Le Tit Pour Tat
By Mark Daniell
12/06/2012
Did anyone else feel a deep sense of embarrassment last night when, twenty seconds into a precarious England lead, the crowd began to sing “Football’s Coming Home”? Seriously? Britpop? 1996? When we lost? That’s the trouble with mob mentality, all it takes is one idiot to get a bit noisy and, for want of anything better to do, the rest of the idiots join in. Fortunately it waned, but it’s a mark of how persistent that idiot was that in the nine minutes that England were in the lead he managed to squeeze in Baddiel and Skinner, The Great Escape and The National Anthem. And then Nasri scored. Then again, why am I surprised? This tournament is being held in The Ukraine. Only an idiot would pay to make that journey.
The news occasionally shows footage of these idiots on Ukrainian motorway laybys, euphemistically called “temporary camp sites”, complaining about the sweltering heat, the clouds of midges, the innate racism and the inflated hotel room prices. Can you imagine what it’s like there? Trapped in a hostile environment, surrounded by idiots, with no functioning bathroom facilities, just waiting to die? I imagine it must be as close as a person can get to being that extra character in Star Trek when they beam onto a new planet.
Anyway, by now you know the result. As Jonathan Pearce pointed out: “If you didn’t hear the result earlier, England won… France one.” (Are we the only language where the number 1 sounds identical to the past tense of to win? How harsh is that? It’s basically like saying to all late arrivals: Good news! We won! No we didn’t. That’s just mean, man.) Anyway, we didn’t win, but we learnt some valuable lessons:
1. Our players may be young in average age, but they looked knackered after 70 minutes. When Scott Parker was subbed off he did that exaggerated blinking thing that people do when they've hit their head. That’s a bit worrying for the extra time matches.
2. Chivalrous behaviour is dead and buried in international football. Ribery took on two players, got fouled and stamped on, but play was waved on. England, seeing the injured player on the ground, ignored protocol and mounted an attack. Andy Townsend knew what was going on, as they showed a replay of Ribery’s calf getting studded into the turf he pointed out that “he’s tried to take on six people and then expects it to be kicked out when he loses it.” Sweep the Leg Townsend! No Mercy!
3. Except we suffered le Tit pour Tat when Milner lay injured and France decided Screw You Rosbifs! and carried on until the ref had to stop play. With hindsight it really was the perfect opportunity for the French to take the moral high ground but as we’ve seen, chivalry is dead. Anyway, neither of them scored, so it was a bit pointless frankly.
4. Unlike the Swedes who showed the dichotomy of ruthlessness and remorse that lies at the heart of such characters as Salander and Wallander by waiting until a Ukrainian player had collapsed injured, the host nation had pretty much stopped playing and the whole of Kiev had erupted into whistles of disdain before duly slotting themselves into the lead. Not to worry, they swiftly made amends by allowing Shevchenko, the oldest, most rickety and up until that point least likely player to score in the whole tournament, to nod in two goals and start a party in Eastern Europe that will last a decade. I haven’t checked, but I have a hunch that The Ukraine might have given Sweden douze points at Eurovision.
5. Ibrahimovic has got a sumo wrestler’s haircut.
6. Yesterday I predicted a 0-0 draw between Sweden and The Ukraine and it turned out to be a topsy turvy goalfest with some classic playground shove, hoof, nail-biting clock-staring. The point is, I correctly predicted that I always get my predictions wrong. Back on track!
Tonight’s forecast: The Greeks write a bouncing Czech and red cards aplenty as the Russians get a bit of spit and Polish.