Merde

By Mark Daniell

13/12/2022

Preamble

The trouble with predictions is that if they’re always right then they’re boring, and if they’re not right, then they’re wrong. England should have beaten France, we should have knocked out a proud but predictable Morocco and we should have met Argentina in the greatest final in World Cup history. We should be lining up the ‘where were you’ anecdotes for grandchildren and great grandchildren. Instead, we’ve got a meme about Jonny Wilkinson. The mouse knows which is better. It’s the world that got it wrong, not us.

Amble

Morocco 1 – 0 Portugal 73% of possession and only 3 shots on target? Against Morocco? Where’ve we’ve seen this before? Oh yeah, that’s exactly what Spain did ten minutes ago. Playing against Morocco is like playing rock paper scissors against someone who always goes rock. At some point you’re going to be tempted to go paper, but you worry that if you do, it’ll be the one time they pull out the scissors. And who wants to be the schmuck who loses on paper? Better to stick with scissors and see what happens. Oh wait.

England 1 – 2 France For the second game in a day, the better team lost. Now I know that might sound like sour grapes, but I ask you: have you ever eaten sour grapes? They’re disgusting. You eat one, you’re not eating two. So if anything, anyone eating sour grapes plural deserves pity. And pity the mouse, who watched this game in the company of young children and had to check his language at the endless refereeing injustices. The foul on Saka that led to their goal? What the … fun? The penalty not given in the first half? Ah … shins? Even the ultimately missed penalty … Ballbags! As in bags of footballs, you know, like PE teachers have? had initially been ignored by the ref and had to be VAR-ified (that’s a new word, mouse patent-pending). The mouse will be nursing a bitten tongue well beyond Christmas. Mix some sour grapes on that and see how it feels.

Postamble

And on to the semis. In the spirit of not making predictions, this could go one of three ways: well; badly; no one cares. Well would involve the first all non-European final in over 70 years. Badly would be a literal rerun of the last World Cup final. And no one cares if France win.

Pundit-watch

“Stop rewarding failure. Pizza Hut advert years ago. Enough said.”

Joey Baron finally publishes his PhD on Reha-barton-ation, but maybe reveals a little pizza chip on his shoulder? Pizza!?

Kit of the Day

France tripled blue shirt with white shorts with red socks to create a primary-school cartoon of a kit. The mouse likes cartoons as much as the next man, but it’ll probably come across as a bit jingoistic against Morocco, non?

Goal of the Day

Upamecano kicks Saka in the thigh and then kicks him again in the thigh. I didn’t see what happened after that, because he’d kicked him in the thigh twice.

Doppellëtter

Mateo Kovacic = Milly Kanilli Mitch Kuchanan Matt Kancock

Win Predictions

Argentina v Croatia

11 year old: “Argentina!”

7 year old: “Argentina!”

Lab results: Argentina

Coloured Dice: Blue

France v Morocco

11 year old: “I want Morocco to win” “Ok” “So, Morocco!”

7 year old: “Mor… No, France!”

Lab results: France

Coloured Dice: Blue

Tally

11 year old: -£11.11

7 year old: -£5.75

Argentina!