We Should Have Been Watching A World Cup

I'm a World Cup addict.

I've probably mentioned it on here before.

I can identify most World Cups, barring say 1930-38 when it's all a bit grainy, from either still or video footage.

I've done every quiz going and can identify when the likes of Haiti, Zaire, Israel, Cuba and Iraq made their sole appearances.

I have a social blackout during the World Cup (this is genuinely true, ask my Wife if you know her), where I will almost certainly refuse to attend social event during a tournament, no matter how seemingly important. See the title of my blog...

I've taught my eldest Son, who appears to be pretty interested the story of the World Cup from 1930 up to 1974 at present, on our walk to school in the morning. He can explain the significance of the Maracanazo, to the point that he knows THE GAME WAS NOT A FINAL (it irks me when people call it that), and he knows that Pele watched his dad crying that day and vowed to win him the tournament when he grew up. 

I've even tried to explain the likes of Garrincha and Maradona in the most PG way possible, although his learning hasn't reached the 1980's so we've only briefly touched on Maradona.

I'm f**king obsessed! And as a result will almost certainly be watching this year's tournament, in spite of the glaringly bad human rights abuses happening in Qatar to make it happen. I'm sorry. I fully understand that it makes me an absolute hypocrite, cos if you follow me on Twitter you'll see that I'm all fairness and equality,  but even heroes have flaws... OK I'm not a hero, unless you need someone to explain the Adidas' role in enabling the West German side to win the 1954 final against the much fancied Hungarians in a downpour i.e. "Fritz Walter weather". Then I'm a hero!

In all seriousness though, I genuinely totally get it. But it's my one vice in life. I genuinely think I could give up watching West Ham, and yes it would be a struggle, but I couldn't the World Cup or it's little brother/sister the European Championship. I can't even bring myself to say the phrase "The Euros" *insert vomit emoji*.

Long and short is I will be watching this year, as I've done every summer from 1990 up until 2018. But that's the problem; or another, granted way more trivial, problem. It should be on now!

We should be at the back end of the tournament now. Somewhere around the Semi-Finals or Quarter-Finals depending on the edition. I'm thinking it'd be Semi-Finals, potentially even finished if we're talking Mexico 86 or Korea/Japan 02 which both started around the end of May. But Quarter-Finals if we're looking at something like USA 94, which started deeper into the latter part of June!

That's how much of a f**king geek (loser) I am. And that's how much I'm missing this year's tournament.

We should be watching Brazil abjectly crash out at the hands of a more organised European foe at this point, posing the question as to whether anyone outside of Europe will ever challenge our giants again.

Speaking of outside of Europe, statistically this would be where you see the last remaining African side knocked out of the competition. Full of patronising praise from the commentary teams and with stars destined for big money moves to Bolton, or whoever are mid noughties Bolton now, which invariably won't work out.

We should be watching the Germans steadily making their way towards the Semis, last tournament aside.

And the English, either out early or alongside their European neighbours, surrounded by a lack of self awareness and hubris from within the nation that doesn't see how bad we've been in any case (and I include 1990 and 2018 in that by the way, happy to debate anyone).

We should be watching a World Cup!

But we're not thanks to FIFA's greed so I'm going to watch the Women's Euros 🤮from tomorrow onwards. And you should too!

You Come At The Kings, You Best Not Miss...

You'd think that this would be the case with the reigning World Champions, but in most cases World Title defences go out with a damp squib. In fact only two sides have successfully defended the World Cup and only one other has made the final.

So what has happened when people have Come At The Kings?

Well 1934 wasn't a great start! You've got to at least turn up if you want to defend the title. I can understand the South Americans not turning up in 38 when the tournament was held in Europe again but Uruguay should really have at least tried to go to Italy!

Their argument was that the Europeans had stayed away in 1930 so they were going to do the same, but the Belgians, Romanians, French and Yugoslavs had made that journey. The US travelled across the Atlantic to get pumped 7-1 by the hosts in a one off Knockout game! "Thanks for coming! Close the door on your way out...!" That's actually not 100% accurate. The Americans actually played Mexico in a one off qualifier in Rome  days before the tournament. So they at least played two games (unlike the poor Mexicans), even if they were sent home early in no uncertain terms. Poor form Uruguay!

1938 is one of the two occasions where the holders actually showed their supremacy. The Italians came through another straight knockout tournament in Europe. You can bet your life no Uruguayans went and got their passports renewed in preperation, same went for Argentina. They were outraged that the tournament hadn't gone back to South America. Of course Brazil were there, haplessly conspiring to ruin their chances of winning the things; resting the tournament's star player in the Semi Final at a time that there were no substitutes.

Any chance of the Italians coming out fighting in 1950 were hampered by two things. War (What's it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again...)*, which denied Argentina the right to host the tournament in 1942, not sure they'd have been up for the boat trip anyway considering general aversion to crossing the Atlantic back then. What's wrong with you guys?! Forget the 6 week journey, it's a World Cup! You can be a part of history! Think Barry Davies, Mexico 86, They think it's all over and all that...!

The second factor being the Superga Air Crash, which killed Il Grande Torino, the legendary Torino side who one back to back titles for 5 years straight; and made up the majority of the Italian national team. As a result of the tragedy, the reigning champs, who became the first to actually bother coming to the other side of the world to defend the World Cup, travelled by boat (Dennis Bergkamp style) while the rest of the competitors flew. And were knackered and relatively unfit by the time they arrived in Braaaaaasiw.

1954 saw the first proper attempt at a defence of the title from the Champs. I say this because by that point everybody had started to get the World Cup bug, I mean we were still a few years away from Barry Davies and BBC goal of the Tournament competitions set to naff (but nostalgically warming) soundtracks and graphics, but England were playing! And people were flying and resultantly prepared to cross the Atlantic.

Uruguay, the other half of the duopoly that dominated the World Cup when it came to actually winning the trophy (and not resting your best player in the Semi, declaring yourselves Champions prematurely or annexing your neighbours and trying to ride their coat tails or just not turning up because you think it's all beneath you), made it to the Quarter Finals dispatching of us along the way.

The only real thing to note from their title defence is their ill tempered defeat, later dubbed "The Battle of Bern" in which they were eliminated by the team considered the best in the World at the time, eventual losing finalists Hungary. Apparently tempers boiled over so much that a brawl kicked off in the tunnel and the changing rooms after the match, with the police having to step in.

I actually don't know much of what happened to the Germans in 1958. If memory serves me correctly they came 4th and Juste Fontaine scored 73 goals against them in the playoff (may have been 4). West Germany became the first team other than Uruguay and Italy to win the World Cup when they beat the Hungarians in the rain in Switzerland four years earlier. They couldn't repeat the feat in Sweden  probably partly down to the fact that they hadn't become the fearsome footballing nation that we are all familiar with nowadays (obviously there were no penalties back then either).

In Chile in 1962, one of the most seemingly mundane World Cups in my opinion (obviously after Italia 90, nothing was as drab as the penalty shoot out fest that was Italia 90), Braaaaaasiw unremarkably became the second, and last, team to successfully defend their title. And did it without Pele, one of the many reasons why I think Maradona was better (but that's for another day). Instead they had the goat sh*gging, mother in law killing, alcoholic, genius that was Garrincha to thank.

By 1966 Garrincha was on the decline and Pele had bottled it on the big stage again! I jest (again). As a result the Braaaaaasiwians (that's probably what Roy Hodgson actually calls them) were unceremoniously dumped out of the competition in the first round.

In the technicolor Mexican sun it was our turn to defend the trophy. And we did so without any hiccups, hence we now have two stars above our badge... If only!

What actually happened was our Captain got arrested for jewellery theft and our striker was carried off of an aeroplane on suspicion of being blind drunk on the eve of the tournament. Then our manager offended the locals, our best goalkeeper got food poisoning and his replacement had a howler a quarter final where we surrendered a 2 goal lead and were knocked out. Pretty successful campaign if you ask me!

If you think that was bad, Braaaaaasiw went from being that famous, "Here comes Carlos Alberto on the right...!" team in 1970 to a replica of Billy Bremner's Leeds side of the 70s, four years later in West Germany. I suppose they did still field a slightly overweight looking Rivelinho, but as you can imagine it wasn't the same. The mantle of "Entertainers" was passed on to Johan Cruyff's Dutch side.

In Argentina West Germany were apparently shockingly bad. Although they still made the second group stage, OBVIOUSLY. A bad German side is the equivalent of a good every other nation, while unspectacular it wasn't the worst title defence ever.

Argentina also disappointed four years later in Spain, despite having a young Diego Maradona in the side (the actual GOAT**). One thing that I hadn't appreciated, being 1 at the time of the tournament (don't worry I'm not going to start that again) was that the television station at the time refused to air the opening game of the tournament between the Champs Argentina and Belgium. Which the Argentinians failed to win (is it "Argentinians" or "Argentines"?).

Turns out Maradona's lot weren't so great away from South America, without President Vidiela paying opposing players a visit before key games. The Argentines/Argentinians had a stinker in 82 eventually limping out in the second group stage, with Maradona being sent off in a key game for retaliation to some of the "special attention" he'd been receiving from opposing defenders. This did at least set up the showdown of the tournament between the free scoring  free flowing Braaaaaasiw and the pragmatic slow starters (TM) Italy,  which the Italian's (or is it Italianians, kidding) eventually won. Probably the last we'd see of that young upstart Maradona...

From what I've seen we should always host the World Cup in North or Central America. 1970 looked great; 94 was/is my favourite tournament, bar the final; and 1986, the competition's second visit to Mexico, was an excellent colourful tournament full of exciting players and teams. Except for the holders the Italianians! So much so that I can barely remember what happened to them in the Mexican heat, it was that underwhelming!

From what I recall there was a game against South Korea? That might have been the tournament opener? And there was a game against the Argentine/Argentinians. Then they were eventually eliminated by the French (reigning European World Cup Champions of the Galaxy) in the second round. They'd have had to play Braaaaaasiw in the Quarter Finals anyway ...

Come 1990 the jig was well and truly up for Maradona and Argentina. Considering this was the first World Cup I watched, I can remember being thoroughly disappointed with them from the moment Benjamin Messing lost his boot trying to kick Caniggia into a pulp; through scraping past the USSR (they'd have gone out in the groups had it been the current 32 team format); Maradona's one moment of genius in the game against Braaaaaasiw, amid rumours that they drugged Branco; the penalties that saw off both the Yugoslavianians (I'm messing) and Italy; and that final! The worst World Cup final I've seen (and bear in mind all of the others that I didn't see live seemed to have been better).

But believe it or not, it would turn out that Argentina in 1990 aren't even the worst Champs I've seen in the 8 tournaments I've watched!

Germany weren't great in 1994. But then they're Germany, so that equated to a quarter final exit! Klinsmann did score a quality volley that he set up for himself against South Korea and they did take part in an entertaining 2nd round win over Belgium, which I missed because I was at Butlins (that's another story for another day). But Germany only put up slightly more of a fight than Argentina had 4 years earlier.

Braaaaaasiw in 1998 were probably the best ever reigning champions I've witnessed. For a start they had that Nike advert in the airport, that was worth a Semi Final place on its own. In all seriousness though  they were powered by the best player in the world at the time. Kids imagine Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo actually turned up at a big tournament and replicated what they do to Leganes and Sporting Hee Haw against decent teams... That's Ronaldo in 1998! The man was unstoppable! Except for the whole having a seizure hours before the final.

People talk about Zidane at France 98 but the reality was he only really stood out in the final. The French team is revered in hindsight, whereas Braaaaaasiw were feared, even Denilson!

We got to see the real France in Korea/Japan. Heavily reliant on an injured, and now probably the best in the world, Zidane. For me the best France team I've seen at the World Cup was the 06 lot, who basically tuned up for one last hurrah and came very close to winning the thing. The 02 iteration of the side didn't come near their level, despite being World and European World Cup of the Solar System & Galaxy Champions (I really need to stop with that joke  its been six years!).

Have you ever watched Every Which Way But Loose? Quick synopsis, if you never had ITV during the 1990s. Clint Eastwood is this Street Fighting Prize Fighter who gets his head turned by a pretty country singer he meets in a bar, while he's travelling the country in search of a fight with this legendary street fighter called "Tank Murdoch". At the end of the film he finally gets his fight with a very washed up and out of shape "Tank" but he loses to him, despite dominating the fight, either because the girl is in his head or because he sees that beating "Tank Murdoch" will send him down a similar path as the washed up folk legend that's he's pummelling... Brazil in 2006 were Tank Murdoch!

As much as I love Ronaldo (he's my joint favourite player of all time with Maradona), he just wasn't the electric forward that we saw in 98 or the the lethal finisher that bagged eight in 2002. He kind of walked around the pitch with his hands on his hips, looking like he was in the sort of shape I'd be in if chucked on to a field of Professional Footballers aged 28 (still managed to score this CLASSIC Ronaldo goal against Ghana in the last 16).

Then you had Ronaldinho, he'd graced 02 as part of the "3 R's" attack and was coming off the back of a monster season with Barcelona where he'd won the Champions League and been applauded at the Bernebau after taking Real Madrid apart. But 2006 looked a tournament too much for him despite the bucktoothed, Jerry Curled maestro only being 25/26 at the time.

Roberto Carlos lacked the agility to be as cavalier as he had been in the last two tournaments, and ended up looking like a lost fullback in a pub team (Especially in the defeat against France)! Even Adriano, who was given a shot power of 138,262,937 out of 99 on that year's Pro Evolution soccer disappointed.

It was a sad end to an era of Braaaaaasiwian dominance that had effectively lasted 12 years from the Romario/Bebeto team that was successful in the US.

If Braaaaaasiw were bad I'm not sure what adjective I'd use to describe the next two title defenses that were to come. Granted the Italians in 2010 were unlucky to lose Buffon to injury but they still should have qualified from a group containing Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia. The Italian's only achievement of note was a lovely chipped finish from Quagliarella in a frantic 3-2 defeat to the Slovakians. That and their reaffirmation of the "slow starting Italy" stereotype that is lazily rolled out by every pundit on UK television (at least we won't hear that one this year).

Finally we have Spain. Who'd have thought they would have continued trend that has seen 3 of the last 4 World Champions perish in the Group Stage of the following tournament. I blame their signing up of the Diego Costa, a man I recently (correctly) proclaimed to be the King of Shithousery, for a tournament which was to be held in his country of birth (I mean even that is trolling in my eyes)! Things rapidly went down hill for the Spanish (or is it Spaniards ...) and they found themselves dethroned after just two games, much to the delight of that old dude (who I'm assuming was Braaaaaasiwian) with the "Adios Spana" sign. Was that written on a tablet or did I imagine that? If it was, what a time to be alive!

I think what my ramblings will teach you is that one tournament's champion is so often another's laughing stock. Be it washed up has beens, cocky trolls or a bunch of Joga Bontians turned into Stoke! Four years is a long time, especially in a sport so heavily reliant on athleticism and current mental state. Look out Germany...!


*I jest, briefly. As someone with a history degree who has studied the first and second world wars, their causes and effects I'm conscious of trivialising them!

**See I'm down with the kids!

"And a Red card for Ray Wilkins..." 10 Lasting Memories of England World Cup Campaigns

This is kind of where I was planning to go in the next few weeks. I've not done any Ten Things for a while now, and am starting to catch World Cup Fever (promise I'll stop writing text in italics), which is making me want to come here more regularly. I can't think of a better way for a procrastinator like me to do the above, than to bullet ten loosely related subjects.

I was always going to start with England, in spite of the name of the blog. Because sometimes they are playing, sometimes you don't have to justify wanting to stay in and watch the football. Many of those times are during the World Cup.

The key decision for me was the subject I was going to kick off with. Two came to mind 10 Memorable England Goals (so tempted to italic that) or 10 memories in general. The passing of Mr Wilkins last week made the decision for me; he is associated with one of the overriding memories I have of us playing at the World Cup. It's such an indelible event that I think of it despite not actually watching that game because I was so young I wasn't into football.

1. Wilkins' Red card against Morocco

Before I get into this I'd just like to say how sad it is to hear of Ray Wilkins' death. I've never met the guy, and I only really got into football in the twilight of his career. For me he will always be the former QPR player manager, who used to be an Analyst on Football Italia. But from the outpouring tributes it's easy to establish that he was clearly one of life's good guys. I know that when people die it isn't the done thing to point out their flaws, so invariably you hear a lot of nice things about them; but there genuinely seems to be a lot of devastated people who worked with him over the last 30 years and have nothing to say other than than how kind and polite he was. And he kind of gave that impression.

So what happened Ray? Why were we down to 10 men having already lost our captain Bryan Robson to a dislocated shoulder, against the unfancied Moroccans?

Well it would appear that Wilkins, in a fit of petulance, threw the ball at the referee. Obviously that goes against all of the nice things I've just said about Ray, and in his defence it doesn't look like he threw the ball at him intentionally. Wilkins' reaction suggests the same too, he seems both shocked and devastated to see the referee pull out the red card, and is so poignantly downtrodden that the image of him disconsolately trudging off was used by the Sega Megadrive game European Club Soccer as a stock image for when your team had been dumped out of the European Cup. I think that's why I remember the incident so well!

Ray? Is that you? I can't find the original on the internet

2. David Beckham doing a "Ray Wilkins"

This one was definitely intentional, although it could be argued that the reactions from both the referee and the incumbent Atletico Madrid Manager, The King of modern day Catanaccio, Diego Simeone were way over the top. As was the reaction back home the following season, I'm pretty certain effigies were created and either burn or hung! Jesus! Anyway we wouldn't have beaten the Dutch had we gotten passed Argentina. Bergkamp would have scored that ridiculous goal against us.

3. England v Ireland 1990

I'm going to go a bit niche now. Forget all the stuff they show in the BBC clip shows in the run up to the tournament! This is the real sh*t! England versus the Republic of Ireland. England v The Republic of Ireland sums up Italia 90 for me. A dour tournament, full of teams willing to win by any means necessary. The game itself resembled Oldham versus Wimbledon on the Boundary Park plastic pitch. I mean Lineker's goal wow!

The Group that both teams were in, which also contained European Champions Holland along with Egypt, only managed to produce 1 result in 6 games and a total of 5 goals if memory serves me correctly. Although we were treated to the drawing of lots to decide who finished highed out of the Dutch and the Irish, something you don't see every day. The Irish lucked out and got Romania, while Holland went on to face the eventual World Champions Germany. And England? We went on to play Belgium, sneaking through thanks to David Platt's 120th minute volley and avoiding penalties, which we weren't aware that we we sh*t at at the time!

4. Penalty or Goal?!

This has happened to us twice in the World Cup. Twice when playing the Germans in a key Knock Out game. If you're unaware of what I'm referring to it's the old Ball hits the crossbar the quickly bounces down on to/in front of/behind (over) the line.

As I'm in full World Cup mode i.e. I'm watching/reading anything new (and old to be fair) that I can find relating to competitions past, I took the liberty of watching extended highlights of that game in 2010 against the Germans, when Lampards shot did the above and clearly went over the line. Watching it again it's actually scandalous that the goal wasn't given.

The giveaway is the fact that the ball hits the bar twice, which I hadn't noticed in all the commotion at the time. It's just physically impossible for that to happen barring witchcraft or playing FIFA against the Computer on Legendary mode. It defies physics.

The only crumb of comfort that can be taken is that we were terrible anyway, and even if we'd pulled the game back to 2-2, I have no confidence that the Germans wouldn't have run riot anyway. I mean I think Gareth Barry is still trying to catch up with Özil, who has since come over to England and proven that he isn't particularly pacey. How slow is Barry then?!? How did we ever expect to do anything at a World Cup with him playing in the middle?!

The other thing to consider here, which is becoming more apparent to me by the day, is that there's a good chance that the Geoff Hurst shot in 1966 didn't cross the line (Awks). I suppose as they say these things even themselves over the course of 44 years...

In either case they should've reverted to the tried and tested Penalty or Goal rule that served us so well in the playground!

5. Getting booed by your own fans

Same World Cup as the Lampard goal. I promise I'm going to talk about some positive stuff we've done (there's just not much). I actually think that our 2010 performance was actually worse than 2014 despite the fact that we went further. At least in 2014 we were up against Uruguay and Italy (let's gloss over the 0-0 with Costa Rica).

After the draw for 2010 the nations favourite xenophobic scaremonger, The S*n, ran with the famous "EASY" headline. The campaign itself turned out to be anything but. First there was America (Y) and "Oh! And Rob Green's missed it!" I cannot begin to explain how many people messaged me to berate me for Green's error on account of him being the incumbent West Ham number 1. I'm not his representative! I'd have caught that!

Then there was Algeria (A), which sticks with me for two reasons. Firstly the aforementioned Wayne Rooney quote, but secondly and more importantly/comically for the worst attempt at stepovers from an international footballer that I've ever seen.

No wonder the fans were booing!

Things got slightly better the next game, when we scraped past Slovenia with a 1st half header from Jermaine Defoe, but in all the 2010 campaign was a memorable one to forget (if you get my drift).

6. The Best England Side I've seen at a World Cup

I watched Italia 90, and have watched most of our games again since, we were not at our best! Obviously as a 9 year old I got caught up in all the excitement and thought it was on.

In 2002, on the other hand, we were very good. Comparatively speaking that is. I suppose the foundations were set at France 98, where we put in a semi credible performance. Tunisia were swept aside in the Marseille sunshine, and that young kid Scholes scored a "Worldie"; I'm not sure why I used that phrase, I never say "Worldie" it's the sort of thing I'd expect to hear from a self professed "Lad" who uses the phrase "Banter" way too much for my liking and takes what Jamie Redknapp says about the strength of the Premier League to be gospel. That is not me!

Anyway, like I was saying at France 98 the signs where there. We dispatched of an average Colombian side and held our own against an Argentina side containing Gabriel Batistuta in his prime and Ariel Ortega, The New Maradona.

So Korea/Japan rolls around and we're even better. We top a Group of Death containing the same Argentina side, although Batigol is now on the decline and I think there's a new New Maradona (gonna Google search who... it was either Ortega or Gallardo). Then we put Denmark to the sword, in what has to be the best and most convincing knock out victory we've had at a World Cup since I started watching in 1990. Actually scrap that I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's our best in the World Cup! Including when we won the thing! The only game I can think of as a comparison is Paraguay in 1986 when Lineker and Beardsley finally came good. I mean,  Heskey scored! Heskey! Stepovers against Algeria aka the New Denilson, Heskey scored!

And then came Braaaaaasiw. Now let's clear things up here, this was a very good good (maybe not as good as in France 98) Braaaaaasiw. With the "Three R's" in attack. And Ashley Cole is made to look silly for the equaliser (Heskey had been teaching Ronaldinho his tricks). But we took the lead,  and for a good 15-20 minutes after Owen's early goal  I thought we were going to beat them.

Alas it was not meant to be, and we'd have probably choked against the Germans in the Final or messed up the seemingly straightforward Semi against Turkey...

7. 1966

I wasn't about in 66. My mum was 8 at the time. But invariably I've seen loads of the tournament. Especially the bits featuring England. We look like we were decent. But then if you cast your eye wider than the Three Lions who else were good? Italy were  shamed against North Korea, despite dominating European club football at the time and winning the European World Cup two years later. Brazil were muscled out of the tournament like some sort of post 2004 Arsenal at the Reebok Stadium. Russia (or should I say the USSR) were good, as were Germany.

But we had the edge. By edge I mean refereeing decisions akin to the one we saw last night at the Bernabeu. Forget the penalty or goal shout in the final. I'll never get over reading about how the German referee sent the Argentine captain Ratin off "For the look in his eye" despite not being able to speak the same language as him or any other players from the Argentina team. Imagine the Twitter storm now! Imagine how many cards Anthony Martial would get with that sort of officiating. Or 90s Wimbledon forward Andy Clarke, the look in his was always a sinister one...

These two would be screwed with that ref

8. 1970

I always hear how the 1970 England side was even better than the one in 66. Obviously I have no idea as the tournament occurred 10 years before I was born (my mum was now 12 in case you're wondering and aren't very good at maths). But from the perspective of memorable moments alone 1970 trumps the tournament held 4 years earlier.

First you've got all of the off the field pre-tournament goings on. Alf Ramsey managed to offend the locals giving it his best "You can't drink the water here and I'm not eating any of that foreign muck..." Alf Garnett impression. Then skipper Bobby Moore gets arrested under suspicion of stealing a bracelet. And then you've got one of the players getting into trouble for being drunk and disorderly on a plane (was it Jeff Astle?) Great preparation for a title defence...  (that's another Blog post)

On the pitch there were also some memorable moments; some good, some not so good. You got that tackle by Moore (thanks Skinner & Baddiel) and that save by Gordon Banks. Then there are the Astle misses, was he drunk? And the capitulation in the sun while 2-0 up against the Germans in the quarter finals. The Beckenbauer header always sticks in my head.

In all 1970 was a World Cup that produced a lot of memorable moments and talking points involving many of the teams involved, and we did more than our best to bring something to the party.

9. Losing to the Americans in 1950

If my knowledge of 1966 and 70 is limited due to the fact that they were a long time ago forget about 1950.  "How old was your mum Travis?" I hear you ask, guys this blog isn't about my mum's age in comparison to notable world events! ...she was minus 8 (my nan was 19, so this was effectively her Euro 2000 in my eyes).

Anyway, I do know a little bit about what happened in 1950, mainly because it's one of the most fascinating tournaments to me. Because of the way it was structured and how it ended. 1950 is also the first time that the Home Nations entered the competition, and that came with it's own drama.

First you had Scotland forfeiting their place at the tournament as they only thought it was worth going if they finished top of their qualifying group (the Home Nations Championship) despite 2nd place in the competition earning a spot in Braaaaaasiw too.

Then you had England. We'd decided to enter, come top in the qualifying and were ready to show the World how it was done. First up an American side made up of amateurs, some of whom weren't even American. We all know what happened next right. We run out 10-1 winners and the times forgets to print the 1 before the 0...

10. "Did he just wink?"

"Remember when we used to get to Quarter Finals?" That's what everyone always says. I suppose it's true, although for a long time the quarter finals were essentially getting out of your first round group. And we missed a few of those competitions, either through arrogance (1930-38) or through underestimating Poland (74), basically more arrogance and being drawn with Italy and the European Champions Czechoslovakia* (78).

As I was saying anyway, Quarter Finals. That quote is from a Quarter Final, the infamous clash with Portugal in 2006. That whole tournament sticks out for me. Yet again we were terrible, bumbling past Paraguay and Trinidad then drawing with Sweden. And there was Owen twisting his knee, I'm not finding a clip of that, it grims me out.

The best part of that tournament was boozing with my mates from Harrow, which has become a bit of a tradition now. One of the best days out I've had featured Peter Crouch pulling on Brent Sancho's dreadlocks for leverage to head home and seal the win. England moved on from the group stage to scrape past Ecuador courtesy of a David Beckham free kick, which then set up a Quarter Final showdown with Portugal.

After spending the best part of an hour growing increasingly frustrated at the ball being aimlessly banged up to him, while on his own in the Portugal half, Wayne Rooney stamped on Ricardo Carvalho in a moment of petulance. The whole thing seems a bit harsh with hindsight, or maybe he's just a rubbish stamper. Then came the moment that incensed Alan Shearer. Cristiano Ronaldo appeared to wink towards the Portuguese bench as his Manchester United colleague trudged off dejectedly. Shearer, unable to hide his rage, picked up on this in the post-match analysis and classily hinted that Rooney should seek retribution when they both returned to United in the new season. Nice!

Hopefully this year we can produce more of the 1966, 1998 & 2002 moments and less of the 1990, 2010 & 2014. Either way, the key thing to note is my Mum is now 60 and my Nan 87...

Ciao!

*Can you believe my phone doesn't predict "Czechoslovakia" am I that old? I remember when Czechoslovakia was a place, it's not like I'm talking about Siam or Prussia

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?? 

World Cup build up - The ugliest ball ever, Calvin Harris' song and part 1 of the whistle stop guide to sh*t that happened before we were born

I couldn't' give a toss if you are younger or older. As the famous song goes, "I've got love for you if you were born in the eighties...!" 1980 or 1981 to be even more precise. I'm not saying you can't read this if you weren't born in that 24 month period, it's just that I feel those that are somewhere between the ages of 32 and 34 will be of optimum age to see things the way I saw them. For a start you'll probably have been in a similar school year to me. All the best players were, Ibrahimovic, Gerrard, John Terry... ok well maybe I'm clutching at straws but if you start think, "That's not how I remember that!" at any point in the next few weeks, then you may need to have a long look at your date of birth.

So let's begin. As someone who's in love with the World Cup you can imagine I've been keeping up with the goings on in world football in the build up. One of the first things that caught my eye was a recent story regarding Pele. Now Mr Do Nasciamento (that's Pele by the way) has a habit of talking absolute bollocks and doing weird sh*t, especially in the run up to the World Cup. This is the man that, predicted that an African team would win the World Cup by the year 2000 (nobody from Africa has got further than the quarter finals); said Michael Owen would win the Ballon d'Or; and tipped Columbia to win the 1994 World Cup, in case you don't know they failed miserably, going out in the first round, and one of their players was shot dead upon return to Columbia. I'm definitely not making light of that by the way. Just saying, had Pele not been one of the greatest and internationally successful players of all time, people would see him as a slightly senile old man who at one point in his life turned to peddling viagra. Anyway I digress, so Pele has recently responded to the deaths of two construction workers on the site of one of the stadiums to be used at the World Cup saying, "That's normal. These things happen... ...what worries me is the airports not being finished." Pretty crazy eh. Pretty insensitive. But then What do you expect from a man currently launching a collection of diamonds made from his own hair?!?

Awful ball!

Moving away from the ramblings of an old Brazilian man, has anyone seen this years World Cup ball? What the hell is that about?!? I thought we'd got away from all the crap when Adidas re-released the Tango design for Euro 2012. I mean we've had some terrible balls in the last few World Cups, especially that weird gold one in 2002, but this latest one genuinely makes me feel sick when I look at it. Who the hell designed that?!? I could have definitely come up with something better. As the saying goes, If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Adidas Tango was not broke. The Adidas "Brazuca" or whatever it's called, is BROKE!

My 2014 World Cup ball, it's green for Brazil (geddit)! Much better than the Brazuca!

In other pre-World Cup news, players keep getting injured. Maybe when I was younger I had less awareness when it came to footballers abroad and their injury problems, especially what with the lack of internet in the 1990s (I'm not sure if that whole sentence makes sense but I'm gonna go with it); but right now it feels like they're all dropping like flies. First it was Giuseppe Rossi, and thankfully it now looks like he'll be fit in time for the tournament. Then it was Radamel Falcao. Falcao was my hope for an old school World Cup, with heroes and drama etc And then he goes and get's himself injured in a French Cup game! French Cup! What the hell is the French Cup?!? Nobody playing at a World Cup should be playing in the French Cup, unless it's the Final! Who cares about the French Cup? I don't! I do care about seeing a full strength Columbia and one of the stars of the CONMEBOL qualifying tournament! Monaco! You f***ed up!

So I'm coming to terms with the fact that we may be Falcao-less this summer and then Strootman goes and gets injured. What?!? Add in Walcott and Jay Rodriguez (for all of you, "Premiership is the best league in the world" fans) and that's a whole bunch of entertaining players that we'll be missing this summer. In my opinion, they should have just ended the football season in February and made everyone hold daily training sessions for the next 4 months, padded up, while on a bouncy castle. No more injuries! Please!

A couple of other things caught my eye, the first being that Adnan Januzaj (I had to look that up to spell it, I don't think I'll ever master his name) had pledged his future to Belgium. Yeah? Not Kosovo? Or England in a few years time? Or my old 7-a-side team? Shock! He basically chose the team he could play for right now at the World Cup, and that has a decent chance of progressing to the latter part of the tournament. Although can I say now (and I post a link to this statement when they go out), I don't think Belgium are as strong as people are making out. Yeah they've got good players, hence they qualified for the first time in 12 years, but they won't get anywhere near the Semi Finals in my eyes. In fact I think the Quarter Finals will be a good tournament for them.

Lastly, Bosnia have announced their provisional 24 man squad. Now! On the 5th of May? You've got another week or so, relax. I know it's your first tournament but you don't want to come across as too keen. Play it cool, have say a short-list of 30/40 players and hold a training camp. Then shorten it to 23 men on the last day (and pray that Gazza doesn't smash up a hotel room). Also how p***ed off would you be if you were that one player that got cut from the final 23, maybe I'd take it out on a lamp too.

OK so, believe it or not, I have a lot of people tell me that they read my blog. These people range from the most clued up football fan, to those that read it looking for a cheap gag here and there. In the run up to this summer's World Cup I'd like to fill you all in on what happened before Brazil 2014 and why it's a bit of a big deal (we'll it is to me anyway). I'd like to think that everyone reading this is going to see at least one game this summer and that hopefully armed with my whistle stop interpretation of the history of the World Cup they can say things like, "This reminds me of the time that Frank Rijkaard gobbed in Rudi Voller's hair" or "The time the fella from Zaire just randomly booted away the Brazilian free kick". So if you want to learn something about the World Cup, or my interpretation of it, and don't want to watch all the videos and read all the books etc that I have (nobody with a life would want to), carry on reading from this point onwards.

Part 1 - Sh*t that happened before we were born (I've sworn a lot in this post??)

The Entertainment at the draw for the 1930 World Cup

1930
So in the 1920's, on top of doing The Charleston during times of economic prosperity, the powers that be in international football start thinking to themselves, "We really should hold a tournament to determine which country is the best at football". There are two Olympic gameseseseses in 1924 and 1928 which have football tournaments in them that seem to go down a treat with the fans and convince everyone to hold a world championship. A few countries express an interest in hosting the tournament but one by one they pull out leaving Uruguay, the best team at the time (they won both the Olympic Tournaments which are officially recognised as World Championships), to host the tournament. And nobody had to bribe any FIFA delegates. Being the best team at the time, Uruguay go and win the thing beating Argentina, who are also decent, 4-2 in the final. A final which included a squabble about what ball should be used, a Uruguayan one or Argentinian one. Bet they wouldn't have chosen the Brazuca (see above)! As a final note, if you wan't to sound really clued up on football history or ever get these in a pub quiz; Lucien Laurent scored the first ever World Cup goal for France against Mexico and Guillermo Stabile was the top scorer. Also both Semi finals finished 6-1, now that's a goalfest!

He'd have been up for being Italian in 1934

1934
For any of you outraged by the fact that Diego Costa has switched from Brazil to Spain, that's nothing. In 1934 Italy signed a few guys from the aforementioned Argentine runners up in 1930, and it helped. They hosted it in 1934 and like Uruguay did 4 years earlier they brought home the bacon, with the help of their new Argentine players. Uruguay didn't travel to Italy cos it was too far, not sure if they thought the World Cup was going to be hosted in South America every 4 years. Then again when you consider that the tournament was a straight knockout; screw travelling on a boat for 6 weeks for potentially 90 minutes of football!

Rest up for the final lad! We're operating a squad rotation policy!

1938
So it's 1938. Most of the major fooballing nations are either South American or European. As mentioned before it takes roughly 6 weeks to travel from one to the other, so FIFA will host the 1938 tournament in South America right? With the intention of 1942 being held in Europe... Wrong! It was held in France. As a result Uruguay once again told FIFA where they could shove their World Cup. Italy won the tournament again beating Hungary 4-2 in the final, rumour is that they'd been told by Mussolini that they'd better win it or else... He wasn't the only dictator who had an interest in the tournament, Hitler sent an annexed Germany-Austria team (I'm not sure if he personally sent them, the German FA probably did, but you get the point right). Best story of the 1938 World Cup for me was the one of Leonidas the Brazilian striker that finished the tournament as the top scorer. So he 's banging them in left, right and centre and the Brazilians make it to the Semi Finals against Italy. What do they do? They rest him for the final! If you did that in 2014, people would say you were crazy. If you did it in 1938, when substitutes weren't permitted and therefore you were stuck with the 11 you started the game with, that's suicide. As I said above Italy won the 1938 World Cup so you know how Leonidas-less Brazil got on.

1950
As you probably know, there was a pretty big war between 1939 and 1945, which involved a large number of the countries interested in playing in the World Cup and took priority (the cheek, didn't they know the World Cup takes priority over most things). You might have noticed that so far I haven't mentioned England in any of this. We didn't get involved in the World Cup pre-1950. Why should we? We were the best team in the world. The teams that won the World Cup had basically just won a tournament to determine who was the best after England. We were like the SEGA Team at the end of Virtua Striker. So as you know, we went to the 1950 World Cup and showed everyone who was boss... No! We turned up and lost two of our first three games and went home in the first round, one of those defeats being at the hands of a USA team made up of part timers.

Uruguay turned up in 1950, well it was held in Brazil so they were cool with that. Brazil probably wished they'd have stayed at home. They messed up in 1950 just like they'd done in 1938. So in 1950 there was no final. Instead there was a mini league between the four teams that had won their 1st round groups. Brazil batter Sweden and Spain, Uruguay scrape a draw with Spain and come back from behind to beat Sweden. The maths is as follows going into the last game

Brazil 2 wins 4 points (2 points for a win)
Uruguay 1 win and 1 draw 3 points
Spain 1 draw 1 defeat 1 point
Sweden 2 defeats 0 points

On the eve of the Brazil v Uruguay game the newspapers are declaring Brazil champions in their headlines, musicians are writing celebratory sambas (this actually happened) and the Mayor of Rio (I think it was the Mayor), gives a speech on the pitch pre-kick off basically telling the players how proud they've made the nation in winning the World Cup. Anyone who knows about counting chickens based on the number of eggs you have knows what's coming next... Brazil only need to draw the game to win the tournament, they take the lead and all looks to be going to plan, then the Uruguayans equalise. The crowd (an all time record of an estimated 200,000+) start to get a bit jittery and this feeds through to the players. They Uruguay score again. I won't bore you with the details but they hold on and win 2-1. Everyone is shocked; Jules Rimet (the president of FIFA) doesn't even have a congratulatory speech written in Spanish so he just gives Uruguay the trophy without saying anything; some fans commit suicide, the Brazilian goalkeeper becomes an alcoholic and years later dies penniless (which is quite sad). It's all pretty intense and farcical.

In case you haven't worked out the maths it finished:-

Uruguay 5 points
Brazil 4 Points
Sweden (they won the other game) 2
Spain 1 point

This is me done for now. Next time round in "Sh*t that happened before we were born", Hungary get cheated and Brazil finally sort themselves out.