Napoleon's Return

By Mark Daniell

16/07/2018

Well, that’s that. The last time we’re going to have a recognisable World Cup. Next time round, it’ll be in Qatar in mid November, so you know, we’ll have proper work to deal with, unlike this summer stuff, and there’ll Christmas ads on TV, and well, nativity plays and carols instead of beer gardens and plastic pints in the air. What were they thinking?

And after that, it’s back to summer time, but we’re looking at the expanded tournament. That’s 48 teams, which means 80 matches. Imagine having to explain to your wife that the World Cup has gone up to 80 matches. Fortunately by then we’ll all be retired and living like kings in post Brexit England: we won’t care.

So farewell to the World Cups that we grew up on. And it was a pretty good goodbye. France were fair winners (they lost on penos back in 2006, so the mouse has got no beef with them having this one.), there were plenty of good goals, exciting upsets, Harry Kane won the golden boot and, to quote Rio, England “went deep into this tournament” (still think that's out of place pre-watershed, Rio). Also, there were plenty of fairytale stories: Panama got their first goal, Iran won a match, Germany went out in the group stages. Something for everyone.

If anything, the mouse is looking forward to VAR coming to the leagues and generally improving over the next four years. It definitely helps the game, but it’s got plenty of teething problems to chew through. We can start with the name. VAR sounds like something threatening out of Robocop. They should have humanised it a bit, you know, like Siri, or Alexa. Also, Video Assistant Ref isn’t the whole picture: there are video assistant linesmen in there, video assistant fourth officials, video assistant time keepers. There’s a whole team of desk jockeys being assisted by videos in there. We should call it Video Assistant Desk Jockeys. You see where I’m going with this.

Anyway, to important matters: how did dem kids do?

Who’s going to win between Belgium and England?

7 year old: England! You mess with us once? You don’t mess with us twice!

Turns out you can mess with us twice…

Who’s going to win between France and Croatia?

3 year old: Croatia

In her defence, she changed her mind on the morning of the final, but the mouse didn’t listen. Maybe she got wind of what the VAR boys had in mind.

Of course it could have all been so different. The freekick that lead to the first goal was awarded for a foul so soft it couldn’t even be picked up off the ground with an inside-out plastic bag, and the VAR penalty was, well let’s just call it wrong. Croatia fans might find it hard not to dwell on those for a little bit…

Kit of the weekend:

Croatia home. It’s an instantly recognisable classic, and a cheap one to replicate if you have plenty of sun and some post it notes. The mouse was also pleased to see both sides in their home shirts for a change. Why were both teams in the third place game in their away strips? Surely England in white and Belgium in red would have made more sense? No clash there. And then we could have given the award to the England home kit – but nope, not this time. 

Name of the weekend:

Antoine Griezmann

As in: Hey Antoine, what do you use to keep your hair so smooth, man?

Griezmann.

Hey Antoine, where does the best moussaka come from, man?

Griezmann.

Hey Antoine, what’s your favourite John Travolta movie, man?

Look who’s talking too, man.

Course it is Tony. Course it is.

Goal of the weekend:

Mbappe puts France 4-1 up. The first teenager to score in a final since Pele and Sam Matterface doesn’t waste any time to join the Mbappe love train: “He might have 4 more tournaments to play in, minimum.” Matterface wants his wingers working until they’re 35, minimum.

Moment of the weekend:

I know it doesn’t make a difference and we’re going to have to listen to the French go on about having won more World Cups than us for the next four years, but it was quite funny when the heavens decided to rain on the French parade. And I mean chuck it down.

And that’s your lot. I hope you enjoyed the ride, for what it’s worth, here’s what you could have won if you’d backed the kidictions:

Out of 19 kidictions each, at £2 a go, the following incomes were generated:

3 year old: 7 wrong, 12 right, for a net profit of £28

7 year old: 7 wrong, 12 right, for a net profit of £11

I’m not sure what that teaches us, other than the mouse needs to get his kids down the bookies more.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, have some big love from the mouse!