England 1 - 1 USA
By Mark Daniell
13/06/2010
In the immortal words of Daphne and Celeste: U.G.L.Y. you ain't got no alibi, you ugly! The performance, the result, the broadcasting. You UGLY! For some reason ITV has decided what football needs is superslowmo replays, a viewpoint that does little more than emphasise the wobbly nature of the human body. Nobody needs to see Wayne Rooney's eyes shut in superslowmo as he leans into another man's hair and lets a football bounce off his noggin. Sometimes things happen faster than the eye can see for a reason. Although Rob-bish Green (copyright The Star) will be hard pushed to use that as an excuse.
On the plus side, Green's calamity gave carte blanche to the sporting headline writers. Personally I was gunning for GREEN FINGERS, but then dismissed it as ridiculous because when you think about it, it doesn't make any sense. Green fingers means you're good at gardening, it's butter fingers that means you spill stuff. But no matter, The Sunday Times went with GREEN FINGERS anyway.
Both the Sunday Mirror and The News of the World went with HAND OF CLOD, which surprised me a bit because I always thought those guys checked with each other to avoid any doubling up. Luckily for us The News of the World added STARS AND TRIPE, which shows much more creativity. Lastly (from the papers I flipped over in the newsagent) The People went with a generic BLUNDER PRESSURE, which is a bit boring and makes even less sense than Green fingers, when you think about it. On the plus side The Sunday Times totally redeemed themselves by having the subheading: One disastrous spill the Yanks won't complain about. Yeah, you like that Obama? Complain about an eco-disaster will you? Our keeper's had a mare so we're entitled to crack wise about the worst oil-spill since the Exxon Valdez. Works for me.
On a lighter note, it's good to see Germany playing so well, especially against Australia. Everyone knows whoever starts the tournament impressively crashes out in the quarters. Unfortunately it prompted Adrian Chiles to make the "if you think that was close, this was KLOSE" gag, which is shit. When you've got players called Schweinsteiger and Cacau, which translate as Pig-Climber and Cocoa, the Klose line shows a distinct lack of imagination. Come on Chilesy, it's got everything to do with vorsprung durch technik you know...