward June (well December first, when we find out who plays who). To Russia! To the return of the greatest sporting event in the world!

Before we do that I feel like we should all shed a tear.

We should shed a tear for Fabbio Grosso and Marco Tardelli wheeling away in what almost always seems like slow motion. For Roberto Baggio's run against the Czechs in 1990 and his last gasp goal against Nigeria in 94

Shed a tear for Johan Cruyff absolutely bamboozling that Swedish right back, for Arie Haan repeatedly scoring from 30+ yards like it was an every day occurance. For the ball beautifully pulled down by Bergkamp and Dirk Nanninger bundling through the Argentinedefence.

Shed a tear Archie Gemmill dancing through the Dutch defence, even if it was too little too late. For David Nairey's belter that stirred the best side not to win the World Cup into life. For Müller scoring past Leighton from that ridiculous angle (if only Costa Rica had been different)*. For Strachan struggling to jump over the advertising hoardings.

Shed a tear for Brian McBride's crazy diving header. Eric Wynalda's free kick indoors. For stunning England in 1950.

Shed a tear for Roger Miller dancing in the corner after nicking the ball from Renne Higuita. For Benjamin Messing losing his boot trying to mame Caniggia. For Pierre Njanka going on that run against Austria.

Shed a tear for those Dance routines! For Asamoah Gyan (wearing number 3?! You're not a left back) and Kevin Prince Boateng stunning the Germans. For the heartbreak of missing that last minute penalty against Uruguay, which would have seen an African team make a semi final.

Shed a tear Gerry Armstrong blasting through Arkanada's legs. For the defence allowing Josimar to score THAT goal.

Shed a tear for Ray Houghton in the Giants Stadium. John Aldridge just trying to get a little water on in the heat. For O'Leary's penalty in Genoa and Robbie Keane's forward roll against the Germans. And for Roy walking out because you didn't even have bibs!

Shed a tear for sneaking into the second round to play COSTA RICA?!? Wait? How did that happen? 2004 couldn't happen again could it...? No!

Shed a tear for high energy football. Smashing the bar in extra time against Brazil. For faking an injury to try and get Brazil thrown out in qualifying (maybe not for that).

Shed a tear for going out unbeaten, despite being in a group with the reigning champions. For Winston Reid!

Actually don't shed anything. As stated before most of these guys had 2-3 years to get their sh*t in order. Time, and football, waits for no man. Hopefully lessons will be learnt and we'll see some of them in four years...

*Why do Scotland always draw either Brazil or Holland?? 

The State of Football: August 2017 - ANNOUNCE!

The new season is back!

It feels like only a few weeks ago that we were laughing at Arsenal Fan TV and making jokes about Sp*rs "Putting on the pressure".

A part of me is happy to see the football back. Anyone who has read my previous posts will know that I'm not a massive advocate of the Best League in the World (or "Most Competitive" when England flop at a tournament or ANOTHER "inferior" French team knocks one of ours out of Europe). This time last year I wrote about how unenthused I was at the prospect to watching more Burnley v West Brom, with Martin Tyler telling me how great it was.

All this being said, even I get a little excited every August and find myself watching Premier League games in the first few weeks of the season that I wouldn't even check for score updates come February!

A part of me is just happy that the nonsense of the summer break is almost behind us. What has happened to the game? I don't even care about Neymar going to PSG for almost £200m. Don't get me wrong that's a bit silly but the fee was more about the release clause in his contract than the craziness of football.

In fact, as much as I think paying £20m+ for the average Premier League footballer is a bit ridiculous, that doesn't actually concern me much. I have bigger gripes with the modern game and the absurdities we are subjected to in the summer. It all starts with the kit leaks in late April/early May. Last I checked nobody won the league because of their shiny new purple Underarmour 3rd kit! I really couldn't give a toss about dimly lit pictures of tops that 90% of the time turn out to be either fake or just a kids training top.

And then there's the actual kit launch! OK you've got a new kit. Like I said before, it has little or no bearing on your success on the pitch (obviously there's the theory Re teams that wear red), so I have very little interest in elaborate marketing campaigns or abstract "Reveal" videos being posted on Instagram!

Really?

As if it couldn't get any worse, we then have the player unveiling and the manufactured drama that is Transfer Deadline Day. I'll get on to the videos, but I just need to air something first. If you are an organisation who turns over millions of pounds a year and you have a fixed window of 2 months (1 in the winter) where you can make appointments that will potentially grow the business exponentially, why would you leave it all down to the last 24 hours of that window and have some idiot in a yellow tie running around after you slowing the whole process down? Surely if the asset you were acquiring was so valuable to you (99% of the time costing you millions of pounds) you'd give yourself as much time as possible to get the deal done? This isn't qualifying in F1 where you let the track get hot and got out and do a flying lap as late as possible (I don't think that happens anymore due to the rule changes, but I don't follow F1 since it got silly and started having night races and Grand Prix with double points, I mean what next? A red shell?  A la Mario Kart?)!*

Then when the team does sign the player, we're then treated to ANOTHER elaborately abstract unveiling video via the club's official Twitter account. And until this happens you have 15 year old boys up and down the country angrily tweeting "ANNOUNCE [SUPERSTAR PLAYER X]!" at the club?!?
As if Roman Abramovic is going to get a call from his Director of Football or whoever it is that arranges transfers saying, "Sir! Calum in West Hampstead has tweeted us again! He really wants Benzema!"
Abramovic: "Get me on the phone to Florentino Perez! I'm not losing another follower...!!"
What happened to the days of literally not knowing anything until Andrea Silenzi turns up on the back pages of the newspaper, in a home shirt (with shoes and trousers on), holding a stretched out scarf above his head in front of an empty main stand?

It was for all of the above reasons that I was glad to take in my first full game last Sunday in the form of Marseille against Dijon, and then watched the majority of Arsenal v Leicester last night.

I'm sure I've said it before here, and will probably do so again, but... Football! What have they done to you?

On the subject of launch videos, this is the best you'll ever see. I was in the Co-op yesterday and they (aptly on the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Premier League) were playing Alive And Kicking. 

*Many deals are arranged outside of the window to be concluded as soon as it opens, so there really is no excuse for leaving it until that bloody day that Sky have invented!

Confeds

It's the opening day of the Confederations Cup today! I'm probably the only person in the world that actually cares. Other than maybe Gianni Infantino. For the ill-informed the Confederations Cup is kind of a dress rehearsal for the following year's World Cup. For me when we were all a lot younger, in the era just before we had wall to wall football, it was a bigger deal.

The "I can't wait for the next Premier League season" crew won't be happy! They hate international football?!? It gets in the way. They'd much rather be watching Stoke versus West Brom (makes me want to say, "And it's LIVE!" in a Martin Tyler voice). Or spend their Saturdays watching slightly above average former footballers watch, and get excited about, Burnley against Watford. They'd rather be changing their fantasy football captain to Aguero because City are at home to Palace. They'd rather Wenger was out. Or is it in now, I can't keep up!?

Not me. Give me some competitive international football any day! Don't get me wrong, in the period between August and May I allow myself to become slightly immersed in some of the circus. But I see it for what it is. And it's definitely lost its magic over the years. International football has changed, but not in the same way. Nations can't hoover up all the best talent (and send it on loan to AZ Alkmaar). They can invest in developing young players and hire the best coaches to help them, but there are no Saudi Billionaires or hundreds of millions of television money for coming 15th.

International football has retained some of the charm from the game I fell in love with as a 7/8 year old. It's back today. AND IT'S LIVE!

"I've kept really quiet...!"

A wise man once uttered those words. Actually I'm not sure I'd describe him as wise. Despairing. Deflated. Exasperated. On the brink. At the end of his tether. But not necessarily wise.

If you have no idea what I'm on about. Then shame on you! I am of course referring to Kevin Keegan's famous outburst at the end of the 1995/96 season after his Newcastle side had surrendered a seemingly unassailable 12 point lead to the "mind gaming" Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United side.

It's one of the all time great moments in the Premier league's long and illustrious history. And it deserves a watch every now and then. In Keegan that day, not only do see a man who has clearly lost it and is probably going to have a cry in the car on the way home. But you see the exasperation of many a football fan. Fans who have had their dreams built up, only to see their own "12 point leads" snatched away.

In my case it wasn't Stan Colleymore and Liverpool who facilitated in the dream snatching (I think that would have somehow made it feel a little better) it was the likes of Astra Girigou, Watford and West Brom. Dimitri Payet and the hapless Darren Randolph.

Any regular readers of this blog (not sure if are many, if any, of you left after my 9 month hiatus) will remember my first post of the new season, written on the eve of the start of the Premier League. In which I stated in no uncertain terms that I was far from enthused by the prospect of what was about to come. Unfortunately I have a knack for getting these things right, and the one thing I was looking forward to this season ended up being a bit of a disappointment.

That thing was West Ham's move to the London Stadium. Which I now can't even bring myself to mockingly refer to as the, "Estadio Olimipico". A move that Karen Brady has subsequently referred to as, "The most successful stadium migration ever". For me this began with 6 months of "kettling" outside of a large shopping center and being threatened with eternal expulsion from West Ham games, for daring to stand up and create some atmosphere during some of the most tepid performances known to man. All was not how Brady and the Davids had painted it would be; and at one point I actually had a serious think regarding whether I wanted to continue with my season ticket, which I've held for 13 years now.

In the interests of providing a fair perspective on the move to the new ground. Things have been much better in the last few months. And all the talk of being miles away from the pitch in generally either sensationalism or jealousy (although I'm not sure why people are so jealous of us). But this whole episode will still have left many fans wondering whether we've made an awful mistake.

On the pitch large parts of this season were also an absolute horror show. Now,  I've had any optimism beaten out of me through years of disappointment, so don't get me wrong I did not expect us to have as good a season as we did last year. For a start there was no way we could get 4 points off of the likes of Chelsea, United, Arsenal and City again. Or 6 from Liverpool. Not all in the same season. But what I hadn't expected was things like losing at home to Watford after racing to a 2-0 lead. Or to getting thumped away at West Brom.

I also hadn't expected Dimitri Payet to be so poor and his stay at the club to end in such a manner. Now don't get me wrong. I knew he was trouble. I can't remember whether I'd mentioned or even alluded to this last season, but when Payet signed for us it wasn't the first I'd seen or heard of him. There was a clear reason why a player of his capability, signed for a club of our stature. Whether that was because he often went missing when the going got tough, something I'd pointed to last year.  Or that he had a bit of an attitude problem. He was never going to win the Ballon D'or. But I expected more! More than two great individual goals against Accrington and Middlesbrough followed by a Pierre Van Hooijdonk-esque strike. Shame on you Dimitri!

Then there was Slav. Now I'm "Slav In". Can you believe we live in an age where you have to be "in" or "out" with your manager. It's all gotten a bit much if you ask me, but that's for another blog post. Slav has definitely done some bad things in my eyes, dropping a keeper that was one of the best in the teams outside of the top 4-6 (and better than Liverpool's keepers) because of a couple of errors. Madness! This stuff always resonates with me because it's the position I always played, but everyone in the side makes mistakes. The keeper's are just the ones that get more attention. Plus there was absolutely no way Adrian was to blame for our miserable start to the season. Then there was Gokan Tore, what the hell was/is Gokan Tore?!? He was "your boy" Slav! Not good enough. Nordveit. Nordveit? Another one that I can't fathom. Was he a Slav signing? Who knows? All I'll say is, don't bring him on unless you have an unassailable lead! Don't bring him on to close out the Tottenham game...!

On the subject of Adrian there was of course his replacement Darren Randolph. Darren Randolph cost West Ham so many points this season. In fact he cost us points at the end of last season when he filled in against Swansea at home. And I'm not even talking about the obvious stuff like parrying the ball to Harry Winks, dropping the ball against Liverpool, the soft goals at the Emirates; or Sunderland. Yes Sunderland! Just Sunderland! The whole game, where it looked like they were playing me out there! People need to understand that goalkeeping is about command of your area and communication with your defence. Yes you need to be agile and you definitely need to be able to catch but the key thing is the relationship you have with the back line and how much they trust you to do the right thing when play comes anywhere near your goal.

It is for this reason that, while I think he's a decent young goalkeeper, I don't have an orgasm every time I watch David De Gea play. And the same reason why I seriously rate Theobaut Courtois and Hugo Lloris way more than the average pundit does. These are also things that Darren Randolph struggles to do. The West Ham social media accounts can show as many spectacular looking tips over the bar and round the post as they want. Anyone who has played football in goal regularly will know that while these things are far from easy to do they are not what separates those that pay to play football from those that are paid vast sums of money to play football. It's like defending. The best central defenders are the ones who snuff danger out through their positioning and ability to read the game. As opposed to those constantly flying in making,  more impressive looking, recovery tackles.

In my mind there is no coincidence that our best defensive displays have come with Adrian in goal. A defence that does not trust their keeper make silly mistakes trying to anticipate what he may,  or may not, be about to do!

Of course it wasn't all Slav. I'm not sure to what extent, but the consensus is that he and the likes of Payet were promised better signings than Gokan Tore and Nordveit. For a start we fans were! Then there's the fact that his job seems to have been under threat on numerous occasions with no consideration made for the context of previous matches or relative strength of opponents. It's all been a bit crazy and can't have produced a settling atmosphere for either Slav or the players.

So in all it was a bit of dire season. Mix that in with fact that the Premier League wasn't that entertaining this year (the best team in it was probably Tottenham) and I'm not that fussed that there's only one game to go. Thank God and good riddance!

On a positive note this season I discovered an amazing podcast called "Quickly Kevin" which reminisces about the best decade in football that I've experienced (the 90s). If you like Barry Davies, Brian Moore, World Cup theme tunes, Matt Le Tissier, and anecdotes relating to players like Efan Ekokou then give it a listen! Check me out plugging them for nothing!

Another reason to be cheerful is that the Confederations Cup begins in exactly a month today! More to follow...

Oh football! What have they done to you?!