It's Not About The Politics
By Mark Daniell
16/06/2010
I'd had such hope for yesterday being World Cup draw day. After "Minnows New Zealand" earned their first ever World Cup point and Portugal had pranced about uselessly for an hour and a half, it all looked set for "Plucky North Korea" - sorry the "Plucky People's Republic of Korea" - to hold "Tournament Favourites Brazil" to a point.
At first, watching the game in a pub, I thought I'd better keep a low profile. When you're supporting a country that's part of the axis of evil, has a pretty shoddy human rights' record and a very ronery leader (mainly because he's diverted all the country's power to building nuclear weapons and a giant hotel of doom so no one can go out at night) you never know who you might offend, even in Wandsworth. But then they scored and the pub erupted in cheers. Which begs the questions, how is it socially acceptable to support such a despotic country?
Well, in a nutshell, we like an underdog, even if they represent all of humanity's failings. Some "Plucky Koreans" were holding a banner in the crowd saying 'ignore politics for 90 minutes', which is a bit like Gary Glitter stepping into a boxing ring with Lennox Lewis and saying, look, ignore the child molesting thing for the next few rounds yeah? And you know what? We would.
When it comes to the World Cup, we don't really care about a country's political history, (Which is handy considering it's in Africa and few of the European nations have a blemish-free track record down there) we care about the footballing history, and the "Plucky Koreans" have none. (Except the excellent conspiracy theory that back in 1966 they beat Italy by switching their entire eleven at half time, and no one knew the difference). Brazil on the other hand have plenty of footballing history, and it'll do them no harm to be taken down a peg or two. Incidentally Portugal also have plenty of footballing history, and it was great to see Ronaldo get carded for diving/swearing/prancing-like-a-tit in the first fifteen minutes. Amazingly, it kept him on his feet for the rest of the match.
So today we see the final four teams in action. Honduras v Chile; Spain v Switzerland. Not really titanic clashes, I grant you, but World Cup ties nonetheless. I've noticed a propensity among the commentators to moan about the games they're watching if they don't involve global superstars or end up six all. Ivory Coast played with real passion yesterday, but because they didn't score it was a boring, lamentable game. Graham Taylor moaned incessantly about watching New Zealand against Slovakia, and don't get me started on Mick McCarthy. He could make the birth of his firstborn sound like he was waiting for a train in the drizzle. The truth is it's the minor clashes that bring us the unexpected heroes of the tournament. How about that North Korean guy who had a shot from the halfway line? That's the stuff of legend. LEGEND!
Anyway, picks of the commentary so far are:
Edgar Davids revealing his amazing literary abilities by describing the Dutch team's first half performance as: "Like reading a book, you know what's going to happen."
Peter Drury reveals some homework on Sven-Goran's halftime tactics: "He's tinkering with the Ivories."
Tyldesley reveals total socio-political unawareness by describing Brazil's attempts to get through Korea's back five as: "Picking their way through the minefield."
Today's match between South Africa and Uruguay has particular resonance as it comes on the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising where armed police opened fire and killed hundreds of students protesting against the government policy to change all classes to Afrikaans. 16th June is Youth Day in South Africa, expect Forlan to score.
Lastly, if you really have a boring match to deal with, watch this AMAZING promotional video for the Italia '90 World Cup. If ever there was a goalkeeping coach for Rob Green, this is the guy. Even freaky, gimp mascot ciao can't beat him!